The 2023 Lawdragon Plaintiff Issue

THE

PLAINTIFF ISSUE

CHRIS SEEGER AND PAUL GELLER GO TO THE MAT

THE

PLAINTIFF ISSUE

CHRIS SEEGER AND PAUL GELLER GO TO THE MAT

Featuring the best of the Consumer, Financial, and Employment and Civil Rights Plaintiff Bar, including the leaders of Minner Vines Moncus

A nationally recognized trial boutique that prosecutes high-stakes, complex business litigation on a success-fee basis, Reid Collins has recovered billions of dollars for our clients and created precedent to protect investors and hold wrongdoers accountable.

We are proud to congratulate fifteen of our partners on being named to the Lawdragon 500 Leading Plaintiff Financial Lawyers in America.

Craig A. Boneau | Joshua J. Bruckerhoff | Keith Y. Cohan

Rachel S. Fleishman | Yonah Jaffe | J. Benjamin King | Brandon Lewis

Eric D. Madden | Nathaniel J. Palmer | William T. Reid, IV | Scott Saldaña

Gregory S. Schwegmann | Lisa S. Tsai | Jeremy H. Wells | Michael J. Yoder

To learn more about why sophisticated business plaintiffs choose Reid Collins, please visit our website.

“The special forces unit for complex litigation.”

Lawdragon

POMERANTZ CONGRATULATES

JEREMY A. LIEBERMAN AND JENNIFER PAFITI ON BEING NAMED AMONG LAWDRAGON’S 500 LEADING LAWYERS IN AMERICA

WE ALSO CONGRATULATE ALL THE FIRM’S LAWDRAGONS:

Samuel J. Adams • Ari Y. Basser • Gustavo F. Bruckner

Brian Calandra • Patrick V. Dahlstrom* • Emma Gilmore

Marc I. Gross* • Stanley M. Grossman* • Michael Grunfeld

J. Alexander Hood II • Omar Jafri • Louis C. Ludwig

Jordan L. Lurie • Joshua B. Silverman • Jennifer Banner Sobers

Brenda Szydlo • Matthew L. Tuccillo • Austin P. Van

Murielle Steven Walsh • Tamar A. Weinrib • Michael J. Wernke

*Lawdragon Hall of Fame

PROTECTING INVESTORS IN A GLOBALIZED WORLD

Jeremy A. Lieberman, Managing Partner

Jennifer Pafiti, Partner and Head of Client Services

16 LETTER FROM THE EDITOR AND PUBLISHER 18 GO TO THE MAT

Chris Seeger and Paul Geller have redefined mass plaintiff litigation. Core to their success is the humbling practice of Brazilian jiu jitsu.

32 SEISMIC SHIFTS

Grossman Roth Yaffa Cohen is celebrating 35 years of zealous advocacy – and transformative results.

42 SHINING THE LIGHT

Pomerantz continues to shore up investor rights across industries and sectors.

48 FIGHTING FOR THE UNDERDOG

Miguel Custodio and Vineet Dubey followed their own path to build one of Southern California’s leading plaintiff practices.

55 LAWDRAGON 500 LEADING PLAINTIFF FINANCIAL LAWYERS

As our guide shows, it takes a lot to stand up to big business – and a certain type of lawyer to untangle layers of fraud. Featuring:

58 Avi Josefson of Bernstein Litowitz

68 Jeremy Lieberman of Pomerantz

78 Rafey Balabanian of Edelson

90 Jennifer Pafiti of Pomerantz

96 Debra Wyman of Robbins Geller

105 LAWDRAGON 500 LEADING PLAINTIFF CONSUMER LAWYERS

These are the lawyers who stand on the front line seeking justice – from renowned titans to those who labor outside the spotlight. Featuring: 108

172

183 LAWDRAGON 500 LEADING PLAINTIFF EMPLOYMENT AND CIVIL RIGHTS LAWYERS

Dedicating one’s legal career to standing up for rights in workplaces and in society has never been more important.

Featuring:

188 Sam Maduegbuna of Maduegbuna Cooper

On the Cover

Front cover:

Chris Seeger (Seeger Weiss), left and Paul Geller (Robbins Geller).

Photo by Greg Delman. Back cover, left to right: James Moncus III, Matthew Minner and Brian Vines. Photo by The Malicote Creative Company.

CELEBRATING 35 YEARS OF ZEALOUS ADVOCACY

Since 1988, Grossman Roth Yaffa Cohen has represented victims of negligence and wrongdoing. Combining experience, skill, and integrity to help clients seek justice, the firm has a longstanding proven track record of success. 2525 Ponce de Leon Boulevard Suite 1150

PUBLISHER/CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

K atrina D ewey

K atrina @ law D ragon . com

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF/SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT

J ohn r yan

J ohn @ law D ragon com

VICE PRESIDENT, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT AND SALES

c arlton D yce

carlton @ law D ragon com

ART DIRECTOR

S tephanie B lac K man

SB @ B lac K man D e S ign net

SENIOR EDITORS

J ame S l angfor D

J ame S @ law D ragon com

a li S on p reece

a li S on @ law D ragon com

ASSISTANT EDITOR

e mily J ac K oway

e mily @ law D ragon . com

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

m ichelle f ox

michelle @ law D ragon com

LAWDRAGON PHOTOGRAPHY

l aura B ari S onzi , a my c antrell , n ic K c oleman , g reg D elman , the malicote creative company, m ichelle n olan

p rinte D in c ana D a

Issue 27

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CHRISTOPHER A.

A founding partner of Seeger Weiss LLP, Christopher A. Seeger has led some of the most complex, groundbreaking, and high-profile litigations in the U.S., at both the state and federal level, the National Prescription Opiate Litigation, which the  Washington Post called “the

largest federal court case in U.S. history”; 3M Combat Arms Earplug Products Liability Litigation, which Reuters called “the largest multidistrict litigation in history”; the ongoing “Dieselgate” scandal; and the history-making Football League Players’ Concussion Injury Litigation

“a dealmaker”

—CHAMBERS USA

“one of the nation’s greatest plaintiff lawyers”

—LAWDRAGON

SEEGER

Tom Demetrio

Jamaal R. Buchanan

Peter M. O’Malley

Mitchell Bild

William T. Gibbs

Michelle M. Kohut

Michael D. Ditore Britney R. Pennycook

Daniel S. Kirschner

Kenneth T. Lumb

Francis Patrick Murphy

Edward G. Willer

Thomas A. Demetrio

Philip H. Corboy, Jr.

Innovating Mass Practice

We’re revolutionizing the mass action landscape for plaintiffs through groundbreaking approaches to mass arbitrations, mass torts, and class actions. We are a 100-strong team of professionals who have secured recoveries for over 500,000 clients. Combining our unparalleled resources—including an elite bench of attorneys, an expert in-house client services team, a proprietary data & IT infrastructure, and an expansive network of partners— we achieve meaningful victories for our clients en masse.

Together with our partner firms and vendors, we will continue to take on the most powerful corporations in the world—and win.

ANY PLAINTIFFS’ LAWYERS FIND THEMSELVES IN DAVID V. GOLIATH

Geller (of Robbins Geller) and Seeger (of Seeger Weiss) are both black belts in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu – a rare accomplishment on top of uncommonly successful litigation careers. The humbling practice drives home the reality that a long sequence of strategic decisions has real-life consequences. The pair have joined forces within that shared mentality to do an incalculable amount of good for injured consumers and other victims of corporate greed – most recently with the Opioid epidemic, with billions of dollars of settlements.

That litigation is among the headline achievements covered in The Plaintiff Issue – the fourth annual edition recognizing the Lawdragon 500 Leading Plaintiff Consumer Lawyers; the Lawdragon 500 Leading Plaintiff Financial Lawyers; and the Lawdragon 500 Leading Employment & Civil Rights Lawyers. These honored lawyers have achieved successes in monetary recoveries and reforms in a staggering array of subject areas, from faulty products and investment scandals to police brutality and sexual harassment – and literally everything in between.

As always, Lawdragon continues to lead the legal media pack in inclusion for our leading lawyer guides. While these honorees may often take on the plight of the underdog, that description has become increasingly difficult to place on the lawyers themselves – whose records of achievement have proven year after year that skill, tenacity and passion matter more than the size of one’s army.

KATRINA DEWEY Publisher and CEO katrina@lawdragon.com

JOHN RYAN Editor-in-Chief john@lawdragon.com

LETTER FROM THE PUBLISHER AND EDITOR

STRUGGLES, AND THAT IS SURELY AN APT DESCRIPTION FOR MANY CASES IN WHICH SMALLER PRACTICES WAGE BATTLE AGAINST GIANT COMPANIES AND THEIR WHITE-SHOE LAW FIRMS. BUT PAUL GELLER AND CHRIS SEEGER PRESENT TO US A METAPHOR THAT HAS EQUAL APPLICATION IN THESE PAGES – TWO EQUALS FIGHTING IT OUT ON THE MAT WHERE THE OUTCOME IS ANYTHING BUT CERTAIN.

We are honored to be listed in one of the most elite publications in the legal profession. Chris Searcy, Jack Scarola and Ted Babbitt were selected in Lawdragon’s Hall of Fame.

Chris Searcy

Sia Baker-Barnes

Mariano Garcia

Ted Babbitt

Brenda Fulmer

Jack Scarola

Hardee Bass

Matt Schwencke

Greg Barnhart

Laurie Briggs

Karen Terry

Brian Denney

Cal Warriner

TO THE MAT

Chris Seeger (left) and Paul Geller

CHRIS SEEGER AND PAUL GELLER

HAVE REDEFINED MASS PLAINTIFF LITIGATION. CORE TO THEIR SUCCESS

IS THE HUMBLING PRACTICE OF BRAZILIAN JIU JITSU.

BY KATRINA DEWEY

Photos by Gregg Delman

EARLY MORNING.

TWO MEN HEAD TO THE GYM. SOUTH FLORIDA. NEW JERSEY. DIFFERENT GYMS, SAME DEAL. THEY’RE READY TO ROLL.

Week after week, going on five years now, Paul Geller and Chris Seeger have stood side by side in the trenches, battling the most complex litigation ever conceived – seeking justice for families, cities and states devastated by America’s opioid crisis. Introduced in 1996, OxyContin and its ilk have killed more than a million Americans. For the first time, Americans’ life expectancy dropped. The cause? Opioids.

And for what? So the family that fomented this terror could put their name on a bunch of fancy museums. Unbelievable wealth.

Disgusting. Unspeakable really.

Not so long ago, accountability was a mirage. Those who died rendered addicts. Junkies.

A grieving family could never prove which distributor, which manufacturer, which pharmacy took their loved one.

Tough to make a jury care.

Largely impossible to justify the cost. The life of an addict in America 2023? To family, still priceless. In a courtroom, what, $50k max? And forget it if you’re a city or state trying a novel theory that the opioid scourge was a costly public nuisance. That dog, as they say, had failed to hunt.

Geller and Seeger know the battle all too well. Assembling the right coalition, leveraging the suffering of the many, attacking those who profited where they are most vulnerable.

They have devoted their careers to changing the game.

To taking Corporate America to the mat.

They’ve just finished round-the-clock negotiations to finalize a series of settlements once thought impossible – more than $40B. With their co-lead counsel in the National Prescription Opiate Litigation MDL, they have forced a who’s who of Big Pharma to pay several billion apiece.

Johnson & Johnson, AmeriSource Bergen Drug Corp., McKesson Corp., Cardinal Health Inc., Teva Pharmaceuticals, Allergan, Walmart, Walgreens, CVS. Geller and Seeger are champions. Already headlining news accounts worldwide, with well-deserved honors for their leadership wresting a new level of accountability.

But today, they are just two grapplers. Walking into their gyms to roll. There’s no place they’d rather be.

Geller and Seeger are both black belts in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, among the highest forms of martial arts and the rarest of accomplishments. It’s an art practiced vertically, mostly on the ground, with an opponent fighting to choke you, going for arm locks, neck cranks and other attacks, any one of which could cause serious injury. Your ear may blossom like a cauliflower, and you will likely feel like a night in the hospital ward.

Peruvian Necktie. Berimbolo. Paper Cutter. Bow and Arrow. Reverse De La Riva. Rubber Guard. Vinnie Lock. Mata Leao.

All moves and positions as much a part of BJJ’s lexicon as stare decisis, nolo contendere and quid pro quo are to lawyers.

Especially, they love walking into their gym, where they are just another fighter. They will warm up for 30 minutes, work on technique, then have a series of matches, or rolls, lasting five to six minutes until they are gassed.

The goal is to choke out or “submit” their opponent. Should that happen to them – rare, but it does – they have learned the wisdom of tapping out.

“Starting out, I got put to sleep a lot because of my ego,” says Seeger. “You learn from it. There’s no losing, only learning. It’s a mindset that’s very different from what people are used to.”

Jiu Jitsu has a way of taming ego. Or die trying.

“Joe Rogan, who is a legit black belt, says Jiu Jitsu is high level problem solving with dire physical consequences,” says Geller. “And that is about as spot-on a description as I’ve ever heard. That is one of the things I love about it – you make strategic decisions under enormous pressure and the consequences – good or bad – follow. The cases we handle are similar in that the strategic decisions we make have direct and serious consequences.”

Both compete as seriously in Jiu Jitsu as they do in court, competing – and winning – internationally

and nationally with some of the toughest fighters anywhere. Seeger won the Gold Medal at the Pan Am Games, and Geller won the Gold Medal at the IBJJF Miami International Open, among many accolades. The fighting is an outlet, of course, but it’s also an embodiment of who they are. Driven to be able to walk into any room with the knowledge they can handle whatever awaits.

It goes without saying these are not your grandfather’s lawyers. There is not a golf course within 10 miles of their gyms, nor any exclusionary memberships. Well, that’s not exactly true. While anyone can come and fight, you will suffer real harm if you are not a serious student. If you want to earn a black belt, it may take you 10 years.

Still, all are welcome to come and get pummeled – and maybe, just maybe, learn a discipline that is life changing.

“Most people’s hobbies don’t involve severe pain and discomfort, but we share a love of this practice. There’s just something about it,” says Geller. “Once that door closes and you’re on the mat, you’re just focused on the here and now – totally present and in the moment. We slap hands, bump fists, and then it’s on.

“In our Jiu Jitsu academies, it’s all shapes, all sizes, all religions, all colors, all political ideologies. You just share this profound bond of training and sweating and, as Chris said, learning. It’s really an amazing community of people who want to improve not only themselves, but also each other.”

“People who go the distance in Jiu Jitsu are kind of spiritual people, whether you’re religious or not,” says Seeger. “There is a spirituality to it, a peace with it. Jiu Jitsu folks are connected through some

special channel to the universe. That’s kind of a cool thing.”

Geller and Seeger talk about Brazilian Jiu Jitsu with the exuberance of freedom. A home for spirits hardened by years waging war as the underdogs on behalf of former NFL players, car purchasers, duped investors, Facebook users, combat veterans harmed by 3M combat earplugs. Each excels at law and persuasion, of course, but is equally adept at amassing coalitions and financing battles required to take on big business. Both grew up tough in and around New York City. Seeger was an amateur boxer who fought 16 bouts and worked in construction before attending Cardozo Law School, graduating in 1990. Geller graduated from Emory Law in 1993. As a boy, he fell hard for Bruce Lee and all things martial arts. Geller’s grandfather had been a Brooklyn boxer, and he was inspired by Tae Kwon Do, Vietnamese Cuong Nhu, Chinese Kung Fu, and – ultimately – Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Early on, each spent time in a corporate law firm. And, as one does, each left. The twist is each left to become a plaintiff lawyer. Not unheard of, but not the usual path either.

They ascended the cutthroat-slash-collegial plaintiff bar in incendiary fashion, both notching lead roles and big tallies from the jump. While still young firms, Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd and Seeger Weiss turned the table on defendants and their armies of lawyers transforming vast numbers of plaintiffs into a new type of battle.

Geller and Seeger met early on; their friendship took deeper hold in 2015 on the leadership team in the Volkswagen diesel emissions multi-district litigation. They battled side by side for six years, winning nearly $15B for consumers and environmental impact from

Paul Geller

the auto manufacturer, which had rigged its cars to show they were compliant with pollution standards while emitting up to 40 times the allowed amount. It was the beginning of a bromance that puts the original “When Harry Met Sally” to shame. That film made $93M at the box office. Geller and Seeger productions? Well over $50B.

One day, Seeger noticed Geller’s ear was inflamed. He asked whether he sparred.

In a world of powerful lawyers working together while jockeying for individual position, they found a kindred spirit. One who had achieved a similar level of extraordinary professional success, who also appreciated the discipline and humility represented by a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt. For every 10,000 students who begins the study of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, only one will become a black belt.

“It’s an eight, nine, 10-year road, and there’s only one way to do it. The sparring is live, and it’s real,” says Seeger. “There’s no dishonesty on the mats.”

They’ve learned so many lessons in their thousands of hours on the mat – all of which apply in their professional and personal lives. Much like their black belts, which can never be washed because of the blood, sweat and tears they hold.

“Jiu Jitsu makes me a better lawyer, a better husband, a better father, and a better friend. Being a plaintiffs’ lawyer and running a firm is stressful – we have to win to get paid and this is complex litigation that involves sophisticated clients, smart adversaries, looming deadlines and lots of tedious briefing. It is never lost on me that we have hundreds of employees whose families rely on the success of our firm to put food on their tables. We take that responsibility really seriously – and I don’t believe I could do what I do without the physical, mental and spiritual benefits that Jiu Jitsu provides me,” Geller says.

MAKE LEMONADE OUT OF LEMONS

One bad move doesn’t necessarily end a fight or a case; shake it off, move on, and figure out a way to turn lemons into lemonade. Like complex litigation, Jiu Jitsu requires strategic decision making while under tremendous pressure.

“Sometimes we make the wrong decision or at least our opponent or the judge make it feel wrong after we’ve already committed and it’s too late to reverse course. In Jiu Jitsu, I may go for a submission attempt – but if I miss, if I’m off by inches, if my opponent

anticipates it and defends it well, not only did I fail to get the submission, but I’m often in a more vulnerable position than before I went for it,” says Geller. The key is not to panic, not to give up, but to adapt and try to find a way to use the opponent’s momentum against him.

In the Opioids litigation, Seeger and Geller, with others including Elizabeth Cabraser and NYU’s Sam Isaacharoff, sought approval of a “Negotiation Class” under Federal Civil Procedure Rule 23. The novel idea was the subject of a law review article by Harvard Law’s William Rubenstein and the late Duke Law professor Francis McGovern, but it had never been attempted in an actual case.

“There was no such animal,” Geller says, and Judge Dan Polster approved it. But the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the certification.

“In one fell swoop, the negotiation class was eviscerated. Easy come, easy go,” said Geller. “We didn’t sulk. We continued litigating, and ultimately settled the first round of multi-billion-dollar settlements.”

Further down the road, they needed a fair and equitable way to allocate the abatement money among the states, cities and counties. “Guess what we used?” says Geller. The metrics they devised in the effort to get the negotiation class certified, the lynchpin of which was an allocation calculator that used factors including opioid use disorder, opioid deaths and population to try to achieve some measure of justice.

“Although the negotiation class was ultimately rejected, its underpinning proved to be the key to reaching the allocation agreement that allowed the settlements to move forward. So we packed our bags after our loss at the 6th Circuit - we pivoted, we remained calm, and we used our attempted submission to get a different submission.

“In Jiu Jitsu terms, we lost the triangle choke but ended up with a tight arm bar, and we got the win after all,” says Geller.

BE PATIENT

It takes a very long time to get proficient and a longer time to get good at Jiu Jitsu. It takes longer to get a black belt in BJJ than in any other martial art. So if you are going to start this journey, you have to know it isn’t going to be quick.

Put your seatbelt on, fill up the gas tank, and get ready for a very long, often bumpy, life changing ride.

“In litigation, at least the type that we do, you can’t be looking for the quick hit. These are very complicated cases against wealthy corporations with high-powered, high-priced lawyers who bill by the hour and want the cases to go on and on and on,” says Geller.

In 2011 Seeger Weiss launched an unprecedented series of cases against the NFL, claiming former players had suffered head trauma leading to long-term neurocognitive disease associated with concussions. It was a blistering battle for many reasons, including the power and popularity of the NFL. Among the 4,500 plaintiffs were former stars including Tony Dorsett, Jim McMahon and Junior Seau, who had committed suicide. Proving a causal connection was especially challenging, as the illness caused by the trauma – chronic traumatic encephalopathy – could only be confirmed after death.

Despite the hurdles, Seeger achieved a groundbreaking settlement that provided funds for more than 18,000 players and changed the game. More than $1B in former players’ claims have been approved in the decade since.

“It was the honor of my career to represent the players and their families,” said Seeger.

Robbins Geller’s case against HSBC Finance Corp., underscores the merits of fortitude. In August 2002, the firm filed the case alleging predatory lending practices in Chicago – and settled it in June 2016.

“That’s 14 years of intense, hard-fought litigation, including one, and very nearly two, full-blown jury trials and many trips to the appellate court, with over $35M in actual out of pocket expenses – no litigation funders – our money,” says Geller. “We were patient, we kept our eye on the ball. And the final settlement – $1.6B – is the largest settlement ever following a securities fraud trial.”

The firm continues to litigate a case against Visa and Mastercard alleging antitrust violations over credit card swipe fees that it originally filed in 2005. “That one has been going on for almost 18 years – it had been settled, we thought, for over $5B – but because of appeals, we are still not at the finish line,” Geller says.

“But this is what sometimes happens in large, cutting-edge cases against mega corporations. If you don’t have patience to stay at it, keep going, and avoid premature exit ramps, then this flavor of litigation, and this martial art, are not for you.”

JIU JITSU IS A TEAM SPORT

It looks like an individual sport, right? One person versus another on the mat. But “your academy is a family, a team, and, without them, you’d be terrible at Jiu Jitsu,” says Geller.

Similarly, it may look to the outside world like the lawyer appointed to the leadership position, or the one who made the opening or closing statement at trial, is achieving an individual litigation success.

“But those who know, know. Success in both worlds requires a team of selfless, hardworking, dedicated teammates. In the match or at the podium in court, what appears to be an individual performance is actually the culmination of an immense amount of teamwork behind the scenes,” says Geller.

Take Robbins Geller’s role as one of the lead counsel representing the City and County of San Francisco in a bench trial against Walgreens in the opioid cases. Partner Aelish Baig stood out in court, delivering parts of openings, closings and examining witnesses. The firm achieved a great verdict from Judge Charles Breyer.

“But the success in that trial was the result not just of Baig’s excellent effort, but an entire team of Robbins Geller lawyers and lawyers from many other firms who worked around the clock helping the trial team get ready,” he says. Among them Seeger and his partner, Jennifer Scullion, along with lawyers from Lieff Cabraser; Simmons Hanley Conroy; and Levin Papantonio among others.

YOU’RE GONNA LOSE SOME

You train hard and prepare, but on the mats, you aren’t going to win every roll.

“There is an old Jiu Jitsu saying that you either win or you learn,” says Geller. “In high-stakes litigation, no matter how much you prepare, no matter how good you are, you have to know that you are going to lose sometimes, even when you think you should win,” says Geller.

Take the firm’s lawsuit on behalf of Tesla investors against the one and only Elon Musk. They claimed he failed to act in the best interests of the shareholders when he spent $2.6B of Tesla money to acquire a struggling solar panel business (SolarCity) that was founded by two of his cousins.

The six members of the board of directors who went along with the Musk-driven sale settled the lawsuit

The Modern Law Firm.

Refocused. Insightful enough to reinvent the law firm paradigm. Nimble enough to take on everything in our path. Bold enough to recover $45 billion for our clients.

for $60M. But Musk went to trial. The presiding judge, Delaware Vice Chancellor Joseph Slights, agreed that there were pervasive and blatant flaws in the process that Musk used to make the acquisition. Yet, he ruled in favor of Musk. (Among his super powers is winning litigation. No word if he practices Jiu Jitsu …).

The firm has appealed Slights’ decision.

“And that’s okay. We lose sometimes. Tap out. Don’t let your pride end up resulting in a broken bone,” says Geller. “Congratulate the winner. Be gracious. Losing is okay so long as you learn from it.”

GO FOR THE KNOCKOUT

Seeger started Jiu Jitsu late, in his 40s. While he had 16 amateur boxing matches, he had sparred hundreds of rounds between the age of 16 to early 20s. As his kids were getting older, he wanted them to wrestle, rather than endure the striking he did.

“The beauty of being a grappler or a wrestler is, if you’re in a fight, you get to decide where you’re going to be – are you standing up or on the ground? If you’re a grappler, you know how to do takedowns,” he says.

Watching at the gym one day, Seeger called the sensei over and asked if he was too old to try. The sensei pulled over a 51-year old Newark Police Department captain. Seeger tried it and fell in love with the discipline. “It’s so hard. People quit in those first six months because you are getting the shit kicked out of you by people you would have walked by on the street.

“I thought I was a tough guy, and I was getting killed by 140-pound little guys,” he says.

“You have to want to be good and learn it more than you fear the process of getting there,” says Geller. In the process, you learn to always be prepared, no matter what the adversary looks like. Because what you can control is you. Not entirely a BJJ lesson, but one from the world of pugilism and especially MMA fights.

“Fighting taught me the value of preparation and my competitive nature causes me to over-prepare in every situation,” says Seeger.

“Don’t leave it in the judges’ hands! You want to get the decisive win – a knock out or submission,” says Geller. “When the judges decide, it’s out of your control. Of course, in litigation, we don’t have

a choice. Absent a settlement, it’s in the hands of the judge or jury. And you hope to win a lot more than you lose, and you do all you can to win. But you’d be naive to think that losing isn’t possible, and there is always something to learn from your losses.”

