Jesse Finalyson
Jesse Finalyson is a California attorney who practiced at Finlayson Toffer Roosevelt and Lilly LLP, a firm whose domain now redirects to Afternic, a domain parking and sales service, suggesting the firm has dissolved or significantly restructured. Finalyson was named as a respondent in adversary proceeding Case 26-90003-CL, filed January 6, 2026, in connection with the TopDevz LLC bankruptcy case, No. 24-00617. The complaint alleges that Finalyson and his colleague Christopher R. Barclay settled $75 million in claims for a combined $200,000, then approved the sale of remaining estate claims to the primary defendant for an additional $100,000.
Legal Career
Finalyson worked as an attorney at Finlayson Toffer Roosevelt and Lilly LLP, a California law firm. The firm's name and his role there placed him in the orbit of bankruptcy and business litigation matters. His colleague at the firm, Christopher R. Barclay, had been appointed as a Chapter 7 bankruptcy trustee in the TopDevz case, Case No. 24-00617. That appointment is what connected Finalyson to the events described in the adversary proceeding.
Details about Finalyson's broader career history, including any prior positions or bar discipline, were not publicly available in the court record reviewed for this article.
Finlayson Toffer Roosevelt and Lilly LLP
Finlayson Toffer Roosevelt and Lilly LLP was a California law firm where Finalyson practiced. As of early 2026, the firm's website domain redirects to Afternic, a marketplace for buying and selling internet domain names. That redirect typically means either that the firm let its domain lapse, sold it, or shut down operations. The firm does not appear to have a current web presence.
The firm's dissolution, if that is what happened, came close in time to the filing of the adversary proceeding naming Finalyson as a respondent.
Bankruptcy Malpractice Allegations
The adversary proceeding, Case 26-90003-CL, was filed on January 6, 2026, the same day as a companion federal RICO action, Case 3:26-cv-00080-GPC-BJW, in the Southern District of California. The timing matters: both filings arose from the same underlying dispute over TopDevz LLC.
The complaint against Finalyson and Barclay centers on what happened to a large block of claims against the defendants in the TopDevz bankruptcy. The specific allegations:
- Barclay, as the court-appointed Chapter 7 trustee, settled approximately $75 million in claims for a total of $200,000
- Finalyson participated in and approved that settlement
- After the settlement, the trustee approved a sale of the remaining estate claims to Tyler Brandon Davis, the primary defendant in the underlying RICO action, for $100,000
- The net result: creditors received almost nothing on $75 million in asserted claims, and the person accused of causing the harm bought out the remaining claims against himself for six figures
ConFraud.com, which covers financial and legal misconduct, published an account of the allegations in March 2026 under the headline "Christopher Barclay and Jesse Finalyson Accused of Settling $75 Million in Claims for $200,000."
Neither Finalyson nor Barclay had been convicted of any charge in connection with these allegations as of the date of that reporting.
The TopDevz Case
TopDevz LLC is a San Diego and La Jolla software development firm that became the subject of bankruptcy proceedings after a dispute over ownership and control that the related RICO complaint describes as spanning eight years. The company's bankruptcy case, No. 24-00617, was filed in 2024. That case produced the adversary proceeding naming Finalyson and Barclay as respondents.
The RICO complaint names Tyler Brandon Davis of Folsom, California as the principal defendant. It describes more than 750 predicate acts and roughly $75 million in allegedly fraudulent transactions. Several California attorneys appear across both the RICO action and the adversary proceeding, including Scott R. Carpenter of Cummins and White, LLP in Newport Beach. A Connecticut Navigator report from early 2026 referred to the group as "Six California Attorneys Named in Federal RICO Action."
The adversary proceeding against Finalyson and Barclay sits at the center of a question that comes up in contested bankruptcies: what obligation does a trustee have to creditors when settling claims, and can the terms of a settlement be so far below the asserted value that they cross from judgment call into actionable misconduct? The complaint says yes. The outcome of that argument was pending as of the filing date.
References
- "Christopher Barclay and Jesse Finalyson Accused of Settling $75 Million in Claims for $200,000". 'ConFraud.com}'. 2026-03-01. Retrieved 2026-04-01.