Max Schoening

Max is a dedicated advocate for his clients, with a longstanding commitment to defending and upholding human rights.

In 2025, Max and Omar Qureshi won a record-breaking $42.75 million federal jury verdict on behalf of the family of Erie Moore, Sr., who died after being brutally abused in a private jail in Louisiana. The verdict is the largest ever against a private correctional company in U.S. history and the largest civil rights verdict in Louisiana history.

As a trial attorney with the Federal Defenders of San Diego, Max represented the indigent accused, securing favorable dispositions in numerous cases. He won a jury trial as the lead attorney in a felony drug case and briefed, argued, and won a Ninth Circuit appeal in a felony immigration case. In scores of other matters, he negotiated and litigated to obtain outright dismissals of felonies or charge reductions to misdemeanors.

Max joined the Federal Defenders after serving as a federal law clerk for the Honorable Myron H. Thompson in the Middle District of Alabama. During law school, he defended noncitizens facing deportation and represented an asylum seeker and a petitioner for a sentence reduction under the Three Strikes Law who were ultimately granted relief. He also externed for the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project and co-founded the Stanford Advocates for Immigrants’ Rights student group.

Max has extensive experience investigating, uncovering, and pressing for justice for human rights violations and other abuses of power by governments and corporations. As a researcher for Human Rights Watch, he authored a report exposing top Colombian military commanders’ responsibility for the widespread murder of civilians. For Climate Rights International, he authored a report revealing environmental crimes in the supply chains of major U.S. corporations importing avocados from Mexico to the U.S.

His work has been covered by publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Financial Times, and Los Angeles Times. He has also authored op-eds for The New York Times and co-edited Throwing Stones at the Moon, an oral history book about victims of Colombia’s civil war.

Max is fluent in Spanish and has lived and worked in Mexico and Colombia.