BE CREATIVE AND OPEN TO NEW IDEAS

“Litigation essentially begs to evolve and have creativity applied,” says Geller.

Which is another way of saying don’t get in a rut or routine of doing things the same way you always have.

Seeger is at the helm of a first-of-its-kind case with critical ramifications for society and medicine. He is co-lead counsel with Ben Crump in representing family members of Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman being treated for cervical cancer at John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore in 1951, whose cells were taken and cultured to create a cell line known as HeLa, which is used to this day. Seeger is suing Thermo Fisher Scientific for profiting off of biotech products made using those cells, which were taken without her knowledge and for which she was not compensated.

“Even the cells that they took are known in the scientific community as “HeLa cells” – after the person from whom they were taken. This case is important not only for the Lacks family, but to shine a light on the years of unethical treatment of African Americans in the U.S. medical system,” says Seeger.

Despite their success, both Geller and Seeger are busier than ever, in part because of their focus on what’s next. For Geller, that means looking at the dark side of technological advances. He’s representing hundreds of small, local newspapers that he believes are being strangled out of existence by the tech giants’ anticompetitive digital advertising and publishing platforms.

“Nothing is worse than when I hear an associate or partner tell me, ‘this is the way we always do it.’ I think it’s really important to always think of ways to do things better. More efficiently. Be creative,” says Geller. As a Black Belt, he’s still eager to learn. Currently he’s learning a new BJJ system called 10th Planet. “It’s eye-opening. It is still Jiu Jitsu, but with a fresh and creative approach to positions and submissions.”

Seeger is also seeking to protect children, taking on Meta, Snap, TikTok and YouTube for using algorithms intended to attract and addict kids in the

Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Products Liability Litigation.

“These companies deliberately designed and developed their platforms to addict children, precipitating a youth mental health crisis,” he says. According to polling from Pew Research Center, social media addiction has soared among children and teens, with 35 percent of all teens saying they are on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok or Snapchat “almost constantly.” At the same time, scientific studies consistently show that heavy social media use creates serious mental health issues, including self-harm, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, sleep deprivation and suicide among teenagers.

Robbins Geller is also focused on the harms of social media, suing Facebook for privacy invasion through biometrics – a case they settled for an astounding $650M. The firm broke new ground finding ways to ensure the recovered funds actually went to class members. The firm hired a Duke University behavioral economist named Daniel Ariely to look at the typical form of “notice” sent to class members and to suggest ways to increase the likelihood that class members would participate in the settlement rather than delete or throw away the notice. Ariely ventured a number of ideas that no firm had thought of or utilized before – in terms of the words used and the options provided. They also used Venmo and Zelle for class members to receive their share of the proceeds.

The result was the highest “claims rate” (the rate at which class members submit claims) the firm had ever seen in a consumer class action.

Geller’s childhood idol, Bruce Lee, spoke about evolving, learning and growing, and he tries to implement that philosophy in the courtroom and on the mats.

Be water, my friend.

SPECIALIZE BUT NOT TOO MUCH

BJJ is just one of the pillars of mixed martial arts, along with other combat disciplines like kickboxing and wrestling.

“To be successful in MMA, you have to cross-train,” explains Seeger. And the two friends take the lesson to heart. Seeger still actively boxes, and Geller trains with legendary kickboxing coach Henri Hooft. The two apply the same philosophy to their litigation practices. Working together, Robbins Geller and

Seeger Weiss have successfully handled billion-dollar securities class actions, antitrust cases, and mass torts. “We don’t think of our firms solely as securities specialists or consumer protection specialists, but more broadly, complex litigation specialists with experience in many areas,” Geller says.

STAY HUMBLE

Whether going to court or the mats, there is uncertainty – about which way a judge will rule, what arguments a defense lawyer will make – or about who will come up and ask for a match.

“In life, the source of apprehension or fear for any of us is unpredictability. If you know exactly what is going to happen, there’s nothing to worry about,” says Geller, which is far from the situation in large, complex litigation.

When you go to open mats – no matter what school you’re from, what gi you wear, what patch is on it –there’s a lot of eyeballing.

“Tomorrow I’ll go to Clifton [N.J.], which is 20 minutes away, and there will be some young MMA guys there training. I’m going to do well against some, and ok against others,” says Seeger. “Every day, it’s humbling. It should be every time you train, frankly.”

Every time a fighter points at them, and says, “Wanna roll?” a lesson is learned.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen, and overcoming that and saying, ‘Sure, let’s go,’” says Geller. “Going through that unpredictability and coming

Chris Seeger

out ok, whether I win or lose, I learned something.”

You train hard. You work hard. You want to win, but you don’t necessarily know who you’re up against, what tricks they have up their sleeve.

You learn the respect of preparation.

“Preparation is everything,” says Seeger. “The scariest thing for anybody who has ever done combat sports or fighting is being tired in a match, so tired that you can’t do what it is you know how to do.”

As a boxer, Seeger was never afraid to get punched. But he never wanted to get so tired he couldn’t defend himself. Fighting on the mat, in court, same difference. “I’m not going to get caught with a lucky shot by anybody.”

He will know every document, be ready for anything thrown at him, and have his endurance in top form. “I’ll be able to go for 10, 20 weeks of trial if you want and just keep going,” says Seeger. “That mentality I took from boxing, Jiu Jitsu into what I do for a living.”

Because someone is always on the line. On the mat, who they are.

In court, a client, sitting at home, depending on them.

“I always put that extra hour in if I’m doing something, because I say to myself, ‘Those people are counting on me, hoping I’m ready to be there. The person fighting their battle for them,’” says Seeger. Seeger remembers all too well hauling Sheetrock up 10 flights of stairs as a carpenter. What they do now is an honor.

“We get to represent people who need our help. We’re lucky,” he says.

The Jiu Jitsu mentality. Take no one for granted. You’re no better than anyone else.

Geller and Seeger return to that time and again as we discuss their passion for Jiu Jitsu. On the mat, they’re just another guy at the academy.

“They don’t care,” says Seeger. “It took years before people even knew I was a lawyer, and then probably longer than that before somebody got the idea to Google my cases.”

Oh yeah. Lead lawyer against the NFL in the historic concussion litigation. Seeger took on one of the toughest franchises on the planet – almost by definition – and won accountability for its players for head injuries that caused horrific brain trauma resulting in death and other serious harms.

“’You handled the concussion case?’” Seeger recounts a fellow fighter asking.

“Well, yeah, what difference does it make? Are you going to stop trying to choke me?” he asked.

“No. I’ll try harder to choke you now,” he said. Seeger, 62, appreciated the response.

“Is the Geller in that Robbins Geller firm your father?” an impressed fighter asked, not considering that it could be the 54-year old he was sparring with. “It just didn’t seem possible to him it could be me.”

To be able to walk away from the law, even if all paths intersect, coming together somewhere near a field far away.

“There is a brotherhood, a sisterhood,” says Seeger. “When I meet another jujitsu player, even a junior starting out, male or female, there’s a little bit of a bond there.” A man was doing work at Seeger’s house not long ago and found out he was a black belt. “He didn’t want to charge me,” says Seeger.

“I just want to be known as someone who trains really hard and who’s a good guy. It’s the nicest group of people,” says Geller. “Half the people that Chris and I hang out with ... I mean they’re monsters. They are killers. But on some level, they’re the sweetest, nicest, warmest people. It’s really incredible.”

Young grapplers ask them why they still roll. They shake their heads, and give a wizened grin. With apologies to clients, colleagues and others, both have days they’d be happy to never set foot in a courthouse again. “When I think of my future, I’m okay knowing that one day I’m going to stop practicing law. But I am not okay with the thought that one day I may have to stop practicing Jiu Jitsu,” says Geller.

“People say Jiu Jitsu builds character. I think it’s more accurate to say Jiu Jitsu reveals character,” says Geller. “It is so easy to quit and the number of people who start BJJ and quit is huge. But sticking with something that is difficult and physically and mentally taxing and that takes years to gain proficiency in, really does say something about those who make it to black belt and beyond.”

“A black belt is just a white belt who didn’t quit,” Seeger repeats of an oft-made observation. “We’re all the same.”

Keep rolling until it turns black. And it will.

SEISMICSHIFTS

BY EMILY JACKOWAY

Left to right: Andrew Jaffa, Neal Roth, Stuart Grossman and Gary Cohen

GROSSMAN ROTH YAFFA COHEN IS CELEBRATING 35 YEARS OF ZEALOUS ADVOCACY.

Photo provided by the Firm

In a Florida courtroom in the 1970s, two young lawyers stood opposite each other: a burgeoning medical malpractice attorney and an insurance defense lawyer soon to be on the other side. They recognized in each other something of the same stuff – an unyielding commitment to their clients and an expectation for meticulous excellence.

Those two lawyers, Stuart Grossman and Neal Roth, would go on to become two of the most celebrated personal injury attorneys in Florida, both winning accolades including the Al J. Cone Lifetime Achievement Award and the Perry Nichols Award. Together, they’d also form one of Florida’s preeminent trial and medical malpractice firms: Grossman Roth Yaffa Cohen.

Grossman and Roth came to the law from different backgrounds. Grossman entered bootcamp during the Vietnam War and spent two years in the Coast Guard. Toward the end of his service, he worked from midnight until 8 a.m. so he could take classes at the University of Miami Law School during the day. Eventually, he began working under trial legend JB Spence, who himself was a protégé of Perry Nichols.

Roth’s entry to the law came after a leg-crushing injury when he was 15. “I had tremendous respect for all the doctors who took care of me,” he reflects. “I felt that if that level of care could be given to me, why couldn’t there be more of that – and, I wondered, why was there less?” So, though he started briefly as an insurance defense lawyer – where he met Grossman – Roth soon found his home in plaintiffs’ medical malpractice. Like Grossman, Roth also worked with a legal legend: Stanley Rosenblatt, who took on a historic headline-making Big Tobacco case and other prominent lawsuits.

By the mid-1980s, Roth had already started his own firm and was looking for a partner. Grossman was also looking for someone to strike out with. So, in 1988, they created what is now Grossman Roth Yaffa Cohen. The firm has grown to 11 lawyers, eight full-time medical investigators and a number of other vital team members, with offices in Miami and Boca Raton. While the firm has always served and will continue to serve the South Florida community, the attorneys are sought after for cases nationwide.

In every case, the firm’s attorneys strive to not only achieve financial compensation for their clients, but to institute tangible policy changes that will

save lives going forward. Andrew Yaffa explains the philosophy by imagining a hole in a water bucket. “We don’t put our finger in the hole,” he says. “We get a new bucket. We want to make sure that we are fixing problems in our society.”

Over the last 35 years, those small changes have added up to seismic shifts – one case at a time.

A MISSING DIAGNOSIS: THE CHANTEL BERMAN CASE

Chantel Berman was born with a congenital heart abnormality – a hole in her heart that shunted blood to her lungs. Unfortunately, her doctors didn’t see that.

“As the saying goes, ‘babies are not little adults,’” says Roth, who took on Chantel’s case just before he set up shop with Grossman. Because Chantel’s doctors didn’t appreciate that fact, a simple mistake by an adult cardiologists led to irreversible damage; at three months old, her EKG was read upside down.

“Had the cardiologist appreciated that and turned it around, he would have seen the EKG findings were consistent with a congenital heart abnormality,” explains Roth, “which could have been treated had it been picked up when it should have been.” Instead, the diagnosis wasn’t made until Chantel was six years old. When she was just on the cusp of her teen years, she passed away.

Just before jury selection, the hospital finally agreed to settlement terms. In addition to compensating Chantelle’s family, the hospital agreed to a policy change: All EKGs performed on children 12 and under would be read by a pediatric cardiologist. “I don’t know how many lives have been changed by that policy, but even if it’s just one, that’s meaningful to me,” says Roth.

EXPANDING: THE EDWARDS CHOKEHOLD CASE AND FLORIDA POWER & LIGHT

The initial vision for GRYC was small and selective –focusing on medical malpractice cases, specifically. “I told Stuart, ‘If we build it, they will come,’” remembers Roth, “And we did. And they did.”

By 1993, five years into the firm’s life, the attorneys had already made a name for themselves in the medical malpractice world. But, in that year, things started to shift.

The story will sound familiar. On a January day in 1992, a 24-year-old Black man named Antonio Edwards was eating lunch outside his car. The police approached Edwards and a physical altercation ensued. An officer claimed he saw Edwards reach for a gun in the car and put him in a chokehold. Then, the officer slammed Edwards into the pavement and continued the chokehold until Edwards suffered a heart attack and severe brain damage. Edwards lived in a coma for 10 years before passing away. No weapon was ever found in his car, and the officer was never charged.

Until that point, the firm had taken on almost exclusively medical malpractice work. But the attorneys’ passion for helping victims wouldn’t be confined to one practice area: Grossman took on Edwards’ case. By the time the case was settled in 1993, the City of Miami paid $7.5M, along with footing the bill for Edwards’ medical care for the rest of his life – at the time, one of the largest settlements to come out of a police brutality case.

Grossman continues to be shocked by persisting police violence. “They’re dispensing justice on the street corner,” he says. “It makes you wonder who’s watching out for us.”

As the Chantel Berman case changed pediatric cardiology, the Edwards case changed policing in Miami: The chokehold was officially banned. To this day, Grossman says a photo of his face hangs in the Miami-Dade police precinct: “Administer the chokehold, and you’ve got to answer to this guy,” the photo implies.

The desire to expand outside of medical malpractice work to help as many victims as possible only grew from there. In 1997, Grossman took on an even larger case: Goldberg v. Florida Power and Light – going up against the largest utility company in the state for the first time.

The incident seemed simple: a downed power line left a six-inch scorch on a woman’s lawn, and the power company came to fix the fallen wire, cutting power in the area – including streetlights at a busy intersection. The police offered help managing traffic, but the power company declined.

At the same time, two mothers and their daughters were crossing at that intersection. A storm was raging, and because the streetlights were out, the cars crashed. Due to the power company’s negligence, one of the young daughters died.

In the end, Grossman steered the case through trial and to victory: The result was the largest verdict for the wrongful death of a child in the country at that time. And, yet again, the result helped ensure that the tragedy would not be repeated: Florida Power and Light is now required to have police present at their construction sites.

The case would continue a trend of taking on major corporations who harmed everyday people – leading to defective product cases and construction cases, like the recent Champlain Towers South collapse in Surfside, Fla.

“TOMATOLAND”: THE CARLITOS CANDELARIO-HERRERA CASE

In 1993, the same year as the Edwards case, Grossman took a first-year law student under his wing: Andy Yaffa. The son of a doctor, Yaffa intended to work at the firm to learn how to defend medical malpractice cases. Instead, he fell in love with the practice. “Until I started working here, I never saw the truth, which is that there are many people harmed or worse as a result of horrific medical errors,” he says.

Yaffa was just the fourth lawyer to join the firm; two years later, Gary Cohen came along. Cohen’s career has been 100 percent focused on medical malpractice from the start, spending ten years working with trial legend Sheldon Schlesinger before coming to GRYC.

Of the partners, Cohen and Roth both focus almost exclusively on advocating for victims of medical malpractice – Yaffa, however, began following in Grossman’s footsteps and adding other cases to his roster. “I don’t think there’s any case out there that we are not equipped and able to do at the highest of levels,” he says.

One day, Yaffa received a call about a case involving a tomato farm worker whose child had been born with no limbs. Through the discovery process, Yaffa learned that the company had provided no personal protective equipment to the farm workers who were being sent into fields freshly sprayed with a “witch’s brew” of pesticides known to cause birth defects – including Carlitos’. In the end, Yaffa successfully proved Carlitos’ condition was the direct result of his mother’s exposure to these chemicals. Yaffa also testified before Congress regarding the case, and the

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company agreed to make changes to their safety procedures as a result. The case was featured in the book “Tomatoland,” which covers atrocities like these that farm workers face.

Yaffa attributes his success on the case to the full backing of everyone at the firm. The firm’s supportive environment is one of its hallmarks – the attorneys say they treat each other like family. “[The partners] are selfless, they are caring, they are warriors,” says Yaffa. “Absent blood relatives, we don’t get any closer.”

The team works to ensure that family dynamic also carries over into their attorneys’ home lives, prioritizing personal well-being over hitting billable hours. Having that kind of support to spend time with family, says Cohen, makes the team better lawyers. “It makes you more empathetic with other people’s issues because you really know their problems. It’s not just a client walking in and telling you a story – you’re living a lot of it yourself,” he says. The partners have often supported their staff outside of work, paying hospital bills and funeral expenses.

Roth feels that level of unquestioning support fosters trust. “Loyalty doesn’t just show up on your doorstep,” he adds. “It’s earned.”

MAJOR TRAGEDIES OF TODAY: SURFSIDE CONDO COLLAPSE AND THE PARKLAND MASSACRE

The firm continues to aid individual victims, but in recent years they’ve also taken on large-scale tragedies that have drawn national attention.

In 2018, the firm began representing victims and families of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, which killed 17 and sent shockwaves through the nation. Roth and Grossman, along with partner Alex Arteaga-Gomez and other firms, have worked on those cases. They represented three families whose children were killed and two students who were shot and suffered serious injuries in litigation against the Department of Justice which, in 2021, resulted in a $127.5M settlement. The firm also took part in a suit against the School Board of Broward County, which settled all claims for $25M. The litigation continues now against the Broward County Sherriff’s Office, as well as several individuals responsible for safety at the school.

Then, in 2021, the Champlain Towers South condominium building in Surfside, Fla., collapsed – killing 98, injuring many others, and leaving every resident without a home. Grossman Roth attorneys led key

Aftermath of the Champlain Towers collapse in Miami Beach, Florida, June 2021.

aspects of the litigation; attorney Rachel Furst (who has since left the firm) was appointed co-chair lead counsel, and Grossman served as Wrongful Death Damage Claim Liaison Counsel.

The personal stories of the victims touched Grossman profoundly – both those who were killed and those who were rendered homeless. “Those who survived had nowhere to go, and they lost everything,” he says. He imagines the questions they had to ask themselves: “Where do I sleep? Where’s my passport? Where’s my wristwatch? Where are my car keys?”

Last summer, the final settlement reached nearly $1.1B and included more than 30 settling defendants. “I was proud of the legal community. There were a lot of great lawyers getting together and doing their part. I was proud of Judge Michael Hanzman, Bruce Greer and the Miami Bar,” he says.

CONTINUING WHAT THEY STARTED: THE DR. BERTO LOPEZ CASES

Though the firm’s practice has expanded since its early days focusing exclusively on medical malpractice, their expertise and presence in the area has not waned: Malpractice cases still make up a sizeable percentage of the firm’s cases.

In the last couple of years, Cohen has litigated multiple cases against repeat offender OB/GYN Berto Lopez. In 2021, Cohen says, “Lopez killed my client. And when I say killed, I mean killed.”

Cohen’s client, Onystei Castillo-Lopez, died of postpartum hemorrhage as Lopez’s patient. While working on the case, Cohen learned that Lopez had been reported for medical malpractice repeatedly over the last 20 years: Six women had died under his care, multiple injuries to babies he birthed and two babies suffered bungled circumcisions and multiple tragic injuries were reported. Yet, Lopez continued operating. While in the process of finishing the case, Lopez performed yet another botched circumcision, after learning that his license to practice medicine in Florida was permanently revoked, leading Cohen to take on a second client.

Luckily, Cohen’s advocacy prevailed. For the first time in his 43-year medical malpractice career, Cohen saw a doctor’s license permanently removed, saving future parents and babies from similar fates to Cohen’s clients’.

Cohen adds that the substandard oversight that allowed Lopez to continue practicing is exacerbated

by an increasing pattern: major corporations buying up hospitals in Florida. “They come in and they slash budgets, the number of nurses and quality assurance,” he says. In multiple of Berto Lopez’s reported malpractice incidents, he was working in hospitals owned by Tenet Healthcare Corporation: “The Tenet hospital wanted his admissions,” Cohen says. “They just didn’t care.”

The attorneys say they’re also seeing a rise in aggressive tort reform – and the team has always fought, and continues to fight, to ensure the courts stay accessible to all. In the Parkland cases, Arteaga-Gomez recently spoke at the House Subcommittee on Civil Justice in opposition of House Bill 837, which, among other measures, would make it more difficult to collect damages to the benefit of insurance companies.

THE COURTROOM AND BEYOND

The firm continues to advocate for better healthcare outside of the office. Grossman knows the necessity of quality healthcare all too well; he lost his daughter at the age of 15 to a rare form of cancer, Ewing sarcoma. She received excellent care at Sloan Kettering, the only hospital that had previously treated patients with the disease. Grossman started Margaux’s Miracle Foundation in her memory, which provides funding to Sloan Kettering to defeat Ewing’s sarcoma and other childhood cancers.

The firm has grown in the last 35 years, and the attorneys show no signs of slowing down: “None of us want to stop. We love each other, we love the practice, and we love the people we represent,” says Yaffa.

Thinking back over the last three and a half decades, Grossman is grateful to everyone who helped build the firm and continues to practice alongside him: “I would like to thank everyone for adopting the spirit of what we’re trying to accomplish and what we have accomplished, and for standing by me and my other partners,” he says. Roth adds, “Don’t forget where you came from. The respect you have achieved is both earned and deserved. Look only to make things better.”

Cohen agrees: “I am so proud to be a member of this firm and to practice with these people,” he says. “Keep doing what we’re doing. Don’t stop the work ethic or the basics of what we do. Nobody does it better.”

KA Keller/Anderle LLP

UNRIVALED TRIAL LAWYERS

the

SHINING LIGHT

Pomerantz continues to shore up investor rights across industries and sectors.

At first glance, Amazon, SPACs, Jeffrey Epstein and crypto currency might not seem to have a lot in common. But they find themselves united in the crosshairs of Pomerantz, a heavyweight plaintiffs’ firm in the practice of investor-side financial services litigation. Founded in 1936, Pomerantz has long been a pioneer in the representation of defrauded investors, playing a vital role in a wide range of cutting-edge cases and shoring up investor protections with precedent-setting decisions.

The work continues: The partners at Pomerantz have secured a run of wins in the past year that are in step with the biggest trends in the space. From the tide going out on SPAC mergers to misstatements surrounding executive misconduct, the firm continues to make new law and secure recoveries for investors in the most pressing areas. “We’re a growing practice,” says Jennifer Pafiti, partner and Head of Client Services who co-manages the firm’s newest office in London, with Dr. Daniel Summerfield, while maintaining a practice in the U.S. “We’re always ready to expand to meet the needs of our clients.”

Lifting the SPAC Shell on Biotech Company Ginkgo

The Pomerantz litigation team, led by associate Brian P. O’Connell, recently survived a motion to dismiss in a case for investors against Ginkgo Bioworks, a synthetic biology company that merged with a SPAC. The case alleges that Ginkgo made false and misleading statements about its revenue, customers and value before the merger. The court denied most of Ginkgo’s motion to dismiss the case, finding that there was enough evidence of falsity and scienter.

Ginkgo’s stock dropped 12 percent after activist investors Scorpion Capital and Citron Research released two short seller reports. The reports said that the company’s self-positioning as a leader in biotechnology engineering was misrepresentative, and accused it of falsifying a strong customer base. A suit was filed, and Pomerantz was appointed lead counsel on behalf of the class of defrauded investors.

Ginkgo attempted to dismiss the case, but the court largely accepted Pomerantz’s arguments that the company knowingly misled investors. The court noted that many of Ginkgo’s so-called customers “operated out of Ginkgo’s headquarters,” and “many listed Ginkgo’s phone number as their own.” Following the court’s ruling, Pomerantz re-filed an amended complaint to address the limited portion of the complaint that the court had dismissed.

The case is part of a larger trend in the boom-and-bust history of SPACs, which became highly popular for providing a quicker and less scrutinized path to market than traditional IPOs. Now, that lack of regulatory scrutiny is coming home to roost, as investors seek recovery for the deceptions – and related investors losses – that are coming to light.

The Ginkgo case also speaks to an evolving area of the law concerning short seller reports, which the 9th Circuit does not always consider a corrective disclosure. Here, Scorpion Capital’s report involved extensive research and interviews, and the court agreed with Pomerantz’s contention that it “provided new information that was not previously reflected in the stock price.” The case is now proceeding to discovery in the Northern District of California.

Class Action to Proceed Against Wynn Resorts Leadership

Pomerantz, led by partner Murielle Stevens Walsh, recently secured class certification in a long-running, hard-fought case on behalf of Wynn Resorts shareholders surrounding alleged sexual misconduct by former CEO Steve Wynn at the company. Investors are arguing that their shares lost value after the alleged misconduct came to light in a 2018 Wall Street Journal story, and that Wynn and other executives and directors need to be held accountable for their lack of disciplinary action and misrepresentations to shareholders.

The court rejected the defendants’ arguments that their alleged misstatements had no front-end price impact on their stock, since the price didn’t increase after the statements. The court adopted Pomerantz’s argument that front-end price impact is irrelevant in a price maintenance case such as this.

The court also refused to narrow the class period or dismiss any of the lead plaintiffs. Pomerantz’s class certification win means that the case is now able to proceed in merits discovery.

Brian O’Connell

S G

Our talented team of attorneys provides our clients with the astute knowledge of a large firm practice, but with responsiveness, personal attention and sensible staffing of a smaller firm, all while delivering quality legal services effectively and efficiently. Clients receive the benefit of the firm’s proficiency across all disciplines, through handselected, integrated teams of experienced transactional and litigation lawyers.

The hallmark of our service is our attention to the needs of our clients that goes beyond the rules of professional responsibility. When representation requires litigation, we are aggressive trial lawyers, who are not afraid to fight to protect our clients’ rights. We also believe in reasonableness and cooperation, however, and adjust our representation to suit the needs of any particular client. A client who brings us a transactional matter can expect an honest and accurate appraisal of the matter and a resolution in the most practical, direct and economically feasible manner.

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In addition to addressing the specifics of price impact, the case is relevant on a societal scale in a post-#MeToo world. It’s a high-profile example of investors demanding accountability and action for the cover-up of alleged sexual misconduct at a company.

Recovery for Deutsche Bank Investors Following a Lack of Internal Controls

The social themes of the Wynn Resorts case echo another recent win for the attorneys at Pomerantz: a $26.3M settlement by Deutsche Bank to recoup losses by investors over allegedly false and misleading statements surrounding the bank’s anti-money laundering practices, which allowed the likes of Jeffrey Epstein to slip through the cracks. Remarkably, the settlement represents about 50 percent of class-wide damages, an exceptionally high figure in securities litigation.

Attorneys at Pomerantz, led by partner Emma Gilmore, brought a case against Deutsche Bank following media coverage of the bank’s relationship with Epstein, a critical report on its anti-money laundering practices by the Federal Reserve and a $150M fine from a state regulator. The stock dropped off significantly in reaction, with the bank losing millions of dollars in market capitalization.

The bank attempted to reassure investors, saying it had robust “know your customer” procedures, implemented at the start of the client relationship and regularly reviewed. In fact, Pomerantz’s complaint asserted, the bank regularly exempted high-networth individuals from any real scrutiny. Deutsche Bank’s U.S. reputational risk committee agreed to keep Epstein as a client even after learning that 40

underage girls had come forward with testimony that he had sexually assaulted them.

In addition to continuing their client relationship with Epstein, a convicted sex trafficker and pedophile, the bank was doing business with Russian oligarchs, terrorists and other criminals.

In a statement following the settlement, Gilmore said this recovery “should be a wake-up call for all corporations who choose to conduct business with unsavory characters. As a woman prosecuting the case against Deutsche Bank, this victory is all the more rewarding.”

Targeting Big Tech and Crypto

On the heels of these major wins, the attorneys at Pomerantz are setting their sights on the alleged misuse of data by major technology companies, and major frauds and misstatements in the crypto space.

The firm, led by Managing Partner Jeremy Liberman and Emma Gilmore, is lead counsel in a closely watched case against Amazon related to their use of seller data. The suit alleges that Amazon would analyze data from merchants, then use that information to create their own products. The SEC is also investigating.

In another high-profile Big Tech case, the firm is bringing a suit against Twitter over the allegations that Elon Musk made, saying that a large percentage of the site’s users were actually bots, or fake accounts. The allegations were backed up by a whistleblower. “The case is an interesting one,” says Lieberman, “because Twitter needs to respond to the claims, but the owner is the one who made the allegations.”

In the crypto sphere, the firm has a case in New York state court against Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss over alleged false and misleading statements concerning Gemini, the beleaguered cryptocurrency exchange. Gemini froze accounts last year, preventing customers from withdrawing around $900M in crypto, prompting a lawsuit from the SEC. “It’s a very large fraud and a very big mess,” says Lieberman, who is leading the firm’s case. The firm is also involved in litigation against FTX and Samuel Bankman-Fried, with similar allegations of misrepresentations and fraud.

From false statements about executive wrongdoing and corporate controls, to market manipulation by players in Big Tech and crypto, Pomerantz is fighting for investors and rooting out fraud wherever it’s found.

Jeremy LIeberman and Jennifer Pafiti

CONGRATULATIONS

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UNDERDOG Fighting for the

followed their own path to build one of

leading plaintiff practices.

Vincent Dubey (left) and Miguel Custodio.

PHOTO BY AMY CANTRELL

BY ALISON PREECE

Miguel Custodio and Vineet Dubey

Southern California’s

FROM

law school classmates to partners in a powerhouse plaintiffs’ firm, Miguel Custodio, Jr., and Vineet Dubey have dedicated their careers to fighting for regular people who find themselves in terrible circumstances through no fault of their own. Educated at UCLA Law, a top tier law school, the two friends each did the customary interview rounds with major law firms while they were students, but something didn’t feel right about it.

“They’re all defense law firms that represent the largest corporations in the world,” says Dubey. “Miguel and I both have an opposite worldview. We want to help the little guy take on those corporations.”

Custodio started out working in family law, first at a major firm on the west side of Los Angeles and then under his own marquee. Dubey hung his own shingle soon after, doing plaintiff civil law. They kept in regular touch during this time, batting around ideas and comparing experiences as young lawyers pursuing the dream of increasing access to justice. Custodio grew up in the Los Angeles area with a large network of family and friends. Once he became a lawyer – the first in his family to do so – he was regularly asked if he did civil law, primarily on the plaintiff’s side. He started mentioning this to Dubey.

“I said hey, if you can get some good civil cases, let’s work together on them, split fees and see how it goes,” recalls Dubey. After testing the waters this way for a couple years, the two men realized that they worked well together, were seeing success, and were starting to grow some recognition.

“It just made all the sense in the world for us to formally partner up,” says Dubey.

Their first case as an official partnership was a real estate dispute between a mother and daughter. The family element meant that it was an inherently emotional battle for both parties. What’s more, their client (the mother) could not afford an attorney. They took the case on contingency.

They were working out of a single office in Pasadena with just two desks, two minds, and pure conviction. The litigation lasted a year and a half, and in the end, they were able to secure complete title to the property for their client.

“It can be daunting, going out on your own, taking a lot of cases on contingency,” says Custodio. “It helped so much to have a partner who shared my

optimism and faith that it would work out. We both felt that if we worked hard, stayed committed and did the right things, we would be successful.”

The faith proved well-founded.

Ten years since they officially minted the partnership, they’ve seen a steady influx of cases, as they secure win after win for injured individuals who might not otherwise have been able to see justice.

“We represent the little guy,” says Custodio. Working in conjunction with leading personal injury firms in California – Nick Rowley and Courtney Rowley at Trial Lawyers For Justice, Carpenter & Zuckerman, and The Simon Law Group – they recently secured a $35M dollar settlement on behalf of a client who suffered a severe traumatic brain injury. They have achieved justice for countless people who have been injured, severely or not, by the negligence of others.

“Too often, there are policies and procedures in place, but they’re just not followed, and people end up getting hurt,” says Custodio. “That’s where we come in.”

Getting in the Trenches

Custodio & Dubey frequently go to bat up against large, well-resourced insurance companies and have landed some serious hits on major corporations, including Spark Networks and Starbucks.

Spark Networks owns a suite of dating apps, including EliteSingles, Jdate, and Christian Mingle. In 2013, two gay men went to sign up for Christian Mingle, only to discover there was no option to search for a same-sex match.

Custodio & Dubey brought a class action suit against Sparks under California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act, which protects against discrimination by any commercial enterprises in the state.

“The website was excluding lesbian and gay people from accessing it, which is clear discrimination by a for-profit corporation,” says Dubey. “We were able to force them to change their practices to be more inclusive.”

In another civil rights case with an extensive impact, the firm brought a case against Starbucks under the Americans with Disabilities Act over the height of their service counters, which were too high for people in wheelchairs to access.

The firm technically lost the case – but only because

Starbucks mooted the lawsuit by quickly lowering all their service counters across the country, while “engaging in delaying tactics in order to stall the litigation,” says Dubey. “At one point, in response to a document request, Starbucks opened up a warehouse in Kent, Wash., filled with thousands of boxes of documents, and basically said good luck.” Custodio and Dubey spent weeks in Kent and hired temporary workers to help them go through and scan the documents, in order to find what was necessary for their construction experts to examine.

“We consider it a win,” says Custodio, “because now disabled people can safely and independently get their own drink at Starbucks.”

“We also learned a lot in that case,” adds Dubey. “It helped us become better lawyers.”

car crashes. His caseload runs the gamut from more straight-forward, single plaintiff cases to multi-faceted suits involving several defense law firms and commercial insurance policies with layers of coverage.

But one case that stands out in his memory involved an autistic child injured at school – and the widespread cover up that followed.

“He was 13 years old, nonverbal,” says Custodio. “One day he came home from school and couldn’t stop crying. The parents asked the aide, who is meant to be by his side, one-on-one, throughout the entire school day – what happened? The aide said they didn’t know, which is right away implausible.”

Since the child couldn’t verbally communicate, it

These days, Dubey’s practice is primarily focused on environmental law, specifically on bringing actions against companies that are selling products with toxic chemicals in violation of California law, often manufactured overseas. He finds himself doing a lot of work against food companies over lead in their products, the result of contaminated groundwater and a lack of sufficient testing.

He’s also handling cases against sellers of children’s products that have been found to have lead in them, as well as a number of cases involving phthalates, a widely used chemical in rubbers and plastics that causes cancer and other serious health issues.

“It’s dangerous stuff,” says Dubey. “We’re doing what we can to spread the word and clean up these products. Ultimately, the federal government needs to take a more active role because this is happening on a widespread scale.”

Custodio’s practice is centered more around catastrophic personal injury, frequently involving

took time to figure out what was wrong. “He was non-stop crying for days,” says Custodio, as his parents took him to various doctors. Someone finally x-rayed his wrist and discovered it was broken – two weeks later.

Custodio took on the case and went into detective-mode, poring through documents and research. He discovered deep negligence that included a cover-up of the boy’s injury by the teacher and the director of the school. When he shared his extensive findings with his client, the student’s mom, she burst into tears.

“She felt that finally somebody was able to really understand their plight,” says Custodio.

He sent a 14-page demand letter to the insurance company and settled the case shortly thereafter.

“Those are the clients that we want to get justice for,” says Dubey. “It’s important. They are generally the kind of people who get left out, and we want to change that.”

Dubey and Custodio are both first-generation Americans, with parents who immigrated from India and Guatemala, respectively. That background has given them a compassionate approach to their legal work.

Growing to Meet the Demand

The success of the partnership has brought them a long way from that one-office operation in Pasadena. Operating now out of the 25th floor of a skyscraper in downtown Los Angeles, the team has six offices and a large bullpen of staff, from paralegals to digital marketing specialists.

Managing a firm that’s growing quickly to keep up with demand is a blessing, but not without its challenges. “They don’t teach you how to run a business in law school,” says Custodio. They’ve both been taking corporate coaching to hone their management skillsets.

“Along with actually practicing law, through growing a business, managing employees, building systems, hiring vendors, marketing, advertising,” says Dubey, “we’ve gotten real-life MBAs.”

They’re careful to build at a steady pace, making sure they’re ready for the influx of work that’s been coming in, but not over-extending themselves to the point where they would have to suddenly reduce their workforce.

“When you’re running a business,” says Custodio, “you need to remember that in your hands are the livelihoods of everybody in your office.”

They also work promote a collegial and friendly office culture, a place that can feel like a second home.

“Neither of us wanted to work in these big buttoned-up, corporate environments,” says Custodio. “We’re serious about our work, but we also want to have a good time at the office.” To that end, they have regular outings with staff and “over the top” holiday and birthday celebrations.

“We also pride ourselves in how well we treat our clients and how much care we give to each of their cases,” adds Dubey. “As the work increases, we need to have the staff and systems in place so that

every client gets that same level of high-quality care and attention.”

Dubey and Custodio are both first-generation Americans, with parents who immigrated from India and Guatemala, respectively. That background has given them a compassionate approach to their legal work. This insight is especially helpful in L.A., with its high number of inhabitants who speak only Spanish or otherwise don’t have English as a first language, and might not fully understand their rights under the law.

“My mom doesn’t speak much English,” says Custodio. “If she went to an attorney, she would put 100 percent faith in them. So I want to make sure that every client that comes in through our door, we take care of them as we would our own family members.

“We go the extra mile. We make sure they’re well informed about everything. We reassure them along the way and make sure that we explain every step.”

In addition to their client work, the partners are currently developing a scholarship program for underrepresented kids in high school and at their alma mater, UCLA.

It’s just another way they’re working to give back, as they know what a difference these programs can make: In undergrad, Custodio joined the UCLA law fellows outreach program. The program is for students from diverse backgrounds who haven’t necessarily been exposed to graduate studies and helps them navigate the experience to ensure success.

“It’s an extension of our work with clients, part of the same ethos,” says Dubey. “We want to help provide justice and opportunities for individuals that might otherwise be overlooked. That’s what it’s all about.”

They frequently go to bat up against large, well-resourced insurance companies and have landed some serious hits on major corporations, including Spark Networks and Starbucks.

WE ARE AN INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS FIRM ADVISING AMBITIOUS, COMPLEX ORGANIZATIONS. WE PROVIDE THE EXPERIENCE, SKILLS AND INSIGHT TO DRIVE YOUR BRAND FORWARD OR, IN SPECIAL SITUATIONS, DEPLOY THE STRATEGIES TO DEFEND YOU FROM REPUTATIONAL RISK.

LEADING LEGAL CONSULTANTS AND STRATEGISTS

attorneys:

PLAINTIFF FINANCIAL LAWYERS

A. Rick Atwood, Jr., Aelish Marie Baig, Randall Baron, James Barz, Erin Boardman, Luke Brooks, Spencer Burkholz, Jennifer Caringal, Desiree Cummings, Stuart Davidson, Mark Dearman, Travis Downs III, Daniel Drosman, Jason Forge, Paul Geller, Elise Grace, Tor Gronborg, Robert Henssler, Jr., James Jaconette, Rachel Jensen, Chad Johnson, Laurie Largent, David Mitchell, Danielle Myers, Erika Oliver, Willow Radcliffe, Darren Robbins, Robert Robbins, Robert Rothman, Samuel Rudman, Joseph Russello, Scott Saham, Jessica Shinnefield, Mark Solomon, Shawn Williams, Debra Wyman

PLAINTIFF CONSUMER LAWYERS

Dory Antullis, Aelish Marie Baig, Stuart Davidson, Mark Dearman, Paul Geller, Rachel Jensen

These lawyers are on the front lines for investors who’ve lost millions, individuals who’ve had their data stolen and small businesses who’ve been bamboozled by financial predators. They’re tough, they’re rough and we’re delighted they are dragons.

As the late and very very great James Caan as Sonny Corleone said, “Tom, this is business. And this man is taking it very, very personal.”

It takes a lot to stand up to big business, which has all the resources in the world at its disposal. And it takes a certain kind of lawyer to relish untangling the layers and layers of seemingly mundane documentation wherein lies the misrepresentation and fraud. This group of amazing plaintiff lawyers principally represents plaintiffs in antitrust, whistleblower, securities fraud, business torts and disputes, and increasingly data privacy claims. Those individuals denoted with an asterisk are members ofthe Lawdragon Hall of Fame.

A mission of Lawdragon is to support and encourage a more inclusive legal profession. This guide is 32 percent female and 16 percent inclusive. So with all due respect to The Godfather, these men – and women – take it personal. It’s 2022 after all.

Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.

Michael Absmeier

GIBBS & BRUNS

HOUSTON

J. Daniel Albert

KESSLER TOPAZ

RADNOR, PA.

Anthony Alden

QUINN EMANUEL

LOS ANGELES

Abe Alexander

BERNSTEIN LITOWITZ

NEW YORK Fields Alexander

BECK REDDEN

HOUSTON

Jeff Almeida

GRANT & EISENHOFER

WILMINGTON

Parvin Aminolroaya

SEEGER WEISS

NEW YORK

Naumon Amjed

KESSLER TOPAZ

RADNOR, PA.

Jeffrey Angelovich

NIX PATTERSON

AUSTIN

Michael Angelovich

NIX PATTERSON

AUSTIN

Seth Ard

SUSMAN GODFREY

NEW YORK

Edward Arens

PHILLIPS & COHEN

SAN FRANCISCO

Gregory Asciolla

DICELLO LEVITT

NEW YORK

A. Rick Atwood Jr.

ROBBINS GELLER

SAN DIEGO

Gary L. Azorsky

COHEN MILSTEIN

PHILADELPHIA

Aelish Marie Baig

ROBBINS GELLER

SAN FRANCISCO

Clayton Bailey

BAILEY BRAUER

DALLAS

Rafey Balabanian

EDELSON

SAN FRANCISCO

Sean Baldwin

SELENDY GAY

NEW YORK

Barney Balonick

BALONICK LAW OFFICES

LOS ANGELES

Lauren Guth Barnes

HAGENS BERMAN

CAMBRIDGE, MASS.

Alexander Barnett

COTCHETT

NEW YORK

Barry Barnett

SUSMAN GODFREY

HOUSTON

Randall Baron

ROBBINS GELLER

SAN DIEGO

David Barrett

BOIES SCHILLER

NEW YORK

Michael Barry

GRANT & EISENHOFER

WILMINGTON

James Barz

ROBBINS GELLER

CHICAGO

Zina Bash

KELLER POSTMAN

AUSTIN

Samuel Baxter*

MCKOOL SMITH

MARSHALL, TEXAS

Bradley Beckworth

NIX PATTERSON

AUSTIN

Matthew Behncke

SUSMAN GODFREY

HOUSTON

Eric J. Belfi

LABATON SUCHAROW

NEW YORK

Katherine L. Benson

LIEFF CABRASER

SAN FRANCISCO

Daniel Berger*

BERGER MONTAGUE

PHILADELPHIA

Daniel Berger*

GRANT & EISENHOFER

NEW YORK

Max Berger*

BERNSTEIN LITOWITZ

NEW YORK

Avi Josefson

BERNSTEIN LITOWITZ (CHICAGO)

AVI JOSEFSON

AVI JOSEFSON HAS A UNIQUE PRACTICE IN

the securities space: He and his team at Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann (BLB&G) monitor all potential claims for their vast and varied client base of institutional investors, and advise on whether to pursue an action. They sift through the noise and decide which cases have legs.

Josefson brings a perspective formed by his experience litigating securities claims to his leadership role in the firm’s case development and client advisory group. He started as an associate at BLB&G just before a lot of the large accounting frauds broke in 2000 and 2001, including Enron and WorldCom and the blow up of Arthur Andersen.

“I joined the firm and immediately saw that a lot of our cases become front-page news,” he says. He cut his teeth as a young securities lawyer, first working on those accounting frauds and later prosecuting cases arising from the subprime mortgage crisis and the fraudulent sale of mortgage-backed securities.

In his current role, he’s touching all the cases that the firm chooses to prosecute. He’s in regular contact with the firm’s large client base, evaluating cases based on legal merit as well as what types of issues are important to the funds and their boards.

In addition to securities lawyers like himself, Josefson’s group is made up of financial analysts and investigators. They use proprietary tools “to quickly and consistently review the trading of institutions with tens of billions of dollars of investment data,” says Josefson, “to quickly identify not just the relevant securities, but the trading patterns across multiple accounts.”

The group monitors many of the portfolios for the largest institutions in the U.S. and throughout Europe, including public entities and pension funds. Josefson and his team recently identified claims against Allianz Global Investors that were both meritorious and important for their clients, and pursued a set of cases that many other law firms had passed over. The result: nearly $2B in recoveries.

Lawdragon: You’re a leader of your firm’s case development and client advisory group. Can you walk us through what that entails?

Avi Josefson: We have over 300 institutional investors, who have retained the firm to advise them on an ongoing basis about potential claims that arise

BY ALISON PREECE

from their investment activity. Those institutions range from Taft-Hartley funds for different trades, like plumbers, carpenters, electrical workers, to pension funds of all asset sizes and members, including teachers, police officers, firefighters, state and municipal employees and some very large U.S. and European pension funds, as well as private investment funds.

What we’re charged to do through those retentions is to scrutinize their investment portfolios and monitor for potential claims through which the pension funds can take action to protect the investments of their pension holders. We let them know proactively when they’ve incurred a loss that may be the result of corporate misconduct, securities fraud or breaches of duty. Our group is constantly analyzing market movements and new developments within companies and across industries. If we identify a situation where a company appears to have been engaged in misconduct, we’re investigating those claims, developing potential causes of action, and checking which of our clients have invested in that company during the period of potential misconduct.

We identify whether they have a real financial interest and the potential size of their claim. Then we advise on their litigation options, which can include being involved in a class action, a direct individual action, or a governance claim such as a claim for a breach of duty. Our clients typically get involved if they’re going to have a leadership role in the case, as lead plaintiff or co-lead plaintiff. So we advise on the merits of the case, whether it will benefit from their leadership and whether their institution would benefit from taking an active role in it.

LD: It sounds like a fun role, seeing many potential cases and deciding which have merit.

AJ: Exactly. Having started my practice at the firm litigating, I’d work on three or four cases and live with those cases for several years. Here, I delve into a half dozen different cases each week, often involving different companies and types of misconduct. In some of them, it’s apparent immediately if it’s a potential case or not. Others we might investigate and look at for weeks or longer. Our clients rely on us to review all the new cases that are filed. There’s a lot of filtering that goes on to identify the high quality, meritorious cases that would be of interest to our clients.

LD: What does your team look like?

PHOTO BY MICHELLE NOLAN

Stuart L. Berman

KESSLER TOPAZ

RADNOR, PA.

Norman Berman*

BERMAN TABACCO BOSTON

Steve Berman*

HAGENS BERMAN

SEATTLE

Alexandra Bernay

ROBBINS GELLER

SAN DIEGO

Matthew Berry

SUSMAN GODFREY

SEATTLE

Julia Beskin

QUINN EMANUEL

NEW YORK

Vineet Bhatia

SUSMAN GODFREY

HOUSTON

Michael Blatchley

BERNSTEIN LITOWITZ

NEW YORK

Jeffrey Block

BLOCK & LEVITON BOSTON

Erin Boardman

ROBBINS GELLER

MELVILLE, N.Y.

David Bocian

KESSLER TOPAZ

RADNOR, PA.

David Boies*

BOIES SCHILLER

ARMONK, N.Y.

Swathi Bojedla HAUSFELD

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Craig Boneau

REID COLLINS AUSTIN

Amanda Bonn

SUSMAN GODFREY

LOS ANGELES

Rebecca Boon

BERNSTEIN LITOWITZ

NEW YORK

Lawrence Brandman

CADWALADER

NEW YORK

John Briody

MCKOOL SMITH

NEW YORK

AJ: The senior partners on the team with me are Jerry Silk and Hannah Ross. I’ve been working with both of them for over 20 years now, and we are supported by a team of attorneys focused on this. We also have financial analysts who analyze the clients’ trading, which can be quite complex.

We also have analysts who work with our attorneys in scrutinizing the markets and identifying relevant news. I’m constantly getting updates from them about what they’re seeing in the markets, both macro and very specific, regarding the companies our clients are invested in that we are investigating.

We also have a team of in-house investigators who do two things. One is assisting us when we’re initially looking at these cases, to help determine whether they are potentially meritorious. Then when we have a case that we’re litigating, the investigators work with litigation teams to develop facts to buttress our pleadings.

We frequently work with outside experts as well. That could be accounting experts when we have a forensic accounting issue, or industry area experts when we’re investigating a company that might be involved in some particular area that we want to better understand, like oil or commodities or a specific technology issue.

It’s great to be able to work day-to-day with analysts, investigators and our financial team. It’s a unique law practice, being able to work with so many great, smart, business professionals in addition to a stellar legal team.

LD: And you must be working closely with the clients, too.

AJ: Yes, that is the best part. We’re in frequent contact, and we have a wide range of clients. Many of them are public employees, school teachers and police officers or union workers. They’re so committed to these assets they’re managing for their members; it’s not academic for them. So when they hear about wrongdoing that impacts their pension plans, their beneficiaries, it’s meaningful to them.

At the same time, we work with elected officials, such as state attorneys general or treasurers who have responsibility for state pension systems, as well as large, private institutions, including many outside the U.S. It’s interesting and challenging, having that broad of a client base.

LD: Are certain types of cases of interest to some clients and not others?

AJ: Yes, especially since we have such a varied client base. Certain clients, when they’re evaluating a potential claim, simply want to understand if they have

a significant financial loss and whether the claims are meritorious and there’s a chance of recovering those losses. Others are driven by concerns for governance and other ESG issues.

There was a wave of cases in the last few years since the #MeToo movement gained traction, for instance, where public companies were exposed for having policies that fostered harassment or for covering up mistreatment of certain employees, particularly women. Certain clients started saying, yes, we want to use our position as shareholders to address that misconduct.

LD: Are there other trends you’re seeing these days?

AJ: ESG has been overlapping with the SPAC [Special Purpose Acquisition Company] trend, which we’ve seen a lot in the last year and a half. SPACs were very popular vehicles for a time, and we are now seeing many instances of apparent fraud in companies that went public through a SPAC transaction.

Perhaps the greatest confluence between SPACs and ESG has been in some of the environmental startups, especially electric vehicles. Many EV companies went public in the last couple of years through SPACs. And several of those EV companies subsequently became embroiled in securities litigation, for over-promising and under-delivering to their shareholders.

There’s an interesting inflection point, where you have institutional investors, many of which are charged with ESG mandates, looking for opportunities to satisfy their ESG investment obligations. So to the extent that institutional money is chasing ESG compliant dollars, there’s certainly a market for people who can get a public company out there that is environmentally conscious.

And while there certainly is demand for electric vehicles, when you look at the recent performance of some of those public companies, it’s potentially a warning sign to investors to be somewhat cautious with the ESG mandates, especially with some of these new companies that have gone public through SPACs.

LD: What else are you seeing in the market?

AJ: We had a period with a long bull market, where stocks were going up, sometimes irrespective of negative news the companies might put out. What we’re seeing now, with a lot more volatility, is that when companies do release negative news, the market might be more realistic and reactionary to the news being announced. The market volatility keeps our group busy, because of course that creates more potential investment losses that our clients need

Daniel Brockett

QUINN EMANUEL

NEW YORK

Davida Brook

SUSMAN GODFREY

LOS ANGELES

Luke Brooks

ROBBINS GELLER

SAN DIEGO

Allison Brouk

KANNER & WHITELEY

NEW ORLEANS

Alex Brown

THE LANIER LAW FIRM

HOUSTON

Benjamin Brown

COHEN MILSTEIN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Deborah K. Brown

QUINN EMANUEL

NEW YORK

Ronald A. Brown Jr.

PRICKETT JONES

WILMINGTON

John Browne

BERNSTEIN LITOWITZ

NEW YORK

Devon Bruce

POWER ROGERS

CHICAGO

Joshua Bruckerhoff

REID COLLINS AUSTIN

Gustavo Bruckner

POMERANTZ

NEW YORK

David Buchanan

SEEGER WEISS

NEW YORK

Jacob Buchdahl

SUSMAN GODFREY

NEW YORK

Michael Buchman

MOTLEY RICE

NEW YORK

Cory Buland

SUSMAN GODFREY

NEW YORK

S. Douglas Bunch

COHEN MILSTEIN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Spencer Burkholz

ROBBINS GELLER

SAN DIEGO

us to look at, to analyze and identify situations that may be the result of misconduct, as opposed to just market forces.

LD: So, once you’ve done the initial evaluation of the case, do you pass it off to your partners?

AJ: It depends. We typically stay on in a client advisory role, but our group can’t litigate every case we analyze for our clients, so a litigation team usually steps in. But there are exceptions. Recently, Hannah and I were involved in starting a group of cases involving Allianz, which are just now wrapping up. Allianz had a number of investment funds that blew up in the first quarter of the pandemic. Those were very interesting, complicated cases. We ended up filing seven lawsuits, but represented several dozen other investors. The total recoveries, all in direct actions or negotiated settlements, were close to $2B. LD: And that was a case you identified early on?

AJ: Yes, we were the first firm to develop and file those cases. We filed the first case for the Arkansas Teacher Retirement System. Some other law firms tried to file as a class action, which we believed from the outset wouldn’t work. That class action was ultimately voluntarily dropped. What we learned as we pursued the Allianz cases was that other law firms in our bar had looked at these claims and advised clients not to pursue them, because they didn’t think they were going to pan out and be meritorious.

Some of the losses were at the level where, early in the case, it wasn’t clear if that would be effective or efficient for them to begin litigating. But the losses were very material to certain of our clients, which included nonprofi t foundations and small college endowments. We were really motivated to find a way to help them recover what we could, and were ultimately able to get them the same pro rata recovery as larger institutions, by helping to coordinate a large group of investors and really buttress their efforts. It was very gratifying and meaningful to been able to secure those recoveries for our clients.

LD: How did you move into this type of role?

AJ: I was a fourth or fifth year associate when I was asked to join this group. At first I resisted it, because I was getting to the point of having more of a hands-on, leadership role in my cases, and I was worried that focusing instead on analyzing new cases would take me away from that. But that was completely wrong. I got plenty of litigation experience, depositions and arguments, and it’s an excellent education in securi-

ties litigation. We see so many cases and analyze so many different situations, that it really forces you to be smart about the different types of cases, identifying all the risks at the outset and carefully assessing the likelihood of success.

LD: What would you say is uniquely challenging about this role?

AJ: The challenging aspects are also what makes it all so interesting. You’re always juggling multiple cases at once. When there is breaking news about a major company and the stock goes down, that abruptly changes your to-do list for the day.

The other real challenge is, because the federal securities laws don’t permit discovery at the outset of these cases, you’re really working to complete a jigsaw puzzle without all the pieces, or even knowing how many pieces there are. The pleading standards in these cases are quite high. So without a lot of information, you’re trying to determine whether there was fraud, whether there was intentional misrepresentations and misconduct, and also trying to understand, what’s a likely path for discovery? Do we think we’re going to be able to find more sources of information in these cases?

LD: Did you ever imagine you’d have this kind of practice when you were back in law school?

AJ: I can’t say that I did, but I did know back then that I wanted to do something meaningful with my law degree. I had a great time at Northwestern. It was a great school, very collegial. They have a robust clinic practice, and I really dove into that.

It was a juvenile delinquency and juvenile rights clinic, and I got to have a lot of time in court and working directly with kids in Chicago who had been impacted with gang violence and drugs, exposed to a lot of horrific experiences and put into difficult situations.

That was completely foreign to me, from my upbringing. It was a formative experience, being able to work on some of those cases.

It was also relatively soon after Columbine. Schools, including Chicago Public Schools, were imposing zero tolerance policies. We did a lot of work with kids, not only on criminal matters and delinquency matters, but fighting to keep them in schools and give them some basic representation when they made mistakes that were threatening to lead to expulsion. That early experience cemented in me the notion that lawyers have the ability to really make a difference in people’s lives.

Warren Burns

BURNS CHAREST

DALLAS

Elaine Byszewski

HAGENS BERMAN

PASADENA, CALIF.

Elizabeth Cabraser*

LIEFF CABRASER

SAN FRANCISCO

Diane Cafferata

QUINN EMANUEL

LOS ANGELES

Peter Calamari*

TENNOR

NEW YORK

Regina Calcaterra

CALCATERRA POLLACK

NEW YORK

Ophelia Camiña

SUSMAN GODFREY

HOUSTON

Jeffrey Campisi

KAPLAN FOX

NEW YORK

Michael Canty

LABATON SUCHAROW

NEW YORK

name name FIRM FIRM FIRM (CITY)

Robert Carey

HAGENS BERMAN

PHOENIX

Jennifer Caringal

ROBBINS GELLER

SAN DIEGO

Michael Carlinsky

QUINN EMANUEL

NEW YORK

Bill Carmody

SUSMAN GODFREY

NEW YORK

George Carpinello

BOIES SCHILLER

ALBANY, N.Y.

Shanon Carson

BERGER MONTAGUE

PHILADELPHIA

Johnny Carter

SUSMAN GODFREY

HOUSTON

Timothy J. Casey

BEUS GILBERT

PHOENIX

Laura Kissel Cassidy

GIBBS & BRUNS

HOUSTON

Gregory Castaldo

KESSLER TOPAZ

RADNOR, PA.

Ryan Caughey

SUSMAN GODFREY

HOUSTON

Lin Chan

LIEFF CABRASER

SAN FRANCISCO

Daniel Charest

BURNS CHAREST

DALLAS

Peter Wilson Chatfield

PHILLIPS & COHEN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Daniel Chiplock

LIEFF CABRASER

NEW YORK

Michael Ciresi*

CIRESI CONLIN

MINNEAPOLIS

Joy Clairmont

BERGER MONTAGUE

PHILADELPHIA

Deborah Clark-Weintraub

SCOTT + SCOTT

NEW YORK

Keith Cohan

REID COLLINS

AUSTIN

Mary Louise Cohen

PHILLIPS & COHEN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

David Colapinto

KOHN, KOHN & COLAPINTO

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Scott Cole

QUINN EMANUEL

AUSTIN

Todd S. Collins

BERGER MONTAGUE

PHILADELPHIA

Erin Green Comite

SCOTT + SCOTT

COLCHESTER, CONN.

Jan Conlin*

CIRESI CONLIN

MINNEAPOLIS

Nathan Cook

BLOCK & LEVITON

WILMINGTON

Melinda Coolidge

HAUSFELD

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Jon Corey

MCKOOL SMITH

LOS ANGELES

Christopher Cormier

BURNS CHAREST

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Joseph Cotchett*

COTCHETT

BURLINGAME, CALIF.

Patrick Coughlin*

ROBBINS GELLER

SAN DIEGO

Eric L. Cramer

BERGER MONTAGUE

PHILADELPHIA

Gary Cruciani

MCKOOL SMITH

DALLAS

Sam Cruse III

GIBBS & BRUNS

HOUSTON

Desiree Cummings

ROBBINS GELLER

NEW YORK

Patrick Dahlstrom*

POMERANTZ

CHICAGO

Patrick Daniels

ROBBINS GELLER

SAN DIEGO

Kenneth David

KASOWITZ

NEW YORK

Merrill Davidoff*

BERGER MONTAGUE

PHILADELPHIA

Stuart Davidson

ROBBINS GELLER

BOCA RATON

A.J. de Bartolomeo

TADLER LAW

SAN FRANCISCO

Mark Dearman

ROBBINS GELLER

BOCA RATON

Timothy DeLange

WOLLMUTH MAHER

CARLSBAD, CALIF.

Michael Dell’Angelo

BERGER MONTAGUE

PHILADELPHIA

Marisa DeMato

SAXENA WHITE

NEW YORK

Nimish Desai

LIEFF CABRASER

SAN FRANCISCO

Nicholas Diamand

LIEFF CABRASER

NEW YORK

Jeffrey Dickstein

PHILLIPS & COHEN

MIAMI

Kirk Dillman

MCKOOL SMITH

LOS ANGELES

Manuel J. Dominguez

COHEN MILSTEIN

PALM BEACH GARDENS, FLA.

Kathleen Donovan-Maher

BERMAN TABACCO

BOSTON

Diane Doolittle

QUINN EMANUEL

REDWOOD SHORES, CALIF.

Mike Dowd*

ROBBINS GELLER

SAN DIEGO

Travis Downs III

ROBBINS GELLER

SAN DIEGO

Michelle Drake

BERGER MONTAGUE

MINNEAPOLIS

Daniel Drosman

ROBBINS GELLER

SAN DIEGO

Thomas Dubbs*

LABATON SUCHAROW

NEW YORK

Suzanne Dugan

COHEN MILSTEIN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Andrew Dunlap

SELENDY GAY

NEW YORK Rogge Dunn

ROGGE DUNN GROUP

DALLAS

Amy Easton

PHILLIPS & COHEN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Jay Edelson

EDELSON

CHICAGO

Sam Edwards

SHEPHERD SMITH

HOUSTON

Jeremy Lieberman POMERANTZ (NEW YORK)

JEREMY LIEBERMAN

DOUBLE BUST: JEREMY LIEBERMAN TALKS CRYPTO AND SPACS

The market volatility in the last couple years has turned the tide on two prior market darlings: SPACs and crypto. We spoke with securities litigation heavyweight Jeremy Lieberman about the downturns of both, which he sees as inherently fraud-prone and speculative products that almost scream, “investor beware.”

SPACs have “less regulation, disclosure and transparency” than traditional IPOs, says Lieberman, which can make them attractive for companies but risky for investors. Similarly, crypto dodges the regulatory scrutiny of traditional currencies and other financial products, which gets some people excited but “ultimately leaves investors unprotected.” Without strict regulation by the SEC or other bodies to prevent investor losses in these products, litigators are left cleaning up after the bust.

Lieberman is the Managing Partner of Pomerantz, a leading securities litigation firm. He led the historic litigation against Petrobras, the mammoth Brazilian oil company involved in a massive corruption scandal. The $3B settlement he secured for damaged investors was the largest securities class action settlement involving a foreign issuer and the fifth largest ever in the U.S. He also litigated against Yahoo! for its data breaches, BP for its oil spill, and other cases involving fraud, insider dealing, or corporate governance issues.

Lieberman is widely recognized as a titan of the plaintiffs’ bar, and a formidable adversary for defense firms.

Lawdragon: So you’re seeing a parallel between the waning popularity of SPACs and the recent spate of investigations against crypto companies?

Jeremy Lieberman: Yes, because these are both frauds that anyone with a bit of a skeptical eye, as I think all investors should have, could see from the start. As a litigator, I don’t consider myself a veteran in the market but we’re watching it and we’re involved in the trends of the securities markets. Both SPACs and crypto were just very specious enterprises that were generating huge amounts of buzz and a huge amount of money. They were making people with bizarre personalities, billionaires. It was rewarding the eccentric and the fraudulent.

BY ALISON PREECE

You just saw this bust coming, I believe, miles away. Now there’s a wide swath of securities fraud lawsuits that have been triggered as a result of this trend. It shouldn’t be a surprise. The question really is, why did the SEC allow these SPACs to get on board to become public? Why wasn’t there more scrutiny?

Crypto, the same thing. The SEC has tried to clamp down, but once again, too little too late. Now investors and litigators are picking up the pieces on these issues. There’ll be some large cases and then there’ll be some material recoveries but it’s always better to catch these things before they break.

The main allure of a SPAC was the fact that there was less regulation and fewer disclosure requirements. People didn’t want to go through the rigor of a traditional IPO, they didn’t want to give past financial statements. In an IPO you can’t make forward-looking statements and give projections about future growth; in a SPAC you can. Stripping all the protections from an IPO and putting them on the market, that’s what made a SPAC attractive. For an investor, for a regulator, that means less transparency and less protections when these instruments are being used.

LD: Are there any SPAC cases that stand out to you as particularly egregious?

JL: Take the Nikola case, where they used a SPAC to come to market. Nikola was an electronic truck company whose CEO was Trevor Milton. They spoke about how they made their own products, and they were able to run a truck efficiently on hydrogen. All sorts of boastful representations. Turns out, they didn’t have even a working automobile. For a video, they took a truck and dragged it up a mountain then let gravity roll it down. The technology never worked, it was never operational, yet they were able to bring it to market through a SPAC.

There was also the Danimer case, where this company is talking about producing biodegradable plastic. It sounds great but there is no such thing as biodegradable plastic. I think we all know that. You can’t take plastic and put it in the sea, it’s not going to just dissolve organically. Just claims about things that people would like to believe about the world, that you could run a truck on air, or you can take plastic and make it

PHOTO BY LAURA BARISONZI

Jay Eisenhofer*

GRANT & EISENHOFER

NEW YORK

Michael B. Eisenkraft

COHEN MILSTEIN

NEW YORK

Robert Eisler

GRANT & EISENHOFER

WILMINGTON

Dennis Ellis

ELLIS GEORGE

LOS ANGELES

Justin Ellis

MOLOLAMKEN

NEW YORK

Deborah Elman

GARWIN GERSTEIN

NEW YORK

David Elsberg

SELENDY GAY

NEW YORK

Michael Elsner

MOTLEY RICE

MT. PLEASANT, S.C.

Candice Enders

BERGER MONTAGUE

PHILADELPHIA

Donald Enright

LEVI & KORSINSKY

WASHINGTON, D.C.

John Eubanks

MOTLEY RICE

MT. PLEASANT, S.C.

Eric Fastiff

LIEFF CABRASER

SAN FRANCISCO

Alfred Fatale III

LABATON SUCHAROW

NEW YORK

Leonid Feller

QUINN EMANUEL CHICAGO

Kenneth Fetterman

KELLOGG HANSEN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Julie Fieber COTCHETT

BURLINGAME, CALIF.

Edward Filusch

KASOWITZ

NEW YORK

Steven Fineman

LIEFF CABRASER

NEW YORK

biodegradable, run by people with very little business experience, and sometimes very young people.

LD: And with crypto? The big headlines, of course, are around FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried.

JL: He’s an example of just a bizarre character who was somehow able to dupe investors out of billions and billions of dollars. A really unfortunate lesson for investors. We’re still dealing with the repercussions, and we’ll see people promoting cryptocurrency still. There are still legitimate people saying, “Bitcoin is still a good business, is still a good investment.” Someone maybe one day will explain to me what Bitcoin is exactly and who’s behind it. They don’t even knows who’s behind Bitcoin, they don’t even know the identity of these people. People invested trillions of dollars in this coin.

The absurd is taking over the markets. There are many things that people just really want to believe, so there’s a lot of excitement and a lot of hype around false promises, and ultimately investors get caught holding the bag. The remuneration for investors and the recompense, while important, it’s not the cure. You never get 100 percent of the money back, you never can. And recovery is a years-long process. It’s an important job, being a securities litigator. That’s the business we’re in, and we do the best we can, but there are a lot of frauds and issues that should never happen in the first place.

LD: Are these just the latest examples of frauds that we always see in corners of the marketplace? Or are you seeing a significant uptick in fraudulent products or practices?

JL: Well, you saw it in the dot-com bubble and bust. Maybe I was younger and less cynical at the time. But these days I think the issue is that you see more of a desire for people, both retail investors and even more

established investors, to want to believe in certain things and certain people. If it sounds good, they’ll invest in it. There’s a lack of skepticism.

We all want to have a car that’s green-friendly. We all want it, we all want that to happen, and we hope we find it one day. I’m no scientist but it seems to be pretty hard to get that done in an efficient manner. But people want to believe it. If someone comes and promises that he can do it, and tells you he can do it cheaply, a lot of people are going to invest in him, even people who are supposed to be veterans. There’s more gullibility in the marketplace. People want to believe that there are easy solutions to these problems. If someone says, “Yes, I have a solution,” and they’re charismatic, and they know how to create a buzz, they can make a lot more money now than they could have years ago.

LD: How about the banks’ role when it comes to SPACs?

JL: It’s critical question. Just like, where is the SEC? Where are gatekeepers? Goldman Sachs was the number two underwriter of SPACs in 2021, underwriting tens of billions of dollars’ worth of SPAC deals. By the end of 2022, they decided they will no longer underwrite SPACs and they will no longer provide investment bank services to SPACs. They’ve washed their hands of SPACs. What does that tell you about all the work they did in 2020 and 2021 when they were peddling SPACs to investors, and all the fees they earned from them? Are they going to return those fees? To see that type of activity, to see one of the biggest promoters of SPACs completely withdraw from the business is telling, as far as how dubious these businesses are. The gatekeepers turned a blind eye because it suited their bottom line.

LD: And the SEC?

BOTH SPACS AND CRYPTO WERE JUST VERY SPECIOUS ENTERPRISES THAT WERE GENERATING HUGE AMOUNTS OF BUZZ AND A HUGE AMOUNT OF MONEY. THEY WERE MAKING PEOPLE WITH BIZARRE PERSONALITIES, BILLIONAIRES. IT WAS REWARDING THE ECCENTRIC AND THE FRAUDULENT.

Rachel Fleishman

REID COLLINS

NEW YORK

Jodi Westbrook Flowers

MOTLEY RICE

MT. PLEASANT, S.C.

Scott Foglietta

BERNSTEIN LITOWITZ

NEW YORK

Parker Folse*

SUSMAN GODFREY

SEATTLE

Jason Forge

ROBBINS GELLER

SAN DIEGO

Christine Fox

LABATON SUCHAROW

NEW YORK

Frederic Fox

KAPLAN FOX

NEW YORK

William Fredericks

SCOTT + SCOTT

NEW YORK

Andrew N. Friedman

COHEN MILSTEIN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Michael Fritz

MCKOOL SMITH

DALLAS

Qianwei Fu

ZELLE

SAN FRANCISCO

Reena Gambhir

HAUSFELD

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Jonathan Gardner

LABATON SUCHAROW

NEW YORK

Karin Garvey

DICELLO LEVITT

NEW YORK

Faith Gay

SELENDY GAY

NEW YORK

Paul Geller

ROBBINS GELLER

BOCA RATON

Rachel Geman

LIEFF CABRASER

NEW YORK

Eric Gibbs

GIBBS LAW GROUP

OAKLAND, CALIF.

JL: There’s a broader question about, what is the role of the SEC? What is the SEC’s duty in allowing a company to go public? Is it just allowing companies to make some technical disclosures and give enough technical warnings that they can evade liability? Or is their job to make sure that the investing public doesn’t get completely hoodwinked? That when you go public, it’s your actual viable company. Right now, I think the SEC says, “Well, as long as the disclosures meet the law, then it’s fine.” I believe there’s a greater duty. Before a company goes public, there should be some investigation by the SEC into whether or not it is truly a legitimate enterprise. The SEC has the resources and sophistication to ferret that out, rather than leaving it to investors. The lessons to fraudsters are pretty clear. As long as you don’t go cross the line way too far, fraud pays. You can make your fraudulent statements as long as you hedge them with the right technical, boilerplate warnings about why you might not succeed. So you hoodwink investors, avoid being accused of fraud criminally, and make a lot of money doing it. Only a few of these fraudsters have faced charges, which sends the message that fraud by and large pays. That’s something the SEC should be thinking about. You’ll never be able to completely stamp out fraud, but sometimes the cases are so extreme and the SEC wraps itself up in, “Well, our duty is just to look at the disclosures…” It’s a self-disclosure regime. I think the SEC’S duty is greater. It is the major gatekeeper and has to determine, before letting a global public invest, whether each SPAC is really a legitimate enterprise or not. I think that’s a fair question to require the regulators to ask.

LD: Where do you think we’re moving in terms of regulation for crypto?

JL: The SEC has been trying. Chairman Gensler has been more proactive than his predecessors, so I give him credit. The SEC as an organization can sometimes be too reactive. But they have been trying. I think they should unabashedly regulate it. Call it a security and regulate it. I have too many conversations with people in the marketplace saying, “Bitcoin is still very legitimate and they’re still a great investment, there’s still a future in them.” And then I start to ask them questions like, “What’s behind it? What is it? Just tell me.” I never really understand the answers.

We know who controls the U.S. dollar. We have the Treasury, we have the Federal Reserve. People try to say, “Well, the dollar is no longer backed by the gold standards.” The dollar is backed by the U.S. government, the strongest military and economy in the world. That’s what backs it. We don’t even know the identity of the people behind Bitcoin. To me, it’s absurd.

LD: Interesting. Proponents talk about how crypto is going to change the world and break down borders. The idea being that no one really owns it, so everybody owns it.

JL: Again, it’s wanting to believe in something. It’s a fantasy. All the structures of the world would have to change in order for that to work in the crypto space. So sure, maybe that’ll happen. Anything’s possible. But there’s a good chance it won’t. And in the meantime, when there’s lack of transparency and lack of understanding of what a product is, there’s a lot more fraud.

TAKE THE NIKOLA CASE, WHERE THEY USED A SPAC TO COME TO MARKET. NIKOLA WAS AN ELECTRONIC TRUCK COMPANY.

THEY SPOKE ABOUT HOW…THEY WERE ABLE TO RUN A TRUCK EFFICIENTLY ON HYDROGEN. ALL SORTS OF BOASTFUL REPRESENTATIONS. TURNS OUT, THEY DIDN’T HAVE EVEN A WORKING AUTOMOBILE.

Robin Gibbs*

GIBBS & BRUNS

HOUSTON

Carol Gilden

COHEN MILSTEIN

CHICAGO

Danielle Gilmore

QUINN EMANUEL

LOS ANGELES

Emma Gilmore

POMERANTZ

NEW YORK

Maria Ginzburg

SELENDY GAY

NEW YORK

Brendan Glackin

LIEFF CABRASER

SAN FRANCISCO

Jacob Goldberg

THE ROSEN LAW FIRM

JENKINTOWN, PA.

Jordan Goldstein

SELENDY GAY

NEW YORK

Larry Golston

BEASLEY ALLEN

MONTGOMERY, ALA.

Melissa Goodman

CIRESI CONLIN

MINNEAPOLIS

Sathya Gosselin

HAUSFELD

WASHINGTON, D.C.

David Grable

QUINN EMANUEL

LOS ANGELES

Elise Grace

ROBBINS GELLER

SAN DIEGO

Nicholas Gravante

CADWALADER

NEW YORK

Salvatore Graziano

BERNSTEIN LITOWITZ

NEW YORK

Justin Griffin

QUINN EMANUEL

LOS ANGELES

Joseph Grinstein

SUSMAN GODFREY

HOUSTON

Tor Gronborg

ROBBINS GELLER

SAN DIEGO

Marc Gross*

POMERANTZ

NEW YORK

Stanley Grossman*

POMERANTZ

NEW YORK

Michael Grunfeld

POMERANTZ

NEW YORK

Joseph Guglielmo

SCOTT + SCOTT

NEW YORK

Aundrea Gulley

GIBBS & BRUNS

HOUSTON

Greg Gutzler

DICELLO LEVITT

NEW YORK

Michael Guzman

KELLOGG HANSEN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Olav Haazen

GRANT & EISENHOFER

NEW YORK

Jennifer Duncan Hackett

ZELLE

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Serena Hallowell

MOTLEY RICE

NEW YORK

Sean Handler

KESSLER TOPAZ

RADNOR, PA.

Michael Hanin

KASOWITZ

NEW YORK

Drew Hansen

SUSMAN GODFREY

SEATTLE

Mark Hansen

KELLOGG HANSEN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Rusty Hardin

RUSTY HARDIN & ASSOCIATES

HOUSTON

Erica Harris

SUSMAN GODFREY

HOUSTON

Geoffrey Harrison

SUSMAN GODFREY

HOUSTON

James Harrod

BERNSTEIN LITOWITZ

NEW YORK

Anne Hayes Hartman

CONSTANTINE CANNON

SAN FRANCISCO

Dean Harvey

LIEFF CABRASER

SAN FRANCISCO

Stephen Hasegawa

PHILLIPS & COHEN

SAN FRANCISCO

Michael Hausfeld*

HAUSFELD

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Eric Havian

CONSTANTINE CANNON

SAN FRANCISCO

Lexi Hazam

LIEFF CABRASER

SAN FRANCISCO

Christopher Heffelfinger

BERMAN TABACCO

SAN FRANCISCO

Richard Heimann*

LIEFF CABRASER

SAN FRANCISCO

J. Michael Hennigan

MCKOOL SMITH

LOS ANGELES

Claire Abernathy

HENRY WARD, SMITH & HILL

LONGVIEW, TEXAS

Robert Henssler Jr.

ROBBINS GELLER

SAN DIEGO

Rick Hess

SUSMAN GODFREY

HOUSTON

Ryan Higgins

RUSTY HARDIN & ASSOCIATES

HOUSTON

Derek T. Ho

KELLOGG HANSEN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Kathryn Hoek

SUSMAN GODFREY

LOS ANGELES

Adam Hollander

BERNSTEIN LITOWITZ

NEW YORK

Lester Hooker

SAXENA WHITE

BOCA RATON

Lisa Houssiere

MCKOOL SMITH

HOUSTON

Mary Inman

CONSTANTINE CANNON

SAN FRANCISCO

Phil Iovieno

CADWALADER

NEW YORK

William Isaacson

PAUL WEISS

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Uri Itkin

AKIN GUMP

NEW YORK

Shauna Itri

SEEGER WEISS

PHILADELPHIA

James Jaconette

ROBBINS GELLER

SAN DIEGO

Mathew Jasinski

MOTLEY RICE

HARTFORD, CONN.

Jesse L. Jensen

BERNSTEIN LITOWITZ

NEW YORK Rachel Jensen

ROBBINS GELLER

SAN DIEGO

Brent Johnson

COHEN MILSTEIN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Chad Johnson

ROBBINS GELLER

NEW YORK

Christopher P. Johnson

MCKOOL SMITH

NEW YORK

James Johnson

LABATON SUCHAROW

NEW YORK

Kristen Johnson

HAGENS BERMAN

CAMBRIDGE, MASS.

Randy Johnston

JOHNSTON TOBEY

DALLAS

Megan Jones

HAUSFELD

SAN FRANCISCO

Avi Josefson

BERNSTEIN LITOWITZ

NEW YORK

Allan Kanner

KANNER & WHITELEY

NEW ORLEANS

Rafey Balabanian EDELMAN (SAN FRANCISCO)

RAFEY BALABANIAN

RAFEY BALABANIAN DIDN’T SET OUT TO BE a trendsetter. He wanted to help people; the trends followed.

The son of Armenian immigrants, Balabanian found his way to his current plaintiffs’ privacy and mass action practice through trial-and-error: He fell in love with arguing cases before a judge as a prosecutor for the City of Chicago’s traffic court in his third year of law school; he represented tenants in landlord tenant litigation for a while after that; then he tried commercial litigation. Each job helped him get a little bit closer to determining what mattered most to him as a lawyer. He found that answer in his current firm, Edelson.

In its nascent stages when Balabanian joined on, the firm has grown substantially in the last 15 years – and so has Balabanian. With a knack for choosing the right risks, sheer determination and unbridled commitment to his clients, he has lit up the plaintiffs’ bar with headline-grabbing privacy and class action litigation. When privacy litigation exploded in the last decade, Balabanian and his team were at the helm. Among others, he has litigated major cases against Facebook, including a precedent-setting biometric data case that recently settled for $650M.

“All of those issues were completely untested at the time,” he says. “That’s always a dangerous game, of course, but we poured our heart and soul into it.”

Recently, he has found similar passion for a burgeoning mass action practice, with prominent cases including the NCAA college football concussion litigation and advocating for victims of the wildfire in Paradise, Calif. In another untested area, he and his team have been taking on gambling app companies for purposely making users addicted to the platforms. Though finding standing in new areas of litigation is always a challenge, Balabanian was committed to ensuring victims received the compensation they were owed. In 2020, they settled with Big Fish Games and Churchill Downs for $155M, and a $415M settlement is pending approval in a class action against mobile gaming company DoubleDown Interactive.

Balabanian has never been afraid of risk – not when he knows that there is a victim who deserves his advocacy. Calculated risk combined with razor-sharp intuition has seen Balabanian successfully serve his firm, his clients and the plaintiffs’ bar.

BY EMILY JACKOWAY

Lawdragon: How did you start your journey with Edelson?

Rafey Balabanian: A very close friend of mine had just started at what’s now Edelson. There were only about four people at the firm at the time. I got an interview with Jay Edelson, and I was honored that he saw something in me.

LD: Do you know what it is exactly he saw in you?

RB: He saw that I was willing to put myself out there and that I wasn’t fearful of going out and doing things that I had never done before.

That was how the job was pitched: “We’re trying to build a firm, we’re bringing huge cases against huge companies, and it’s going to be quite a fight. You’re going to do things that make you uncomfortable that you’ve never done before.” It sounds cheesy, but I think he saw that I would run through brick walls for the firm.

LD: And what did you see in him and in the firm?

RB: Jay’s a brilliant person. He has this uncanny ability to motivate people and to lay out a vision. He always had these huge, lofty goals for the firm. When you look back on it, you wonder at the time how we didn’t think he was totally crazy. After all, it was just a few of us – how did he have such high hopes for us; how does he have such unwavering confidence in our ability to make our mark on the plaintiffs’ bar and change the law? He was inspiring.

LD: Now that you’ve seen the firm grow and develop over the years, what makes it unique?

RB: We have always been – and this starts with Jay – focused on long-term goals. Everything is about building a practice that is sustainable and something that we could be proud of in every way, shape and form – something that was very different from the traditional law firm model.

We think of ourselves as change agents, and that certainly is the case when it comes to the plaintiffs’ bar. Thirty years ago, class actions were used as a means to get the lawyers paid. They would file cases in friendly jurisdictions and random state courts that provided little relief to the class, but a huge fee payout to the lawyers. You can do that and get rich off of it, but it’s not a sustainable model, and it certainly doesn’t make you feel good. Most

David Kaplan

SAXENA WHITE

SAN DIEGO

Stacey Kaplan

KESSLER TOPAZ

SAN FRANCISCO

Robert Kaplan*

KAPLAN FOX

NEW YORK

Marc Kasowitz

KASOWITZ

NEW YORK

Beth Kaswan

SCOTT + SCOTT

NEW YORK

Elana Katcher

KAPLAN FOX

NEW YORK

Ashley Keller

KELLER POSTMAN

CHICAGO

Christopher Keller

LABATON SUCHAROW

NEW YORK

Michael Kellogg

KELLOGG HANSEN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Cindy Caranella Kelly

KASOWITZ

NEW YORK

Erika Kelton

PHILLIPS & COHEN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Jeannine Kenney

HAUSFELD

PHILADELPHIA

David Kessler

KESSLER TOPAZ

RADNOR, PA.

Jean Kim

CONSTANTINE CANNON

NEW YORK

Phillip Kim

THE ROSEN LAW FIRM

NEW YORK

Marlon Kimpson

MOTLEY RICE

MT. PLEASANT, S.C.

J. Benjamin King

REID COLLINS

DALLAS

Gayle Klein

SCHULTE ROTH & ZABEL

NEW YORK

importantly, it’s antithetical to what we should be doing as plaintiffs’ lawyers.

So, we’ve always focused on putting together settlements that provide real relief to our clients. Our view was that if we do that, then the money, to us, is a natural byproduct. Defendants take note of that, too, which raises the bar for everyone. We appear in front of the same judges over and over again, and you want them to respect you and what you do, and that’s really the only way to achieve that. There aren’t too many places to hide once you’re exposed for doing it the other way.

LD: Tell me a bit about the firm’s culture – it seems different, fun and cutting-edge.

RB: We try to cultivate an environment where it’s not stuffy, where you’re not having to wear a suit every day, where we honestly try to all get along as best we can. As the firm grows, things change in some ways, but we try to carry over that culture that we had from the start.

LD: What’s changed?

RB: It’s not quite as rowdy as it used to be. Ping pong used to really take an outsized role in our lives. The Chicago office has a volleyball court in it. It’s a random sport to put in your office space, but it’s quite collegial and it’s a lot of fun to just bat the ball around a little bit.

LD: I know the firm prides itself on taking on cases that other firms won’t. Can you give me an example of that?

RB: A good example in a general sense is privacy litigation. When the firm started out in about 2007, privacy was not on anyone’s radar – certainly not the courts’. The laws were, and still are in large part, antiquated. They didn’t address things like privacy issues, the rise of tech and how that was going to affect people’s lives, and what it meant to lose your privacy through the various tech that we all have on a daily basis now. There were no privacy cases in a real way back then, and there certainly was no money in it – but we saw the way that we thought that the world was going, and we carved out a niche in that area because we saw that it was lacking. There were not a lot of firms who were willing to bring those types of cases. Standing was a major issue, whether or not you could get statutory damages or whether there was a private right of action for this or that – all of those things were much more unsettled when the firm started out.

LD: Tell me about that case against Comscore, which was one of your earliest privacy cases.

RB: We alleged that they would install spyware on users’ computers without their knowledge or consent. We filed the case in federal court in Chicago, and fought for a long time.

That case really broke new ground. The claims didn’t fi t nicely within the statutes at the time, but we fought very hard to advance the case, to push it towards certification, then trial. We did get that class certified, and we ended up settling the case for $14M, which was a huge settlement to us back then, in 2014.

Then you fast-forward to 2020, when we came up with the Facebook case under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act.

LD: Tell me that story.

RB: We had been litigating with Facebook for years on various matters. So, this was a case that our tech team had looked into for a long time: We wanted to understand what the photo tagging feature on Facebook was really doing. Based on our analysis, we felt as though Facebook was unlawfully collecting biometric information through that feature and weren’t properly disclosing it under the Illinois statute. So, in 2015 we brought suit, and a couple other firms did as well afterwards, and we all worked together quite nicely.

We fought that case as hard as we possibly could have. It was originally filed in the Northern District of Illinois, but transferred to the Northern District of California. We got the class certified, and long story short, we ultimately settled on the eve of trial – the final settlement was $650M.

LD: What were the biggest challenges of that case?

RB: Standing was a huge issue in that case. Certifying the class was not an easy task because of the issues related to determining who was covered under the Illinois statute. Was it Illinois residents? Was it people passing through Illinois? There were all types of issues that arose with respect to that and whether or not you could define a class precisely enough in order for it to be ascertainable and certifiable. On the merits issues, we had to argue whether or not Facebook’s technology actually did collect and harvest biometric information, or whether something else was going on that didn’t fall within the purview of the statute.

We had teams from Robbins Geller and Labaton Sucharow working on the case, and we worked quite well together and have worked on other matters together since. And we were up against Meyer Brown, who had excellent lawyers as well. So, from start to finish, it was quite a battle.

LD: Do you thrive on that risk?

RB: We do. It’s the nature of the game. As an upand-coming firm, you have to get those big wins, I believe, in order for future defendants to take you seriously and to understand that the case isn’t going to go away based on a low-ball offer. It takes years of staying true to your principles and proving that over and over again in order for you to command the attention of those big defendants.

LD: What continues to excite you about your practice?

RB: Our practice has changed quite a bit over the last five years. We’ve moved into the mass action space a lot, as well. While I truly believe that privacy issues are real and deserving of all of our efforts, the human element of mass actions is something that also keeps me going.

LD: Tell me about some of those – like the football concussion litigation.

RB: The NCAA cases are near and dear to my heart. We’ve been working on them for years. We still have a long way to go, and it’s an uphill battle, but we’re not going anywhere.

I try not to get too emotional about cases. I try not to demonize the other side. But I do have a real problem with the way the NCAA has conducted itself over the years as it relates to the health and safety of their student athletes. The reality is these are kids who trust the adults to keep them safe and healthy and to tell them the truth about things, and I don’t believe that happened when we’re talking about repeated hits to the head. These former players deal with the effects of that in a life-changing way on a daily basis.

Another recent mass action arose out of the campfire that took place in Paradise, Calif. In November

of 2018. We had over a thousand clients who suffered losses and who had loved ones perish in the fire. We heard the stories of people who fled the fire and who lost not just everything that they owned, but everything they knew – their entire way of life was completely uprooted in a moment.

LD: What other cases are keeping you busy lately?

RB: We have a lot of gambling app cases right now, which are a fusion of our practice – they’re part tech cases and part mass actions in the sense that people lost so much money through the addictive nature of those apps. They’re just another example of predatory practices: You can download these gambling apps on your phone, and you can set it up so they’re attached to your bank account or your credit card.

We hear story after story of people who became addicted to these games, and not just through their own fault, but because these companies actively sought to get them addicted, just like casinos do. People have been left destitute by these unscrupulous practices.

So, we brought those cases around 2014 in various jurisdictions across the country. We lost every one of them in the trial courts. They were all dismissed for lack of standing, or failure to state a claim, or any number of reasons that the courts came up with. But we appealed all of them because we believed in those cases. Nobody would touch those cases until we started winning them.

LD: What are your hobbies outside of your practice?

RB: I love playing tennis. I played growing up and for a brief stint in college as a walk on. A few years ago, I picked up boxing, too. We sponsor an upand-coming MMA fighter who lives with us, teaches us different skill sets and teaches my boys how to wrestle.

Other than that, I just like spending time with my family. My two boys are my entire world, and my wife is truly my better half – an amazing person who is just as responsible for any success that I’ve managed to achieve.

WHEN THE FIRM STARTED OUT IN ABOUT 2007, PRIVACY WAS NOT ON ANYONE’S RADAR…BUT WE SAW THE WAY THE WORLD WAS GOING, AND WE CARVED OUT A NICHE IN THAT AREA.

Amanda Klevorn

BURNS CHAREST

NEW ORLEANS

Richard Koffman

COHEN MILSTEIN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Michael Kohn

KOHN, KOHN & COLAPINTO

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Stephen Kohn

KOHN, KOHN & COLAPINTO

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Lena Konanova

SELENDY GAY

NEW YORK

Sheron Korpus

KASOWITZ

NEW YORK

Eduard Korsinsky

LEVI & KORSINSKY

NEW YORK

Mathew Korte

CIRESI CONLIN

MINNEAPOLIS

Marlene Koury

CONSTANTINE CANNON

NEW YORK

Robert Kry

MOLOLAMKEN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Nancy Kulesa

BLEICHMAR FONTI

NEW YORK

Brent Landau

HAUSFELD

PHILADELPHIA

Chanler Langham

SUSMAN GODFREY

HOUSTON

Mark Lanier

THE LANIER LAW FIRM

HOUSTON

Laurie Largent

ROBBINS GELLER

SAN DIEGO

Nicole Lavallee

BERMAN TABACCO

SAN FRANCISCO

Mark Lebovitch

BERNSTEIN LITOWITZ

NEW YORK

Christopher Lebsock

HAUSFELD

SAN FRANCISCO

Lewis LeClair

MCKOOL SMITH

DALLAS

Lawrence Lederer

BAILEY & GLASSER

PHILADELPHIA

Sharon Lee

LIEFF CABRASER

NEW YORK

Katie Crosby Lehmann

CIRESI CONLIN

MINNEAPOLIS

Michael Lehmann

HAUSFELD

SAN FRANCISCO

Sarah Gibbs Leivick

KASOWITZ

NEW YORK

Bruce Leppla

LIEFF CABRASER

SAN FRANCISCO

Emmy Levens

COHEN MILSTEIN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Richard Levine*

SEC WHISTLEBLOWER ADVOCATES

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Jason Leviton

BLOCK & LEVITON

BOSTON

Adam Levitt

DICELLO LEVITT

CHICAGO

Daniel Levy

MCKOOL SMITH

NEW YORK

Roberta Liebenberg*

FINE KAPLAN

PHILADELPHIA

Jeremy Lieberman

POMERANTZ

NEW YORK

Michael Lifrak

QUINN EMANUEL

LOS ANGELES

Mimi Liu

MOTLEY RICE

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Thomas Loeser

HAGENS BERMAN

SEATTLE

Kyle Lonergan

MCKOOL SMITH

NEW YORK

Michael Lyons

LYONS & SIMMONS

DALLAS

Christine Mackintosh

GRANT & EISENHOFER

WILMINGTON

Eric Madden

REID COLLINS

DALLAS

Brian Mahany

MAHANY LAW

PARTNERS

Ashish Mahendru

MAHENDRU P.C.

HOUSTON

Helen Maher

CADWALADER

NEW YORK

Robert Manley

MCKOOL SMITH

DALLAS

Neal Manne

SUSMAN GODFREY

HOUSTON

Jeanne Markey

COHEN MILSTEIN

PHILADELPHIA

James Robertson Martin

ZELLE

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Scott Martin

HAUSFELD

NEW YORK

Sean Matt

HAGENS BERMAN

SEATTLE

Colette Matzzie

PHILLIPS & COHEN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Eric Mayer

SUSMAN GODFREY

HOUSTON

Zachary Mazin

MCKOOL SMITH

NEW YORK

Sean McCaffity

SOMMERMAN MCCAFFITY

DALLAS

Niall McCarthy

COTCHETT

BURLINGAME, CALIF.

Francis McConville

LABATON SUCHAROW

NEW YORK

Daniel McCuaig

COHEN MILSTEIN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Heather McElroy

CIRESI CONLIN

MINNEAPOLIS

Kyle McGee

GRANT & EISENHOFER

WILMINGTON

Sean X. McKessy

PHILLIPS & COHEN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Mike McKool*

MCKOOL SMITH

DALLAS

Ashley McMillian

SUSMAN GODFREY

HOUSTON

Thomas Melsheimer

WINSTON & STRAWN

DALLAS

Brian Melton

SUSMAN GODFREY

HOUSTON

Joseph Meltzer

KESSLER TOPAZ

RADNOR, PA.

Tom Methvin

BEASLEY ALLEN

MONTGOMERY, ALA.

Seth Meyer

KELLER POSTMAN

CHICAGO

Michael Miarmi

LIEFF CABRASER NEW YORK

Christopher Micheletti ZELLE

SAN FRANCISCO

Donald Migliori

MOTLEY RICE

MT. PLEASANT, S.C.

Dee Miles

BEASLEY ALLEN MONTGOMERY, ALA.

Domenico Minerva

LABATON SUCHAROW NEW YORK

David Mitchell

ROBBINS GELLER

SAN DIEGO

Steven Molo

MOLOLAMKEN NEW YORK

Mark Molumphy

COTCHETT

BURLINGAME, CALIF.

Laddie Montague Jr.*

BERGER MONTAGUE

PHILADELPHIA

Kristin Moody

BERMAN TABACCO

SAN FRANCISCO

Stephen Morrissey

SUSMAN GODFREY

SEATTLE

Anne Marie Murphy

COTCHETT

BURLINGAME, CALIF.

Matthew Mustokoff

KESSLER TOPAZ

RADNOR, PA.

Danielle Myers

ROBBINS GELLER

SAN DIEGO

Ayesha Najam

GIBBS & BRUNS

HOUSTON

Hae Sung Nam

KAPLAN FOX

NEW YORK

William Narwold

MOTLEY RICE

HARTFORD, CONN.

Robert Nelson

LIEFF CABRASER

SAN FRANCISCO

Isaac Nesser

QUINN EMANUEL

NEW YORK

Stephen Neuwirth

QUINN EMANUEL

NEW YORK

Joshua Newcomer

MCKOOL SMITH

HOUSTON

Darren Nicholson

BURNS CHAREST

DALLAS

Luke Nikas

QUINN EMANUEL

NEW YORK

Sharan Nirmul

KESSLER TOPAZ

RADNOR, PA.

Nanci Nishimura

COTCHETT

BURLINGAME, CALIF.

Crystal Nix-Hines

QUINN EMANUE

LOS ANGELES

Ellen Noteware

BERGER MONTAGUE

PHILADELPHIA

Brian O. O’Mara

ROBBINS GELLER

SAN DIEGO

Harry Olivar Jr.

QUINN EMANUEL

LOS ANGELES

Lance Oliver

MOTLEY RICE

MT. PLEASANT, S.C.

Meghan S.B. Oliver

MOTLEY RICE

MT. PLEASANT, S.C.

Johanna Ong

QUINN EMANUEL

LOS ANGELES

Lauren Ormsbee

BERNSTEIN LITOWITZ

NEW YORK

Christopher Orrico

BERNSTEIN LITOWITZ

NEW YORK

David Orta

QUINN EMANUEL

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Krysta Kauble Pachman

SUSMAN GODFREY

LOS ANGELES

Jennifer Pafiti

POMERANTZ

LOS ANGELES

Nathaniel Palmer

REID COLLINS AUSTIN

Aaron Panner Kellogg

HANSEN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Phyllis Maza Parker

BERGER MONTAGUE

PHILADELPHIA

Kathy Patrick

GIBBS & BRUNS

HOUSTON

C. Cary Patterson*

NIX PATTERSON

TEXARKANA, TEXAS

Russell D. Paul

BERGER MONTAGUE

PHILADELPHIA

Trey Peacock

SUSMAN GODFREY

HOUSTON

Michael Pendell

MOTLEY RICE

HARTFORD, CONN.

Elizabeth Petersen

KANNER & WHITELEY

NEW ORLEANS

John Phillips*

PHILLIPS & COHEN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Jonathan Pickhardt

QUINN EMANUEL

NEW YORK

Kit Pierson

COHEN MILSTEIN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Frank Pitre*

COTCHETT

BURLINGAME, CALIF.

Janine Pollack

CALCATERRA POLLACK

NEW YORK

Nicholas Porritt

LEVI & KORSINSKY

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Christopher D. Porter

QUINN EMANUEL

HOUSTON

Laura H. Posner

COHEN MILSTEIN

NEW YORK

Warren Postman

KELLER POSTMAN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

John Quinn*

QUINN EMANUEL

LOS ANGELES

Shawn Rabin

SUSMAN GODFREY

NEW YORK

Willow Radcliffe

ROBBINS GELLER

SAN FRANCISCO

Sascha Rand

QUINN EMANUEL

NEW YORK

Sami Rashid

QUINN EMANUEL

NEW YORK

Brian A. Ratner

HAUSFELD

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Jennifer Pafiti POMERANTZ (NEW YORK, LONDON)

JENNIFER PAFITI

JENNIFER PAFITI ON SETTING UP SHOP IN LONDON

Plaintiff securities heavyweight Pomerantz launched a new office in London this past October. The offi ce is co-headed by Jennifer Pafi ti and Dr. Daniel Summerfield. Dr. Summerfield joins the firm after two decades with the Universities Superannuation Scheme, or USS – the largest private pension fund in the UK. He most recently served as head of their responsible investment team. Pomerantz and USS have a long relationship, as USS was the lead plaintiff in the blockbuster securities case that Pomerantz led against Brazilian oil giant, Petrobras.

Pafi ti, a partner and the longtime Head of Client Services at Pomerantz, splits her time on both sides of the pond, working as a U.S. attorney and UK solicitor. She was a key member of the team in the Petrobras litigation and engaged with USS about taking a leadership role in the case. “Sometimes a case comes a long where the conduct is so egregious, and the losses are so large, that you might want to drive the bus rather than simply be a passenger,” says Pafi ti. “That was the case for USS with Petrobras.” The case settled for a historic $3B.

We caught up with Pafi ti to learn about the London office opening, her work with Dr. Summerfield, and their upcoming corporate governance roundtable in Rome this fall, featuring Sir Tony Blair as a guest speaker.

Lawdragon: Congratulations on opening the new London office! Can you tell us why this was the right time for you to set up shop there?

Jennifer Pafi ti: Things are far more global than they were even fi ve or six years ago. Something that really sets us apart from our competitors is our commitment to providing monitoring services and securities litigation services to our clients wherever they’re based. We would open an offi ce in every jurisdiction where we have clients if we could! But we have a lot of UK-based pension funds and asset managers that we currently service. The London office is a natural extension for our firm. For us, it was really about finding the right person to be in that office on a day-to-day basis.

LD: How did you know Dr. Summerfi eld was the right person?

BY ALISON PREECE

JP: He is fantastic. I’ve known Daniel for 12 years; I met him through his work at USS. He’s very engaged, very charismatic, and he has a long history in the ESG, responsible investment world, so it was natural to keep the discussion flowing. When there was talk that he wanted to do something new, I was very excited about the possibility that he would join our team. He’s been a fantastic asset, even only three or four months in.

LD: How about you, are you in London fulltime now?

JP: I’m not anywhere fulltime! I’m co-managing the London office but I am based on Los Angeles and I’m still traveling a lot. I’m in London every month. Daniel is running the day-to-day operations, and I’ll fl y in to give presentations to boards or answer specific questions when they want to hear from the lawyer that’s going to run something.

LD: So you’re back to traveling a lot?

JP: Yes. Less than I was pre-Covid, probably 80 percent, but it’s mostly ramped back up. During Covid, we Zoomed, we met through Teams, we did what we could. We have strong relationships with all our clients, so we had that trust element that we were able to shift to the digital realm when we had to. We had no redundancies or layoffs, since our work didn’t change, just how we went about doing it was altered slightly. But there is no real substitute for being in-person. For those clients that want to see us in-person again, we show up. Some of them we hadn’t seen in person for two years! Depending on everybody’s comfort levels, which are still shifting, we will always accommodate.

Aside from client meetings and board meetings, we do a lot of educational conferences, hosting as well as speaking. We have our big annual conference coming up in Rome in October.

LD: Tell me about the Rome conference. It’s another corporate governance roundtable?

JP: Yes, we try and do one of these conferences every couple of years. Last June we had our conference with President Bill Clinton. About 120 clients and prospective clients came. We heard how Presi-

PHOTO BY LAURA BARISONZI

Shawn Raymond

SUSMAN GODFREY

HOUSTON

Barrett Reasoner

GIBBS & BRUNS

HOUSTON

William T. Reid IV

REID COLLINS

AUSTIN

Jack Reise

ROBBINS GELLER

BOCA RATON

Julie Goldsmith Reiser

COHEN MILSTEIN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Justin O. Reliford

KESSLER TOPAZ

RADNOR, PA.

Joseph Rice*

MOTLEY RICE

MT. PLEASANT, S.C.

Mark D. Richardson

LABATON SUCHAROW

WILMINGTON

Robert Rivera Jr.

SUSMAN GODFREY

HOUSTON

John Rizio-Hamilton

BERNSTEIN LITOWITZ

NEW YORK

Darren Robbins

ROBBINS GELLER

SAN DIEGO

Robert Robbins

ROBBINS GELLER

BOCA RATON

Sharon K. Robertson

COHEN MILSTEIN

NEW YORK

Jeremy Robinson

BERNSTEIN LITOWITZ

NEW YORK

Valerie Roddy

QUINN EMANUEL

LOS ANGELES

Joe Roden

RUSTY HARDIN & ASSOCIATES

HOUSTON

Laurence Rosen

THE ROSEN LAW FIRM

NEW YORK

Hannah Ross

BERNSTEIN LITOWITZ

NEW YORK

THINGS ARE

SETS US APART FROM OUR COMPETITORS IS OUR COMMITMENT TO PROVIDING MONITORING SERVICES AND SECURITIES LITIGATION SERVICES TO OUR CLIENTS WHEREVER THEY’RE BASED. THE LONDON OFFICE IS A NATURAL EXTENSION FOR OUR FIRM.

dent Clinton ran his team and what he learned from his time in office. It was an amazing conference in part because he was an amazing speaker and captured the audience. We had some great additional speakers as well, experts in the field of corporate governance and asset managing. For many people, it was the first in-person conference they’d done in two, three years. So there was such a buzz about it. As soon as we finished that conference, everybody wanted to know, “When’s the next one?” We wouldn’t normally do them so close together, but there was a demand for it.

This will be our first European conference, in Rome, and we’re very excited to have the former British Prime Minister, Sir Tony Blair, as our special guest speaker this time.

Having it in Europe is a natural extension of our commitment to being in that region and recently opening the London offi ce. We also have offi ces in Paris and Tel Aviv, so Rome seems like a good center point to showcase not only the firm but also the cases that we’re working on.

The roundtables are always an opportunity for corporate governance professionals to share issues and best practices, and to discuss concerns that affect the value of the funds that they ultimately represent. Speakers are typically general counsel or trustees, CEOs, CIOs of these very large pension funds and asset managers. They come from around the globe to talk about these topics with their peers.

LD: The international aspect has got to be beneficial, since so many investors are operating globally but their protections differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

JP: Yes, and investors are far better protected in the U.S. than they are anywhere else in the world, because of our robust securities laws. Wherever a company is located, the same kind of shenanigans are going on with regards to concealing information from investors or misrepresenting the truth. When it’s revealed, the value of someone’s investment drops. Those fraudulent statements or omissions of material facts go on everywhere in Europe, in the Middle East, in China, the U.S. The difference is that here in the U.S., there is a far more robust and comprehensive recovery scheme through the courts, and some very robust laws that protect investors. Over the years, the position that the U.S. has taken through the different administrations is really that the SEC is there, but it is the firms such as Pomerantz that are doing the auxiliary work to really punish the wrongdoers.

The benefi t of being in the U.S. and having that kind of system is it’s far easier to be a passive member of a class whereas in, for example, the UK, you don’t benefi t from the same protections. You have to register to participate, you have to be on the record. There’s no class action system. That is something that they’re trying to develop, a group litigation system. But in the meantime, when it comes to enforcement, there’s nothing quite like the U.S. set up, not only with governmental bodies like the SEC, but also with the plaintiffs’ bar.

LD: Does the fi rm have any immediate plans to open other offices?

JP: Well, we are always looking at where we need to expand. We are absolutely a growing practice, and I can imagine in the next few years we will make moves to open other offices to continue serving our clients.

FAR MORE GLOBAL THAN THEY WERE EVEN FIVE OR SIX YEARS AGO. SOMETHING THAT REALLY

Robert Rothman

ROBBINS GELLER

MELVILLE, N.Y.

Samuel Rudman

ROBBINS GELLER

MELVILLE, N.Y.

David Rudolp

LIEFF CABRASER

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Rudy

KESSLER TOPAZ

RADNOR, PA.

Joseph Russello

ROBBINS GELLER

MELVILLE, N.Y.

Michael Sacchet

CIRESI CONLIN

MINNEAPOLIS

Taline Sahakian

CONSTANTINE CANNON

NEW YORK

Scott Saham

ROBBINS GELLER

SAN DIEGO

Christina D. Saler

COHEN MILSTEIN

PHILADELPHIA

Daniel Salinas-Serrano

QUINN EMANUEL

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Katie Sammons

SUSMAN GODFREY

HOUSTON

Ex Kano Sams II

GLANCY PRONGAY

LOS ANGELES

Joseph Saveri

JOSEPH SAVERI LAW FIRM

SAN FRANCISCO

Sherrie R. Savett*

BERGER MONTAGUE

PHILADELPHIA

Maya Saxena

SAXENA WHITE

BOCA RATON

Shana Scarlett

HAGENS BERMAN

BERKELEY, CALIF.

Robert Scheef

MCKOOL SMITH

NEW YORK

Irving Scher*

HAUSFELD

NEW YORK

Hilary Scherrer

HAUSFELD

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Michael Schrag

GIBBS LAW GROUP

OAKLAND, CALIF.

David J. Schwartz

LABATON SUCHAROW

NEW YORK

Gregory Schwegmann

REID COLLINS

AUSTIN

Jennifer Scullion

SEEGER WEISS

RIDGEFIELD PARK, N.J.

Todd Seaver

BERMAN TABACCO

SAN FRANCISCO

Christopher Seeger

SEEGER WEISS

NEW YORK

Jonathan Selbin

LIEFF CABRASER

NEW YORK

Jennifer Selendy

SELENDY GAY

NEW YORK

Philippe Selendy

SELENDY GAY

NEW YORK

Daniel Seltz

LIEFF CABRASER

NEW YORK

Marc Seltzer*

SUSMAN GODFREY

LOS ANGELES

Maaren Shah

QUINN EMANUEL

NEW YORK

David Sheeren

GIBBS & BRUNS

HOUSTON

Steven Shepard SUSMAN GODFREY

NEW YORK

Manisha Sheth

QUINN EMANUEL

NEW YORK

Jessica Shinnefield

ROBBINS GELLER

SAN DIEGO

Roman Silberfeld*

ROBINS KAPLAN

LOS ANGELES

DEBORAH WYMAN

DEBRA WYMAN IS A TOP-TIER SECURITIES

litigator who has dedicated her career to seeking justice for defrauded investors. She has achieved client wins totaling over $2B, including a historic $1B settlement in a securities fraud class action against the real estate investment trust company VEREIT (formerly known as ARCP).

Investors have long turned to Wyman for their most high-stakes trials, such as the securities and accounting fraud case against HealthSouth, which at the time was one of the largest healthcare services providers in the U.S. – and one of the largest corporate fraud cases. The team recovered $671M for investors. In another highlight, Wyman and her team recovered $215M in a securities class action against healthcare provider HCA Holdings, which broke records in Tennessee.

Head of recruiting in Robbins Geller’s San Diego office, Wyman counsels young attorneys to be authentic, practice integrity and always know the facts inside out. She is a member of the Lawdragon 500 Leading Lawyers in America as well as the Lawdragon 500 Leading Plaintiff Financial Lawyers in America.

Lawdragon: How did you first decide to focus your practice on representing defrauded investors? What do you like about this practice?

BY ALISON PREECE

Debra Wyman: In my third year of law school, I discovered securities practice. The PSLRA had been passed only two years before I started practicing, and there were no appellate decisions interpreting it. I love the challenge and importance of setting precedents. Being part of the shaping and application of the law in the field was and remains exciting.

We take our practice very seriously because people, especially retirees, count on pension payments to make ends meet. It’s very gratifying to work to recoup our clients’ hard-earned money when it has been stolen through fraud and deceit.

LD: You have had some incredible wins in your career. Is there one case that stands out as a “favorite” or particularly memorable for some reason?

DW: The case against American Realty Capital Properties, now renamed VEREIT, is a stand out. That case was exceptionally complex, and it was truly a team effort. We prevailed at every step and were preparing for trial with the class’s claims substantially intact when the case settled for over $1B. The case also involved the largest-ever payout from individual executives, who had to repay over $237M of ill-gotten gains – which was a measure of individual accountability that we need to see more often.

I firmly believe that we achieved this result by marshaling Robbins Geller’s resources – including the

Deborah Wyman ROBBINS GELLER (SAN DIEGO)

best in-house forensic accountants in the business – and preparing this case for trial, not settlement. The opt-out plaintiffs settled far sooner than the class did and received 300-400 percent less than the class as a result.

LD: What challenges did you face in this case?

DW: We faced every challenge possible. The case involved 44 defendants, nine claims involving seven different securities, 17 defense side expert witnesses and 70 depositions taken or defended. There were millions of pages of documents produced. We also had to coordinate with 11 opt-out cases and a derivative case that were being litigated at the same time. The defendants were represented by the best of the corporate bar. We litigated multiple motions to dismiss, a motion for class certification, a 23(f) appeal and a motion to decertify the class. The evidentiary hearing on defendants’ 12 motions for summary judgment lasted a full day.

LD: What did that result mean for your clients and the larger industry?

DW: Our client was committed to holding individual defendants, not just the company, to account. The individual contributions of over $237M are, by far, the largest individual payments made in a securities class action settlement. The next largest individual contributions were $30M. This result shows that executives need to take their duty to shareholders seriously and will be held accountable when they don’t do so.

LD: What trends are you seeing in securities litigation these days?

DW: Regulators are increasingly focused on blank check financing through SPACs. The number of companies using SPACs rather than traditional IPOs to go public increased very rapidly after the pandemic. Although the disclosure requirements in a SPAC can be less stringent, it is no less important that companies be accurate and truthful with shareholders.

Transparency is equally important when it comes to ESG disclosures. The SEC is also considering new regulation in that area as well. We are closely monitoring proposed new regulations in both SPACs and ESG areas and will continue our work of holding companies and individuals accountable.

LD: Did you have mentors when you were a young associate?

DW: My first mentor was Katy Blank. She was a senior associate when I was a junior associate. She told me that as a young woman lawyer, people may not take me seriously. As a result, she told me that I should not be hesitant to offer my opinion in meetings with colleagues and stand my ground with opposing counsel. She also told me to always know the facts of my case and the applicable law better than anyone else in the room. It was sage advice that I have passed on to others.

LD: Are you a mentor to young lawyers now?

DW: I am in charge of Robbins Geller’s San Diego office recruiting. I speak to law students around the country in on campus interviews. I also guide and mentor our Summer Associates every year.

LD: How would you describe your style as a lawyer? Or, how do you think others see you?

DW: As I try to do in my life, I try very hard to treat everyone I work with as I would like to be treated. I think you can treat people with fairness and respect while still advocating for your client and defending your positions with integrity. I hope others see me as someone who practices law with integrity and whose word you can trust, and someone who knows her stuff and should be taken seriously.

LD: Do you have a favorite book, movie or TV show about the law?

DW: I have always loved the movie “My Cousin Vinny.” Joe Pesci’s character wasn’t the best litigator in the courtroom, but he always stayed true to who he was. It was his authenticity that made him so effective – a good lesson for young lawyers.

I HOPE OTHERS SEE ME AS SOMEONE WHO PRACTICES LAW WITH INTEGRITY AND WHOSE WORD YOU CAN TRUST, AND SOMEONE WHO KNOWS HER STUFF AND SHOULD BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY.

Gerald Silk

BERNSTEIN LITOWITZ

NEW YORK

Joshua Silverman

POMERANTZ

CHICAGO

Katherine Sinderson

BERNSTEIN LITOWITZ

NEW YORK

Linda Singer

MOTLEY RICE

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Steven Singer

SAXENA WHITE

NEW YORK

Steven Sklaver

SUSMAN GODFREY

LOS ANGELES

Daniel Small

COHEN MILSTEIN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Elizabeth Smith

MOTLEY RICE

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Kirk Smith

SHEPHERD SMITH

HOUSTON

Michael Sobol

LIEFF CABRASER

SAN FRANCISCO

Thomas Sobol

HAGENS BERMAN

CAMBRIDGE, MASS.

David Sochia

MCKOOL SMITH

DALLAS

Aliki Sofis

QUINN EMANUEL BOSTON

Sylvia Sokol

SCOTT + SCOTT

NEW YORK

Mark Solomon

ROBBINS GELLER

SAN DIEGO

Daniel S. Sommers

COHEN MILSTEIN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Jeffrey Sonn

SONN LAW GROUP

AVENTURA, FL

David Sorensen

BERGER MONTAGUE

PHILADELPHIA

John Sparacino

MCKOOL SMITH

HOUSTON

Ryan Sparacino

SPARACINO PLLC

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Ronnie Seidel Spiegel

JOSEPH SAVERI LAW FIRM

SEATTLE

Kalpana Srinivasan

SUSMAN GODFREY

LOS ANGELES

Cynthia St. Amant

KANNER & WHITELEY

NEW ORLEANS

Courtney Statfeld

MCKOOL SMITH

NEW YORK

David Stellings

LIEFF CABRASER

NEW YORK

Karl Stern

QUINN EMANUEL

HOUSTON

Leslie R. Stern

BERMAN TABACCO

BOSTON

Michael Stevenson

SEC WHISTLEBLOWER ADVOCATES

WASHINGTON, D.C.

David A. Straite

DICELLO LEVITT

NEW YORK

Joel Strauss

KAPLAN FOX

NEW YORK

Silvija Strikis

KELLOGG HANSEN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Arun Subramanian

SUSMAN GODFREY

NEW YORK

Jason Sultzer

THE SULTZER LAW GROUP

POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y.

Harry Susman

SUSMAN GODFREY

HOUSTON

Stephen Swedlow

QUINN EMANUEL

CHICAGO

Bonny Sweeney

HAUSFELD

SAN FRANCISCO

Claire Sylvia

PHILLIPS & COHEN

SAN FRANCISCO

Brenda Szydlo

POMERANTZ

NEW YORK

Joseph Tabacco Jr.*

BERMAN TABACCO

SAN FRANCISCO

Ariana Tadler

TADLER LAW

NEW YORK

Kevin Teruya

QUINN EMANUEL

LOS ANGELES

Jordan A. Thomas

SEC WHISTLEBLOWER ADVOCATES

NEW YORK

Ed Timlin

BERNSTEIN LITOWITZ

NEW YORK

Robert Tobey

JOHNSTON TOBEY

DALLAS

Steven Toll*

COHEN MILSTEIN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Marc A. Topaz

KESSLER TOPAZ

RADNOR, PA.

Catherine Torell

COHEN MILSTEIN

NEW YORK

Hector Torres

KASOWITZ

NEW YORK

Stephen Tountas

KASOWITZ

NEW YORK

Max Tribble

SUSMAN GODFREY

HOUSTON

Melissa Troutner

KESSLER TOPAZ

RADNOR, PA.

Lisa Tsai

REID COLLINS

AUSTIN

Matthew Tuccillo

POMERANTZ

NEW YORK

Jonathan Uslaner

BERNSTEIN LITOWITZ

LOS ANGELES

Austin Van

POMERANTZ

NEW YORK

Jeroen van Kwawegen

BERNSTEIN LITOWITZ

NEW YORK

Gregory Varallo

BERNSTEIN LITOWITZ

WILMINGTON

Irina Vasilchenko

LABATON SUCHAROW

NEW YORK

Carol Villegas

LABATON SUCHAROW

NEW YORK

David Wales

SAXENA WHITE

NEW YORK

Genevieve Wallace

SUSMAN GODFREY

SEATTLE

Murielle Steven Walsh

POMERANTZ

NEW YORK

Mark Wawro*

SUSMAN GODFREY

HOUSTON

Ned Weinberger

LABATON SUCHAROW

WILMINGTON

Tamar Weinrib

POMERANTZ

NEW YORK

Stephen Weiss

SEEGER WEISS

NEW YORK

Jeremy Wells

REID COLLINS

AUSTIN

Mark Werbner

WERBNER LAW

DALLAS

Michael Wernke

POMERANTZ

NEW YORK

Lexie White

SUSMAN GODFREY

HOUSTON

Joseph White III

SAXENA WHITE

BOCA RATON

Conlee Whiteley

KANNER & WHITELEY

NEW ORLEANS

Ben Whiting

KELLER POSTMAN

CHICAGO

Adam Wierzbowski

BERNSTEIN LITOWITZ

NEW YORK

K. Craig Wildfang*

ROBINS KAPLAN

MINNEAPOLIS

David Williams

KLINE & SPECTER

PHILADELPHIA

Shawn Williams

ROBBINS GELLER

SAN FRANCISCO

Steven N. Williams

JOSEPH SAVERI LAW FIRM

SAN FRANCISCO

Mark Willis

LABATON SUCHAROW

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Mary Jane Wilmoth

KOHN, KOHN & COLAPINTO

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Robin Winchester

KESSLER TOPAZ

RADNOR, PA.

David Wissbroecker

OBBINS GELLER

SAN DIEGO

Terry Wit

QUINN EMANUEL

SAN FRANCISCO

Adam Wolfson

QUINN EMANUEL

LOS ANGELES

Kara Wolke

GLANCY PRONGAY

LOS ANGELES

Harvey Wolkoff*

QUINN EMANUEL

BOSTON

Debra Wyman

ROBBINS GELLER

SAN DIEGO

Michael Yoder

REID COLLINS

DALLAS

Eric Young

MCELDREW YOUNG

PHILADELPHIA

Steve Zack*

BOIES SCHILLER

MIAMI

Judith Zahid ZELLE SAN FRANCISCO

Adam Zapala COTCHETT BURLINGAME, CALIF.

John Zavitsanos AZA HOUSTON

Jason Zweig KELLER POSTMAN CHICAGO

From the opioid epidemic to toxic substances and defective products, truck accidents to wildfires and sexual abuse, these are the lawyers who stand on the front line in individual lawsuits and class actions seeking justice. They relish their role of underdog, taking on the toughest cases and typically only getting paid if they win. Talk about heroes.

This is our 5th guide to the top Plaintiff Consumer lawyers, first published in 2007 and annually since 2019. In a land of lawsuits, we review thousands of lawyers who specialize in helping consumers get justice. We vet them with boards of their peers, and look at their achievements in verdicts and settlements and roles as leaders in class actions. Our guide is 35 percent female and 20 percent inclusive.

Also included here are more than 100 members of our Lawdragon Hall of Fame whose collective centuries pursuing justice we are proud to honor. They are designated with an asterisk.

As always, our selection depends heavily on independent research, including peer assessment. A key component in what makes our Lawdragon 500 guides unique is that anyone can be nominated through a simple email. We believe strongly that recognition should be open to anyone who can make her case. As a result, alongside renowned titans of the plaintiff bar, you will meet folks laboring in courtrooms far from the spotlight, but pursuing justice all the same.

Mitchell K. Aaron

TORGAN COOPER

NEW YORK

Kenneth Abbarno

DICELLO LEVITT

CLEVELAND

Terry Abeyta*

ABEYTA NELSON

YAKIMA, WASH.

Mike Abourezk*

ABOUREZK & GARCIA

RAPID CITY, S.D.

Robert Adams

EGLET ADAMS

LAS VEGAS

Marijo Adimey

GAIR GAIR

NEW YORK

Benny Agosto Jr.

ABRAHAM WATKINS

HOUSTON

Wylie Aitken*

AITKEN AITKEN COHN

SANTA ANA, CALIF.

Michael Akselrud

LANIER LAW FIRM

WOODLAND HILLS, CALIF.

Charla Aldous

ALDOUS WALKER/ATHEA TRIAL LAWYERS

DALLAS

Brian Alexander

KREINDLER & KREINDLER

NEW YORK

Mary Alexander*

MARY ALEXANDER & ASSOCIATES

SAN FRANCISCO

Greg Allen*

BEASLEY ALLEN

MONTGOMERY, ALA.

Marisa Allen

MARTIN WALKER

TYLER, TEXAS

Parvin Aminolroaya

SEEGER WEISS

RIDGEFIELD PARK, N.J.

Robert Ammons

THE AMMONS LAW FIRM

HOUSTON

Jennie Lee Anderson

ANDRUS ANDERSON

SAN FRANCISCO

Patricia Anderson

LUVERA LAW FIRM

SEATTLE

Lori Andrus

ANDRUS ANDERSON

SAN FRANCISCO

Michael J. Angelides

SIMMONS HANLY CONROY

ALTON, ILL.

Dory P. Antullis

ROBBINS GELLER

BOCA RATON

Donald Arbitblit

LIEFF CABRASER

SAN FRANCISCO

Mike Arias

ARIAS SANGUINETTI

LOS ANGELES

Kurt Arnold

ARNOLD & ITKIN

HOUSTON

Lisa Arrowood

ARROWOOD

BOSTON

Richard Arsenault

NEBLETT BEARD

ALEXANDRIA, LA.

William Artigliere

GARCIA & ARTIGLIERE

LONG BEACH

Taylor Asen

GIDEON ASEN

PORTLAND, MAINE

D. Leon Ashford*

HARE WYNN

BIRMINGHAM, ALA.

Lance Avera

AVERA & SMITH

GAINSVILLE

Mark Avera

AVERA & SMITH

GAINESVILLE

Christopher Ayers

SEEGER WEISS

RIDGEFIELD PARK, N.J.

Muhammad S. Aziz

ABRAHAM WATKINS

HOUSTON

Theodore ‘Ted’ Babbitt*

SEARCY DENNEY

WEST PALM BEACH

Kimberly Barone Baden

MOTLEY RICE

MT. PLEASANT, S.C.

Khaldoun Baghdadi

WALKUP MELODIA

SAN FRANCISCO

Karen Terry SEARCY DENNY (WEST PALM BEACH, FLA.)

KAREN TERRY

ALMOST THE MOMENT KAREN TERRY

graduated from law school, she applied for a position at renowned personal injury firm Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley. She knew she wanted to advocate for injured victims. She knew she wanted to get up and speak in court. And she knew Searcy Denney was one of the best firms in the state of Florida to fulfill those goals.

Twenty-seven years later and a shareholder at the fi rm, Terry remains as certain in her decision to join Searcy Denney as she was the day she started. That certainty carries over into her practice style: If her client has been wronged, Terry will get justice. If a settlement offer isn’t enough, she’ll invent a creative strategy or wage a prolonged court battle. In one case, she brought charges of false advertising as well as malpractice – a strategy that led to the first verdict against a medical concierge company in the U.S. Whether she’s working on a case involving medical malpractice, nursing home abuse, pharmacy negligence or automobile accidents, it doesn’t matter if the odds are stacked against her. She’ll fi ght. Whatever it takes.

Terry’s tenacity has yielded other noteworthy results: She sued Walgreens in a case involving a misfi led prescription, resulting in a jury verdict of $25.8M, which was upheld on appeal. Even during the worst of the pandemic, she had her foot on the gas fi ghting against negligent medical care, winning a $2.44M verdict last year. Despite the climate at the time holding healthcare professionals on a pedestal, she says, “My client wanted his day in court. I wasn’t going to be paralyzed by fear.”

Terry was recently selected to be a member of the prestigious American College of Trial Lawyers (also serving on the Florida State Committee) and is past president of the Palm Beach Chapter of the American Board of Trial Advocates. She is also certifi ed as a mediator.

Lawdragon: I read that your dad was a lawyer, your mom is a paralegal and your sister is also a lawyer. Were you inspired by your family to have a career in law?

Karen Terry: Yes. My dad gave me three options: get an M.D., a J.D. or an MBA degree. He preferred two of the three. So, I selected a J.D., and I also got a master’s in telecommunication

BY EMILY JACKOWAY

while I was getting my J.D. and completed it all in three years.

We had a lot of spirited discussions in my house growing up, so in order to be heard, I had to get my law degree.

LD: How did you come to this specific practice area?

KT: I knew that Searcy Denney was one of the best law fi rms in the state. My sister had clerked here one summer and loved it. She said the people were very warm, kind, compassionate, and cared about injured victims.

There wasn’t any other fi eld I was interested in. I didn’t want to push paper. I wanted to get into the courtroom and have a speaking role. So, it seemed like litigation was a natural fi t.

LD: Early on, many of your cases involved nursing home abuse and negligence, right?

KT: That’s right. I volunteered in a nursing home in high school, and I saw these poor elderly people. They were lonely and forgotten. I wanted to help. I was placed in charge of activities. So, I played bingo with them.

Initially as a lawyer, I worked on a lot of bed sore cases. The sores are excruciatingly painful, and if not properly cared for, can develop into a bone infection called osteomyelitis, which can be fatal.

Nursing homes are way understaffed, typically, and there are a lot of older people in Florida. Many do not get the attention they should. That was my passion. Later, I started doing medical malpractice cases.

LD: How did one lead into the other?

KT: Well, there’s a lot of overlap. In nursing homes, you have healthcare providers who treat the nursing home residents. So, sometimes you end up suing doctors, nurses and the nursing home in the same case. Florida is unique in that it has a specifi c statute, Florida Statutes 400 and 429, which protects nursing home and assisted living facility residents, giving them special resident rights. There are a lot of things about medical malpractice laws that are patently unfair. For instance, something that really must change is the concept of what doctors and hospitals call the “free kill.”

Aelish Marie Baig

ROBBINS GELLER

SAN FRANCISCO

Jan Baisch*

LAW OFFICE OF JAN BAISCH

PORTLAND, ORE.

Rosalyn ‘Sia’ Baker-Barnes

SEARCY DENNEY

WEST PALM BEACH

Daniel Balaban

BALABAN SPIELBERGER

LOS ANGELES

Beth Baldinger

MAZIE SLATER

ROSELAND, N.J.

Lee Balefsky*

KLINE SPECTER

PHILADELPHIA

Joseph Balesteri

POWER ROGERS

CHICAGO

Wesley Todd Ball

FARRAR & BALL

HOUSTON

Lauren Guth Barnes

HAGENS BERMAN

CAMBRIDGE, MASS.

F. Gregory Barnhart

SEARCY DENNEY

WEST PALM BEACH

Brian Barr

LEVIN PAPANTONIO

PENSACOLA

Patrick C. Barry

DECOF BARRY

PROVIDENCE

Vincent Bartolotta Jr.*

THORSNES BARTOLOTTA

SAN DIEGO

June Bashant

ROUDA FEDER

SAN FRANCISCO

T. Hardee Bass III

SEARCY DENNEY

WEST PALM BEACH

Ian Bauer

HAGENS BERMAN

SEATTLE

Michael Baum

BAUM HEDLUND

LOS ANGELES

Michael K. Beard

MARSH RICKARD

BIRMINGHAM, ALA.

A free kill is a patient with no surviving spouse or with no surviving child under the age of 25. If a healthcare provider treats the patient negligently causing death, no one has standing to bring a claim for the wrongful death in the state of Florida. So, the patient becomes a “free kill.” I was single for the first 46 years of my life. I didn’t get married until late. I was a free kill, too. If something happened to me and I went to a doctor or hospital and they botched it, nobody could bring a claim for me – not even my mom and dad. But if I was killed by a car, my mom and dad would have standing to bring a claim. So, the law in Florida is patently unfair to victims of medical malpractice.

That aspect of the law has troubled me since I got here, and it troubles me more every day. When new clients call, I have to explain the “free kill” concept to them, and you can only imagine how horrified they are when they hear that there’s nothing they can do to right the wrong.

LD: That’s awful.

KT: The care can even be reckless and careless, and it just doesn’t matter. There is no one that can bring the claim for them.

LD: And you’ve been trying to fi ght that since you started at the fi rm?

KT: We have. We’ve been trying to fi ght it in the legislature in Tallahassee, but the medical lobby is incredibly powerful.

LD: Looking at the cases you have been able to take on, are there any that stand out as particularly memorable to you?

KT: The verdicts are the ones that stick out because you live that case so long. It can take four to seven years to get the case to verdict and through appeal. So, just by the very nature of representing folks for that long, you get pretty close to them and they become family. I particularly love representing and fi ghting for children.

LD: I can imagine. Tell me a bit about the Hippely case, where you sued Walgreens.

KT: That case stands out because the case was in litigation for a long time, and it was my biggest verdict: $25.8M. I represented a husband who lost his wife, Beth. They had three children.

Beth was given a prescription for Coumadin, which is a blood thinner. It was supposed to be 1.0 milligrams, and they gave her 10 milligrams. So, Walgreens disregarded the decimal point, or failed to see it. 10 milligrams would be excessive under any circumstances, so it should have stuck out like a big red fl ag.

She had a severe stroke from the overdose and lived for four years trapped in her own body. She had great difficulty communicating. But she would let you know if she was displeased with something. So, she was somewhat mentally intact.

We tried that case over in a really conservative venue called Bartow. Walgreens had given us low-ball offers because there had never been big verdicts in Bartow. Our clients were willing to settle for multiples less than the verdict, even up until before closing arguments.

So, we took a verdict and then it went up on appeal and was affi rmed three years later. That was a victorious day.

THE VERDICTS ARE THE ONES THAT STICK OUT BECAUSE YOU LIVE THAT CASE SO LONG. IT CAN TAKE FOUR TO SEVEN YEARS TO GET THE CASE TO VERDICT AND THROUGH APPEAL. SO, JUST BY THE VERY NATURE OF REPRESENTING FOLKS FOR THAT LONG, YOU GET PRETTY CLOSE TO THEM AND THEY BECOME FAMILY.

Jere Beasley*

BEASLEY ALLEN

MONTGOMERY, ALA.

Bradley Beckworth

NIX PATTERSON

AUSTIN

Lloyd N. Bell

BELL LAW FIRM

ATLANTA

Megan Wolfe Benett

KREINDLER & KREINDLER

NEW YORK

David Beninger

LUVERA LAW FIRM

SEATTLE

Katie R. Beran

HAUSFELD

PHILADELPHIA

Esther Berezofsky

MOTLEY RICE

CHERRY HILL, N.J.

Nicole Berg

KELLER LENKNER

CHICAGO

Steve Berman*

HAGENS BERMAN

SEATTLE

name name

FIRM FIRM FIRM (CITY)

N. John Bey

BEY & ASSOCIATES

ATLANTA

Nadeem Bezar

KLINE SPECTER

PHILADELPHIA

Shehnaz Bhujwala

BOUCHER LLP

WOODLAND HILLS, CALIF.

David Bianchi

STEWART TILGHMAN

MIAMI

Andy Birchfield

BEASLEY ALLEN

MONTGOMERY, ALA.

Gayle Blatt

CASEY GERRY

SAN DIEGO

Bryan Blevins Jr.

PROVOST UMPHREY

BEAUMONT, TEXAS

Anders Blewett

HOYT & BLEWETT

GREAT FALLS, MONT.

Drew Blewett

HOYT & BLEWETT

GREAT FALLS, MONT.

Alexander ‘Zander’ Blewett III*

HOYT & BLEWETT

GREAT FALLS, MONT.

Paula Bliss

JUSTICE LAW COLLABORATIVE

SOUTH EASTON, MASS.

Jerome Block

LEVY KONIGSBERG

NEW YORK

Jeffrey Bloom

GAIR GAIR

NEW YORK

Lisa Blue*

ATHEA TRIAL LAWYERS

DALLAS

Patricia Bobb*

PATRICIA C. BOBB & ASSOCIATES

CHICAGO

LaBarron Boone

BEASLEY ALLEN

MONTGOMERY, ALA.

Rainey Booth

MICHLES & BOOTH/LITTLEPAGE BOOTH

HOUSTON

James Bostwick*

BOSTWICK & PETERSON

SAN FRANCISCO

Steven Botzau

HABUSH HABUSH

RAICNE, WIS.

Raymond Boucher

BOUCHER LLP

WOODLAND HILLS, CALIF.

Brian Bowcut

COHEN MILSTEIN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Kevin Boyle

PANISH SHEA

LOS ANGELES

Margaret Moses Branch*

BRANCH LAW FIRM

ALBUQUERQUE

Thomas Brandi*

THE BRANDI LAW FIRM

SAN FRANCISCO

Debbie Dudley Branson

THE LAW OFFICES OF FRANK L. BRANSON

DALLAS

Frank Branson*

THE LAW OFFICES OF FRANK L. BRANSON

DALLAS

Clint Brasher

BRASHER LAW FIRM, PLLC

BEAUMONT, TEXAS

Alex Arteaga-Gomez

GROSSMAN ROTH (BOCA RATON, FLA.)

ALEX ARTEAGO-GOMEZ

AT FIRST GLANCE, THE PHASES OF ALEX

Arteaga-Gomez’s career seem contrasting. Right out of a federal clerkship, he was a defense lawyer at White & Case. Then, he focused on white collar criminal defense work at the Law Offi ces of Scott A. Srebnick. After that, a desire to represent indigent clients moved him to the Federal Public Defender’s Offi ce. Finally, in 2018, he came to Grossman Roth Yaffa Cohen to focus on advocating for victims of medical malpractice and catastrophic injury.

But, Arteaga-Gomez points out, these distinctions are ones that lawyers make – not victims.

“From the client’s perspective, there are no criminal problems or civil problems. There are just tragedies they need help recovering from,” he says. “The family who suffered a sudden loss in a catastrophic accident and the one facing the full force of the federal government are each in crisis. I have always wanted to be a counselor and advocate for people that find themselves there.”

Arteaga-Gomez has successfully been that advocate for victims in mass tort, medical malpractice matters and more in high-profile litigations that help real people. Since he joined Florida-based GRYC in 2018, he has been involved in cases like those arising out of the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. His involvement helped achieve compensation for the families of seventeen victims who were killed, and seventeen others injured, in the shooting, including a $127.5M settlement with the Department of Justice and a $26M settlement with the Broward County School Board. Other mass casualty events he has worked on include the crisis at the Hollywood Hills nursing home after Hurricane Irma, and the Florida International University Bridge and Champlain Towers South condominium collapses – all tragedies that occurred within the last five years.

His commitment to helping individuals and families in crisis is what brought him to his current practice, and his work with his clients at GRYC has exceeded his expectations. “I’ve found it even more fulfilling than I expected I would,” he says.

Lawdragon: How did you first become interested in a career in the law?

BY EMILY JACKOWAY

Alex Arteaga-Gomez: I’ve always been motivated to do what I can to advocate for people who cannot advocate for themselves. That motivation has led me throughout my career, from representing indigent individuals ensnared in the federal system as a public defender to what I do now, representing victims of catastrophic injury who are trying to live a dignified life given the tragedy that hit them.

LD: You were a defense lawyer at White & Case first – how did that come about?

AAG: At the beginning of my legal career, I wanted to focus on, to borrow a sports analogy, the “blocking and tackling.” In legal work, that is the research and writing. Those are, in my view, the foundations of our practice.

I wanted to work at a fi rm that would teach me those core skills at the very highest level. So, I’m very grateful to White & Case for doing that for me. I think I would’ve been perfectly happy and fulfi lled if I’d spent the rest of my career there. I still keep in touch with my mentors from those years, who have gone on to leadership positions in that fi rm.

I had a specific interest in criminal defense practice, and I took the step to work for Law Offices of Scott A. Srebnick, where I worked on some fascinating white-collar cases. I helped draft a brief in the U.S. Supreme Court that allowed me to sit at counsel table during an argument. In those arguments, you’re literally within 24 inches of the Justices.

But I had a burning desire to represent indigent defendants. So, I had the chance to work at the Federal Public Defender’s Office. After doing that for several years, I reached a point where I wanted to decide about the rest of my career. After some soul searching and conversations with people I trust, I settled on personal injury and medical malpractice work on behalf of victims. I couldn’t be happier doing this work.

LD: What drew you to Grossman Roth Yaffa Cohen?

AAG: Our firm has decades of experience advocating for victims of catastrophic injuries and events and taking on some of the most complex cases that arise in our community. It was the challenge associated with the cases and the seriousness in which they took them that I felt was the perfect fi t.

Gregory Breedlove

CUNNINGHAM BOUNDS

MOBILE, ALA.

Jeffrey Breit

BREIT BINIAZAN

VIRGINIA BEACH

Laurie J. Briggs

SEARCY DENNEY

WEST PALM BEACH

Martin Brigham

RAYNES LAWN

PHILADELPHIA

E. Drew Britcher

BRITCHER LEONE & SERGIO

GLEN ROCK, N.J.

Quentin Brogdon

CRAIN BROGDON

DALLAS

Bruce Broillet*

GREENE BROILLET

EL SEGUNDO

Perry J. Browder

SIMMONS HANLY CONROY

ALTON, ILL.

Alex Brown

LANIER LAW FIRM

HOUSTON

Thomas K. Brown

THE BROWN LAW FIRM

HOUSTON

Toby D. Brown

CUNNINGHAM BOUNDS

MOBILE, ALA.

Joseph M. Brown Jr.*

CUNNINGHAM BOUNDS

MOBILE, ALA.

Steven Browning

SPOHRER DODD

JACKSONVILLE

Devon Bruce

POWER ROGERS

CHICAGO

Lea Bucciero

PODHURST ORSECK

MIAMI

Robert Buccola

DREYER BABICH

SACRAMENTO

David Buchanan

SEEGER WEISS

RIDGEFIELD PARK, N.J.

Virginia Buchanan

LEVIN PAPANTONIO

PENSACOLA

Richard Burke Jr.

CLIFFORD LAW OFFICES

CHICAGO

Warren Burns

BURNS CHAREST

DALLAS

Michael Burrage*

WHITTEN BURRAGE

OKLAHOMA CITY

John Burris

LAW OFFICES OF JOHN BURRIS

OAKLAND

Kenneth Byrd

LIEFF CABRASER

NASHVILLE

Elizabeth Cabraser*

LIEFF CABRASER

SAN FRANCISCO

John Cagney

KRAMER DILLOF

NEW YORK

Jed Cain

HERMAN HERMAN & KATZ

NEW ORLEANS

Stephen F. Cain

STEWART TILGHMAN

MIAMI

David Cain Jr.

CUNNINGHAM BOUNDS

MOBILE, ALA.

Michael Canty

LABATON SUCHAROW

NEW YORK

Susan Capra

CLIFFORD LAW OFFICES

CHICAGO

Robert Carey

HAGENS BERMAN

PHOENIX

Diana Carnemolla

GAIR GAIR

NEW YORK

Scott Carr

GREENE BROILLET

EL SEGUNDO

Tom Carse

CARSE LAW FIRM

DALLAS

Stephanie Casey

COLSON HICKS

CORAL GABLES

David Casey Jr.*

CASEY GERRY

SAN DIEGO

Stewart Casper

CASPER & DE TOLEDO

STAMFORD, CONN.

Stacey Feeley Cavanagh

CAVANAGH LAW GROUP

CHICAGO

Timothy Cavanagh

CAVANAGH LAW GROUP

CHICAGO

Brent Ceryes

BAIRD MANDALAS

BALTIMORE

Mark Chalos

LIEFF CABRASER

NASHVILLE

Deborah Chang

ATHEA TRIAL LAWYERS

HERMOSA BEACH, CALIF.

Daniel Charest

BURNS CHAREST

DALLAS

Doris Cheng

WALKUP MELODIA

SAN FRANCISCO

Cynthia Chihak*

CHIHAK & MARTEL

SAN DIEGO

Craig A. Christensen

HABUSH HABUSH

GREEN BAY

Michael Ciresi*

CIRESI CONLIN

MINNEAPOLIS

Denyse Clancy

KAZAN MCCLAIN OAKLAND

Robert Clayton

TAYLOR & RING

MANHATTAN BEACH, CALIF.

Tony Clayton

TONY CLAYTON & ASSOCIATES

NEW ORLEANS

Robert Clifford

CLIFFORD LAW OFFICES

CHICAGO

Jeremy Cloyd

ALTAIR LAW

SAN FRANCISCO

Eleni Coffinas

SULLIVAN PAPAIN

NEW YORK

Gary M. Cohen

GROSSMAN ROTH

CORAL GABLES

LD: When you came over in 2018, a number of tragedies took place locally, and the firm began working on cases arising out of them. How were you involved in those cases?

AAG: Within a couple of months of joining the firm, I was wrapped up in what were at the time three large community disasters – the Parkland massacre, the Hollywood Hills nursing home case, and the FIU bridge collapse. We had the honor of representing people in each of those cases, and I did the very best I could for our clients.

LD: What did you learn from working on all those major tragedies at once?

AAG: I learned that often the solutions to these multi-plaintiff, multi-defendant mass casualties are reached by working towards consensus. I learned that not every defense attorney is looking to fight – that there are attorneys on the other side who are looking for a solution and recognize the gravity of the problem. So, I learned to work productively with people who are typically an opponent.

LD: Do you feel like your experience as a defense attorney helps you see where the other side is coming from?

AAG: I think so. I understand that we all took an oath to represent our respective clients zealously, so I don’t take it personally if someone’s trying to defend their client, even when they know that their client is responsible for a terrible event.

LD: And where do the Parkland cases stand now?

AAG: There is still a pending case against the Broward Sheriff’s Office and several individuals who were responsible for safety on the campus.

LD: I know you did a lot of the “boots on the ground” work on these cases, particularly against the school district. Can you tell me about that process?

AAG: We settled with the school district for a total of approximately $26M, and that was a remarkable result given that the school district is generally protected by sovereign immunity for state law claims. I commend the school district for doing the right thing and creating a fund to compensate the victims.

It is not nearly enough money. Any one of these parents deserves many multiples of $26M because they will never be able to walk their daughter down the aisle, hug their son at his college graduation, or kiss their grandchild in the hospital. But it is at least some measure of compensation for them.

LD: Absolutely.

Looking back over your career, what other cases stand out to you as memorable?

AAG: I’d say some of my cases as an assistant public defender office stand out.

I represented multiple people who were ensnared in the federal system, facing decades of prison time for offenses for which there was marginal evidence, and we prevailed at trial. Many of our clients had no family or loved ones in the courtroom to support them. Being their support system in those moments was very rewarding.

LD: I’m sure. What kinds of cases did you work on most often?

AAG: Practicing in the Southern District of Florida, we saw everything from the most minor immigration cases to the most complex mortgage and health care cases.

OUR FIRM HAS DECADES OF EXPERIENCE ADVOCATING FOR VICTIMS OF CATASTROPHIC INJURIES AND EVENTS AND TAKING ON SOME OF THE MOST COMPLEX CASES THAT ARISE IN OUR COMMUNITY. IT WAS THE CHALLENGE ASSOCIATED WITH THE CASES AND THE SERIOUSNESS IN WHICH THEY TOOK THEM THAT I FELT WAS THE PERFECT FIT.

My last trial at the office was particularly interesting. In our district, hundreds of people a week are charged with visa fraud offenses at the airport. They arrive, get arrested, and go to the jail. Then, they meet their lawyer, plead guilty, and within four days they’re a convicted felon and back on a plane to their home country.

It never makes sense for any of these people to contest the charge. If they ask for a trial, it will get set 30 days away and they will have to sit in jail waiting for it. And even if they win the criminal trial, they will still get deported. But if they plead guilty, they’ll be back in their home country within days. Why would any rational person, no matter how innocent they are, ever insist on a trial in those circumstances?

But my last trial was a gentleman that didn’t care and insisted on a trial. So, we went to trial, and we won.

LD: That’s amazing.

AAG: He just wouldn’t say, “I intentionally lied to the U.S. government to come into the country.” And he hadn’t. I presented all the facts to the prosecutor to explain that to them. It didn’t move them. The man waited weeks for his trial and was found not guilty within a matter of hours.

LD: Outside of the Parkland cases, which I know are ongoing, are there any matters keeping you particularly busy right now?

AAG: We’re currently representing a client who purchased contaminated eyedrops here in south Florida. These eyedrops are the subject of an FDA recall and, so far, we know of at least 55 similar victims across the United States. The number is just going to continue to grow.

This is an extremely antibiotic-resistant bacteria. It resulted in permanent damage to our client, so we are very actively trying to get to the bottom of this

problem and seek justice for people who are purely innocent victims.

LD: Recently, you spoke at the House Subcommittee on Civil Justice in opposition of House Bill 837. What did that entail?

AAG: Right now, there is a full-frontal assault by the insurance industry to reduce their responsibility solely for the purpose of profit. There are bills in our legislature that will not protect small businesses, will not reduce premiums, and will only make our roads and community less safe. I traveled to Tallahassee recently and was honored to testify alongside crime victims in advocating against this bill.

LD: Are you seeing aggressive tort reform as a recent trend?

AAG: I think that the insurance companies always try to take a shot at it, but right now it is more aggressive than ever.

LD: I’m sure that takes a lot of time and energy to fight. When you have time outside of work, what do you do for fun?

AAG: My wife and I love to travel. We’ve made multiple trips to East Africa primarily to trek the Virunga Mountains to see mountain gorillas. We’ve visited with wild mountain gorillas in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, and Uganda. It is, in my opinion, one of the most wonderful experiences that any human being can have. Right now, there are only about 1,000 mountain gorillas in the wild, but the population has been steadily increasing due to the tourism-related conversation efforts. I encourage everyone to make the trip because it will only help preserve this majestic species.

I LEARNED THAT NOT EVERY DEFENSE ATTORNEY IS LOOKING TO FIGHT – THAT THERE ARE ATTORNEYS ON THE OTHER SIDE WHO ARE LOOKING FOR A SOLUTION AND RECOGNIZE THE GRAVITY OF THE PROBLEM. SO, I LEARNED TO WORK PRODUCTIVELY WITH PEOPLE WHO ARE TYPICALLY AN OPPONENT.

Howard Coker*

COKER LAW

JACKSONVILLE

John Coletti

PAULSON COLETTI

PORTLAND, ORE.

Dean Colson*

COLSON HICKS

CORAL GABLES

Jan Conlin*

CIRESI CONLIN

MINNEAPOLIS

Roxanne Conlin*

ROXANNE CONLIN & ASSOCIATES

DES MOINES

Jayne Conroy

SIMMONS HANLY CONROY

NEW YORK

Jack Conway

DOLT THOMPSON

LOUISVILLE

Kathryn Conway

POWER ROGERS

CHICAGO

Ralph Cook*

HARE WYNN

BIRMINGHAM, ALA.

Ed Cooper

TORGAN COOPER

NEW YORK

Erin Copeland

FIBICH LEEBRON

HOUSTON

Philip Harnett Corboy Jr.

CORBOY & DEMETRIO

CHICAGO

Christopher Cormier

BURNS CHAREST

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Natasha Cortes

GROSSMAN ROTH

CORAL GABLES

Joseph P. Cosgrove

HOYT & BLEWETT

GREAT FALLS, MONT.

Joseph Cotchett*

COTCHETT PITRE & MCCARTHY

BURLINGAME, CALIF.

Robert Crain

CRAIN BROGDON ROGERS

DALLAS

Elizabeth Crooke

ENGSTROM LIPSCOMB

LOS ANGELES

Joe Cullan

CULLAN & CULLAN

OMAHA

Pat Cullan

CULLAN & CULLAN

OMAHA

Fred Cunningham

DOMNICK CUNNINGHAM

PALM BEACH GARDENS

Katie Curry

MCGINN MONTOYA

ALBUQUERQUE

Lisa Dagostino

KLINE SPECTER

PHILADELPHIA

Carolyn Daley

POWER ROGERS

CHICAGO

Sindhu Daniel

GRANT & EISENHOFER

WILMINGTON

Michael Danko

DANKO MEREDITH

REDWOOD CITY, CALIF.

Frank N. Darras

DARRAS LAW

ONTARIO, CALIF.

Stuart A. Davidson

ROBBINS GELLER

BOCA RATON

Leonard Davis

HERMAN HERMAN & KATZ

NEW ORLEANS

Mark Davis*

DAVIS LEVIN HONOLULU

Matthew D. Davis

WALKUP MELODIA

SAN FRANCISCO

Victoria de Toledo

CASPER & DE TOLEDO

STAMFORD, CONN.

David Dean*

SULLIVAN PAPAIN

NEW YORK

Jessica Dean

DEAN OMAR

DALLAS

Kevin Dean

MOTLEY RICE

MT. PLEASANT, S.C.

Mark J. Dearman

ROBBINS GELLER

BOCA RATON

A. Roy DeCaro

RAYNES LAWN

PHILADELPHIA

Mark Decof*

DECOF BARRY

PROVIDENCE

Michael Demetrio

CORBOY & DEMETRIO

CHICAGO

Thomas Demetrio*

CORBOY & DEMETRIO

CHICAGO

Brian Denney

SEARCY DENNEY

WEST PALM BEACH

Ralph L. Dewsnup

DEWSNUP KING

SALT LAKE CITY

Bobby DiCello

DICELLO LEVITT

CLEVELAND

Mark DiCello

DICELLO LEVITT

CLEVELAND

David Dickens

THE MILLER FIRM

ORANGE, VA.

David Dickey

YERRID LAW FIRM

TAMPA

Timothy Dinan

LADDEY CLARK

SPARTA, N.J.

Cole Dixon

SCHWEBEL GOETZ

MINNEAPOLIS

Paulina do Amaral

LIEFF CABRASER

NEW YORK

Chris Dolan

DOLAN LAW FIRM

SAN FRANCISCO

Sean Domnick

DOMNICK CUNNINGHAM

PALM BEACH GARDENS

Christopher Donadio

GAIR GAIR

NEW YORK

Dennis Donnelly*

THE DONNELLY LAW FIRM

SUMMIT, N.J.

Gary Dordick

DORDICK LAW CORPORATION

BEVERLY HILLS

Ira Leesfield

LEESFIELD SCOLARO (MIAMI)

IRA LEESFIELD

FOR IRA LEESFIELD, THE FOUNDER AND

managing partner of Leesfield Scolaro, when it comes to personal injury law, there’s a heavy emphasis on the personal. Leesfield has crafted his career as a crusade to help the disenfranchised when they need it the most. Leesfield, who was raised by a single mother, is fueled by a deepheld belief that showing up for people in their time of need is not only the right thing to do – but that it can truly make a difference.

Ira Leesfield, a member of the Lawdragon 500 Leading Plaintiff Consumer Lawyers, famously served President Clinton in two significant posts from 1992 to 2000 – the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports and the Presidential Advisory Commission on Holocaust Assets. He was nominated as “Lawyer of the Year” by the Trial Lawyers for Public Justice, after he obtained a $19.8M verdict against Honda Corp.

An ethos of generosity, that Leesfield attributes to his mother, has charged not only his professional work, but also his robust portfolio of philanthropic and community-based work. Over the years he’s been honored with the American Association for Justice Award, the Judge Learned Hand Award from the American Jewish Committee, the Miracle Maker Award from Big Brothers/ Big Sisters, the Anti-Defamation League’s Jurisprudence Award, and he’s twice been honored with the prestigious Wiedemann Wysocki medal for outstanding advocacy.

The list of accolades speaks for itself, but the esteem he gets from receiving wedding invitations from clients and their families long after the cases have closed might be Leesfield’s preferred measure of success. After all, it’s incredibly personal, this business.

Lawdragon: How did your early life lead you to the law?

Ira Leesfield: Growing up, my family didn’t have much. The feeling of being without any backup or authority led me to a profession where I could help other people who were also disenfranchised. It’s known as the poor man’s keys to the courthouse – people with no money, whose rights are not recognized, but who have a legitimate grievance can get to court and have that satisfied.

BY MEGHAN HEMINGWAY

LD: How did you first realize that law was the way that you could help people?

IL: My first legal document was an eviction notice on my mother’s door. We were evicted as a young family. We saw a big red sign on the door, and my mom was sitting on the floor of the hallway in tears. It occurred to me that the law was a pretty good way to protect myself, and to protect my family.

LD: How did you come to personal injury?

IL: It was quite serendipitous. When I got out of law school, I fell into a law firm here in Florida that had been tracking me through law school, and they did plaintiffs’ personal injury. They represented people who couldn’t afford lawyers who had been injured. I was a natural. My previous work was prosecuting antitrust violators, which was not so satisfying. Once I was representing people, it was a completely different standard. People said, “Thank you,” and sometimes shed a tear when you got them a recovery that put their kids into college, or literally gave them financial security.

LD: And just three years later you opened your own firm?

IL: I was always kind of entrepreneurial as a young person. I always had jobs – busboy, dishwasher, short order cook, cleaning, selling clothing at a men’s store. I always liked the feeling of making a living and being independent. Owning my own firm was just consistent with that capitalistic feeling of “I can do this on my own.” I was 29 years old.

LD: Was there a vision or founding principles for the firm?

IL: My mother was a great egalitarian. She taught me the importance of treating people fairly, with dignity and respect, regardless of their state of life or whether they’re rich or poor. She was a woman with an eighth-grade education and a tremendous sense of right and wrong. And that’s all I knew in starting the business – there was the right way and the wrong way and it was just easier to do it the right way, because that’s what I was taught. To cast your bread upon the waters. To be generous and to be fair. To share if you have

T. Micah Dortch

POTTS LAW FIRM

DALLAS

Kimberly Dougherty

JUSTICE LAW COLLABORATIVE

SOUTH EASTON, MASS.

Carl Douglas

DOUGLAS / HICKS

LOS ANGELES

Vineet Dubey

CUSTODIO & DUBEY

LOS ANGELES

Daniel Dunbar

PANISH SHEA

LOS ANGELES

Kendall Dunson

BEASLEY ALLEN

MONTGOMERY, ALA.

Kevin Durkin

CLIFFORD LAW OFFICES

CHICAGO

Daniel Dutko

RUSTY HARDIN & ASSOCIATES

HOUSTON Emmanuel Edem

NORMAN & EDEM

OKLAHOMA CITY

Brad Edwards

EDWARDS POTTINGER

FT. LAUDERDALE

Robert Eglet

EGLET ADAMS

LAS VEGAS

Tracy Eglet

EGLET ADAMS

LAS VEGAS

Lewis ‘Mike’ Eidson*

COLSON HICKS

CORAL GABLES

Aaron Eken

SCHWEBEL GOETZ

MINNEAPOLIS

Michael Elsner

MOTLEY RICE

MT. PLEASANT, S.C.

Graham Esdale

BEASLEY ALLEN

MONTGOMERY, ALA.

Bijan Esfandiari

BAUM HEDLUND

LOS ANGELES

Christine Esser

HABUSH HABUSH

GREEN BAY

FIRST

DOCUMENT WAS AN EVICTION NOTICE ON

something to share. And to understand that everything you do, that how you treat people, can come back to bring you even greater satisfaction, both financial and personal.

LD: Is there a case that stands out from the early days of the firm?

IL: One of my first cases was a young 14-year-old girl named Katie Reeb. She was riding her bike in Key West and a motorcycle ran a stop sign and just creamed her. At 14, she was left paralyzed and the motorcycle who hit her had no insurance.

I went to the scene of the accident, and I happened to meet the motorcycle operator there. I asked him why he didn’t see the stop sign and he pointed to some fresh construction on the road and he said, “Well, the asphalt company was there. There was dust and noise, and distraction. I just didn’t see Katie.”

It turned out that the construction company didn’t have the road properly marked. So, I sued them, and recovered several million dollars. And this young girl, who’s now probably 50, had financial help, rehabilitation, speech therapy, occupational therapy, and everything else, for the rest of her life.

LD: What an impact. Can you tell us a bit about the Honda Corp case?

IL: It was a five-week trial in Erie, Penn., against one of the world’s largest corporations. My client’s name was Todd Eimers. He was a young man on a motorcycle with a design defect. It was a Honda motorcycle where the kickstand would not retract, and it threw the motorcycle out of control and left him as a quadriplegic – paralyzed

from the neck down. It was not an easy case because he had had a couple of beers before he got on the motorcycle and the tires of the motorcycle were bald. We had to overcome a lot of obstacles, and we did.

LD: How did you overcome those obstacles?

IL: Hard work. The defendants made some terrible mistakes during trial. They actually doctored the evidence. And once I was tenacious enough to prove that, it busted the case wide open and it turned the jury and the judge around. It was very satisfying and was, at the time, the largest verdict recorded against Honda.

LD: Can you tell us about any cases that resulted in a policy change?

IL: My clients were staying at a hotel where, instead of hiring a certified plumber or electrician to do the venting of the laundry room – which was powered by gas and created carbon monoxide – they had their own handyman go up on the roof to vent out the poisonous gas. And the handyman pointed the vent right at the direction where the ocean breezes were coming off the water. It just blew the carbon monoxide back into the vent, and back into the hotel where my clients were staying, and caused these horrible and senseless deaths.

Based upon that case, I worked with the Florida legislature to pass a statute that required mandatory carbon monoxide detectors in all public accommodations. They can’t force you to put carbon monoxide detectors in your home. But now every hotel room in Florida has a carbon monoxide detector, as part of the fire alarm system.

MY

LEGAL

MY MOTHER’S DOOR. WE WERE EVICTED AS A YOUNG FAMILY. WE SAW A BIG RED SIGN ON THE DOOR, AND MY MOM WAS SITTING ON THE FLOOR OF THE HALLWAY IN TEARS. IT OCCURRED TO ME THAT THE LAW WAS A PRETTY GOOD WAY TO PROTECT MYSELF, AND TO PROTECT MY FAMILY.

LD: Wow.

IL: There have been legislative changes based upon a number of things that we’ve done. I’ve got 40-plus years of verdicts and settlements. There’ve been a lot of very rewarding cases. I’m still getting wedding invitations.

LD: Are there any trends currently keeping you busy?

IL: Cruise ship cases. Cruise ships are nothing but a floating city with all the problems of a city, lots of alcohol, lots of danger and no law enforcement. We’ve worked really hard to help change the law on medical negligence aboard cruise ships. We’ve had cases where people got very sick during the cruise and the captain and the crews refused to alter the course of the ship to get medical care because they didn’t want to delay the cruise. Or they wouldn’t authorize a helicopter to come pick up the dying person.

LD: Any other trends you’re noticing?

IL: Security cases are really where we’re at today. In Key West this week a young 21-year-old boy was shot in the stomach and killed. He was urinating behind this guy’s bar and the guard came along and just point blank, shot and killed him. I’m not a psychologist, but I think some of that is sort of a post-Covid ultraviolent world that we live in.

LD: You’re noticing an influx?

IL: Florida is bustling with lots of new people coming in every single day and there’s just a greater sense of lawlessness. We finished a case that was very renowned recently. Our client and her husband checked into a hotel and a hardened, crazy criminal walked into the hotel lobby and went up the hallway, knocked on the door, and dragged this woman and her husband out of their room. He beat her, raped her, and then he bit her head off. He literally chewed her head. We settled that case for $16M in 11 months. But the woman, who lived, is just absolutely devastated.

LD: Of course.

IL: I think people have to be much more alert to their environment. Because there’s some real evil out there. Evil in Uvalde, Texas. There’s evil in Lansing, Mich., with the recent shooting at Michigan State. There’s just evil. And I think we all have to be a little bit more diligent. A lot more diligent.

LD: Agreed. Let’s switch gears here, tell me a bit about the Leesfield Family Foundation. How did that start?

IL: It’s a charitable foundation I started in 1990. We didn’t have much to fund it with, but it started out as an effort focused on homeless women and children. Initially we didn’t have much, but we did what we could do, when we could do it. And then, as my practice grew, and things got better, I just kept increasing every year. And now we’ve expanded. We support an organization called Live Like Bella, which is all about supporting child cancer victims, some homeless shelters, The Sundari Foundation, which has The Lotus House for women and children, Project Yes, which provides emotional counseling for the LGBQT community, and The Melissa Institute to prevent violence. Nico’s Kids, which is a Hispanic organization. The Boys Club. Overtown Youth Center. The Children’s Home Society.

LD: That’s great.

IL: I’ve been very involved with the Clintons, so we always made the Clinton Foundation a high priority. Then, I got involved with the Baptist Health Center, Baptist Hospital, and the great work they do. I unfortunately had Covid-19 in the summer of 2020. I was hospitalized.

LD: Oh no, I’m so sorry.

IL: It was a little touch and go for a while there. They didn’t know if I was going to make it. When I recovered, I wanted to recognize the people who took such great care of me, so we made a contribution of some very sophisticated diagnostic equipment. Then we started a program to feed the frontline health workers when Covid-19 was raging.

LD: How did you start working with World Central Kitchen?

IL: We’ve been helping after natural disasters – floods in Mississippi, or bad weather in Texas. We helped out after the devastation from the Pulse nightclub shootings in Orlando and Hurricane Maria relief with The Clinton Foundation in Puerto Rico.

LD: Right.

IL: That’s where I met José Andrés. I went down there with the Clintons and Lin-Manuel Miranda. He was a big part of it. He is Puerto Rican. His

father has a farm. He did a performance of “Hamilton” and it was quite touching, to be honest.

LD: Wow.

IL: Through the Clinton Foundation, we have done some amazing things. When the war broke out in Ukraine, José Andrés, who is the head of World Central Kitchen, went immediately to help feed the Ukrainians. I was so outraged by the invasion of Ukraine. People’s freedoms being taken away, murder and genocide. We couldn’t send missiles or guns. All we could send was food. So we did. And I, for the first time, solicited funds outside of my own family to get people to contribute to feeding the Ukrainian population. We had contributors from all over the country. The foundation made a decision that we would match every contribution that we got up to $250,000.

LD: Incredible. What’s something you’ve learned through community service and philanthropy?

IL: If you’re building a basketball court in Overtown, $5,000 is a lot of money. People don’t realize that a little bit of help makes a difference, so they do nothing. That’s one thing I’ve learned with Ukraine is that when you give them an easy way to do it, people want to help.

LD: Tell us about your work under President Clinton.

IL: In ‘91, he was running for president and I had an event at our house for him, and raised some money and became friendly with some of his

staff. The youngest and newest staff member was George Stephanopoulos, who was 28 and he was the first full-time walk-on employee of the campaign in Little Rock. And I worked with him and with the Clintons. In ‘92 when Clinton got elected, I went to Little Rock, I went to the inauguration, I went to everything that he invited us to. That grew into other things that I did with him for the Bicentennial celebration and that grew into his commissioning me to work for the Holocaust Asset Recovery Commission.

LD: Right.

IL: So, President Clinton and I became, actually, very good friends. He’s a warm, personable guy with a huge memory, and great loyalty to his friends, and he always included me.

LD: So what’s next for you?

IL: I’ve undertaken a new project, the Underline project, which is Miami’s version of the Highline in New York. It’s a 10-mile ribbon of park from downtown Miami to Dadeland. It’s a great project. I’m very happy. I’ll be 77 in April, and I get asked on occasion – why are you still working? And my response is always the same – I really enjoy what I do. I enjoy the people that I work with very much and I like coming to the office.

LD: And you’re continuing to help change lives.

IL: Well, as they say – if the surf is up and the tide is going out, you can throw the crabs back in the sea one at a time. “You save one at a time.” Well, you can do one nice thing at a time. It matters.

IF YOU’RE BUILDING A BASKETBALL COURT IN OVERTOWN, $5,000 IS A LOT OF MONEY. PEOPLE DON’T REALIZE THAT A LITTLE BIT OF HELP MAKES A DIFFERENCE, SO THEY DO NOTHING. THAT’S ONE THING I’VE LEARNED WITH UKRAINE IS THAT WHEN YOU GIVE THEM AN EASY WAY TO DO IT, PEOPLE WANT TO HELP.

Regina Etherton

REGINA P. ETHERTON & ASSOCIATES

CHICAGO

Ingrid Evans

EVANS LAW FIRM

SAN FRANCISCO

Karen Evans

THE COCHRAN FIRM

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Kimberly Evans

GRANT & EISENHOFER

WILMINGTON

Elizabeth Faiella*

FAIELLA & GULDEN

WINTER PARK, FLA.

Kyle Farrar

FARRAR & BALL

HOUSTON

Paul Farrell

FARRELL & FULLER

SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO

John Feder

ROUDA FEDER

SAN FRANCISCO

Philip Federico

BAIRD MANDALAS

BALTIMORE

Elizabeth Fegan

FEGAN SCOTT

CHICAGO

Laurence J. Fehring

HABUSH HABUSH

MILWAUKEE Bibi Fell

ATHEA TRIAL LAWYERS/FELL LAW

SAN DIEGO

James Ferguson II*

FERGUSON CHAMBERS

CHARLOTTE

Julie L. Fieber

COTCHETT PITRE & MCCARTHY

BURLINGAME, CALIF.

Steven Fineman

LIEFF CABRASER

NEW YORK

George Finkbohner III

CUNNINGHAM BOUNDS

MOBILE, ALA.

Edward Fisher

PROVOST UMPHREY

BEAUMONT, TEXAS

Joe J. Fisher II

PROVOST UMPHREY

BEAUMONT, TEXAS

James Fitzgerald*

FITZGERALD LAW FIRM

CHEYENNE, WYO.

Fidelma Fitzpatrick

MOTLEY RICE

MT. PLEASANT, S.C.

R. Daniel Fleck

THE SPENCE LAW FIRM

JACKSON, WYO.

Wendy Fleishman

LIEFF CABRASER

NEW YORK

Frank Floriani

SULLIVAN PAPAIN

NEW YORK

Jodi Westbrook Flowers

MOTLEY RICE

MT. PLEASANT, S.C.

Keith D. Forman

WAIS VOGELSTEIN

BALTIMORE

Gary Fox*

STEWART TILGHMAN

MIAMI

Jan Woodward Fox*

LAW OFFICES OF JAN WOODWARD

FOX HOUSTON

Robert Francavilla

CASEY GERRY

SAN DIEGO

Carrie Frank

KLEIN FRANK

BOULDER, COLO.

Aaron Freiwald*

FREIWALD LAW

PHILADELPHIA

Richard H. Friedman*

FRIEDMAN RUBIN

SEATTLE

Agnieszka Fryszman

COHEN MILSTEIN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

John Eric Fulda

WHETSTONE PERKINS

COLUMBIA, S.C.

Michael Fuller

FARRELL & FULLER

SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO

Brenda Fulmer

SEARCY DENNEY

WEST PALM BEACH

Rachel Furst

GROSSMAN ROTH

CORAL GABLES

Matthew Schwencke SEARCY DENNEY (WEST PALM BEACH, FLA)

MATTHEW SCHWENCKE

WHEN MATTHEW SCHWENCKE STARTED HIS

defense practice fresh out of law school, he jumped in with both feet. Right away, he litigated a range of matters including medical malpractice, insurance coverage defense and premises liability cases, gaining valuable experience in the courtroom. There was just one thing missing: Schwencke wanted to connect with people, rather than corporations.

So, just over a decade ago now, Schwencke switched over to the plaintiffs’ side. Now a shareholder at renowned Florida personal injury fi rm Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley, Palm Beach County native Schwencke still tries cases in many of the same practice areas he did as a defense lawyer. He represents victims of catastrophic personal injury, wrongful death, medical malpractice, nursing home abuse and defective products.

Schwencke immediately saw success on the plaintiffs’ side: In 2013, he represented the family of a little boy who was struck by a car and killed while on a bicycle with his father. The pair were biking by a condominium driveway when the crash occurred. While the driver was included in the suit, Schwencke and his team placed primary blame on the condominium association, which had committed property violations that resulted in impaired sightlines for drivers. The jury found in favor of Schwencke’s clients: The verdict came to $12M, with 90 percent of the award paid by the condominium association and the property management company.

While he always aims to get a fair settlement for his clients rather than put them through the stress of trial, Schwencke is ready to fight for his clients in court when the situation demands it. In other precedent-setting results, Schwencke obtained the largest surgical error verdict in Florida in 2017 and, earlier this year, achieved the largest wrongful death verdict in the history of Volusia County.

Nothing compares to getting justice for individuals in cases like those, Schwencke feels. When the jury returns a favorable verdict, he says, “I cry every time.”

Lawdragon: Tell me about the start of your career, over on the defense side. How did that come about?

Matthew Schwencke: My dad was a lawyer, and, like me, went to the University of Florida for undergrad. Those four years were the quickest of my life,

BY EMILY JACKOWAY

as my dad told me they would be. I had to figure out what to do, and my dad was a lawyer, so I decided to go to law school.

Then, in my third year of law school, my dad passed away unexpectedly. At his funeral, a defense lawyer who was his fraternity brother knew that I was leaving school, and one of his law partners had an opening for a civil litigation defense attorney.

Now, I had no idea what that meant, but I knew that litigators were in court a lot, and I knew that I enjoyed the speaking component of my classes. I was on Moot Court, and I liked oral argument. So, I interviewed for the job and took the job. I don’t think I really understood the difference between a plaintiffs’ lawyer and a defense lawyer at that point. But it was honestly the best thing that could have happened to me.

LD: How so?

MS: It exposed me at a very early stage in my legal career to a multitude of different areas of law.

But I quickly realized that I really didn’t enjoy the defense side of things as much as I thought I would enjoy the plaintiffs’ side. That said, I owe a lot of my success to those early years of being a defense lawyer and learning different areas of the law. My superiors at the time put their confidence in me to do complex matters that ended up preparing me for handling those matters when I did make the jump over to the plaintiffs’ side.

LD: How else does having experience on both sides help you in your plaintiffs’ practice?

MS: My defense experience helps me understand what the other side is going through. As my career has progressed, I’ve gone from being someone who fought every issue to someone who will try to work out any issue if I can make some sort of reasonable compromise.

LD: Other than seeking compromise, how else would you describe your style?

MS: You change your style depending on the case, the venue and the facts. I don’t think I have one specific style.

The big thing that I tell all my clients is that my goal is not to try their case. My goal is to get them a reasonable settlement offer, which takes away the uncertainty of a jury trial.

That said, I find myself trying a couple cases a year, which is a decent amount for a civil litigator. So, when I’m in trial, I would say my style is very aggressive. But when I’m not in trial and I’m just trying to work up the case to get a good resolution for my client, I would say it’s probably the opposite. The longer I’ve been doing this, the more I like to be easygoing until I can’t be.

LD: What advice would you give to current law school students?

MS: In law school, you’re told, “Get the best grades you possibly can because you want to get the best job you possibly can.” It’s overwhelming. But the thing is, I think law students should find out more about what the job is. For example, I know a lot of people who are transactional lawyers who love it. I could never be a transactional lawyer; I was meant to be a litigator. I also know a lot of people who went to law school and never became lawyers because they found another career that law school prepared them for. Do your research and make sure the job matches your skillset.

LD: Now that you’ve been on this side of the V for 10 years or so, what have you found most fulfilling about your current practice?

MS: We get a lot of clients who are just thankful we were there to fight for them, because a lot of people don’t have the voice that we have for them in court. We represent catastrophically injured people or people who have lost a loved one. The human component of the job can be very challenging. There are lots of problems our clients have that we just can’t fi x. We can never bring a loved one back. We can never un-injure somebody. Once clients get through that initial emotional component and understand the purpose of civil litigation, which is to try to get them compensation for the harm they’ve been through, we’re able to get the case behind them.

LD: Looking into some of those cases more specifically, are there any that stand out in your memory?

MS: The ones that stick out are cases where you go to trial and win. I have rarely tried a case when there was an offer that made sense for the client. So, usually if I’m in trial, I’m trying a case for someone where there is no offer, or there’s an insulting offer, and I have to champion their cause. When the jury comes back on those cases and says, “Yes, the defendant was negligent. And yes, plaintiff, you were

harmed,” I get very emotional. It’s emotional for me and for the client, because they know the jury understood and agreed that they were harmed. It’s an incredibly good feeling to be able to give your client that experience.

LD: I imagine one of those memorable cases had to be the $12M jury verdict for the boy who was killed in the bike accident.

MS: Yes, that was the most adorable little boy, Andrew Curtis, who died on a bicycle with his father. The loss those parents had to go through is indescribable. Death cases are unique in that aspect, when the parents are reliving the trauma. We don’t get from initiating a lawsuit to trial all that quickly. Especially in a big case like that, it takes years. So, time helps heal some wounds, but when you go back in trial and you’re going through what happened from beginning to end, you’re right back at that event.

It was an interesting case because while we did sue the driver who ran over the little boy, we mainly sued the property manager and the landowner for essentially creating a visual trap. The landowner and property manager had years to follow the right codes to get this right, so these people could see each other on the road. They put the driver and the bicyclist in a situation where they had less than seconds to act. And the jury understood that. So, not only winning that case, but being able to win it against the primary responsible party, was excellent.

LD: Can you describe a recent case you’ve handled to resolution?

MS: I recently tried a case in Volusia County with my partner Brian Denney. It was a wrongful death case involving a 29-year-old man. We were able to get a $10M verdict for the parents, which I understand to be the largest wrongful death verdict in the history of the county. The jury actually gave us $2M more than we asked for. That does not happen often. These parents were the most deserving people. They had to sit there in court and listen to the defense say that their son’s death was his own fault. So, like I said earlier, they had to relive that trauma repeatedly. And then for the jury to reject that and say, “No, the plaintiff’s case was right,” was just… that’s why you wake up and do this again and again. Delivering justice for that family was an incredible feeling. Read the full Q&A at: https://www.lawdragon. com/lawyer-limelights/2023-02-06-lawyer-limelightmatthew-schwencke

Anthony Gair*

GAIR GAIR

NEW YORK

Paul Gallagher

HAUSFELD

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Reena Gambhir

HAUSFELD

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Deborah Gander

COLSON HICKS

CORAL GABLES

Mariano Garcia

SEARCY DENNEY

WEST PALM BEACH

Stephen M. Garcia

GARCIA & ARTIGLIERE

LONG BEACH

Todd W. Gardner

SWANSON GARDNER

RENTON, WASH.

Steven B. Garner

STRONG GARNER

SPRINGFIELD, MO.

Amy E. Garrett

SIMMONS HANLY

CONROY ALTON, ILL.

Sekou Gary

GARY WILLIAMS PARENTI

STUART, FLA.

Willie Gary*

GARY WILLIAMS PARENTI

STUART, FLA.

Simone Fulmer

GAUS FULMER SILL

OKLAHOMA CITY

Jonathan Gdanski

SCHLESINGER LAW OFFICES

FT. LAUDERDALE

Laura Benitez Geisler

SOMMERMAN MCCAFFITY

DALLAS

Robert Gellatly

LUVERA LAW FIRM

SEATTLE

Paul J. Geller

ROBBINS GELLER

BOCA RATON

Rachel Geman

LIEFF CABRASER

NEW YORK

Victor George

LAW OFFICES OF VICTOR L. GEORGE

TORRANCE, CALIF.

Eric Gibbs

GIBBS LAW GROUP

OAKLAND

William Gibbs

CORBOY & DEMETRIO

CHICAGO

Benjamin Gideon

GIDEON ASEN

PORTLAND, MAINE

James L. Gilbert*

THE GILBERT LAW GROUP

ARVADA, COLO.

Phyllis Gillespie

GARY WILLIAMS PARENTI

STUART, FLA.

Scott Gilmore

HAUSFELD

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Soren Gisleson

HERMAN HERMAN & KATZ

NEW ORLEANS

Thomas Giuffra

RHEINGOLD GIUFFRA

NEW YORK

Robert Glassman

PANISH SHEA

SANTA MONICA

Chris Glover

BEASLEY ALLEN

ATLANTA

John C. Goetz

SCHWEBEL GOETZ

MINNEAPOLIS

Larry Golston

BEASLEY ALLEN

MONTOGMERY, ALA

Adam J. Gomez

GRANT & EISENHOFER

WILMINGTON

Ralph Gonzalez

YERRID LAW FIRM

TAMPA

Jeffrey Gordon

LESSER LESSER

BOCA RATON

James Gotz

HAUSFELD

BOSTON

Brent Goudarzi

GOUDARZI & YOUNG

GILMER, TEXAS

Elizabeth Graham

GRANT & EISENHOFER

WILMINGTON

Jeffrey Grand

SEEGER WEISS

RIDGEFIELD PARK, N.J.

Mark Gray

GRAY & WHITE

LOUISVILLE

Justin Green

KREINDLER & KREINDLER

NEW YORK

Browne Greene*

GREENE BROILLET

EL SEGUNDO

Vincent Greene IV

MOTLEY RICE

PROVIDENCE

David Greenstone

SIMON GREENSTONE

DALLAS

Gordon Greenwood

KAZAN MCCLAIN

OAKLAND

Dicky Grigg*

THE LAW OFFICE OF DICKY GRIGG

AUSTIN

Stuart Grossman*

GROSSMAN ROTH

CORAL GABLES

Karman Guadagni

STEBNER GERTLER

SAN FRANCISCO

Francisco Guerra IV

WATTS GUERRA

GUAYNABO, PUERTO RICO

Peter J. Gulden III

FAIELLA & GULDEN

WINTER PARK, FLA.

Amy Guth

KLINE SPECTER

PHILADELPHIA

Max Hacker

SCHWEBEL GOETZ

MINNEAPOLIS

Michael Haggard

THE HAGGARD LAW FIRM

CORAL GABLES

William ‘Andy’ Haggard

THE HAGGARD LAW FIRM

CORAL GABLES

Chris Hamilton

HAMILTON WINGO

DALLAS

Rusty Hardin

RUSTY HARDIN & ASSOCIATES

HOUSTON

Lisa Blue

ATHEA TRIAL LAWYERS (DALLAS)

LISA BLUE

EXCEPTIONAL ATTORNEYS UNDERSTAND THAT

a case is often won or lost long before opening statements are delivered. They recognize that their verdicts rest in the hands of the folks who sit on the jury. In fact, Lisa Blue will tell you, “It’s all in the jury.” And when it comes to jury selection, Blue is the best of the best. She wrote the book on it. Several, actually. Blue is not only a celebrated author, she’s a practicing psychologist and nationally acclaimed plaintiffs’ lawyer who is near peerless when it comes to conducting voir dire.

Blue believes that “doing a great jury selection is exactly like doing therapy.” After earning her PhD in Counseling Psychology from North Texas State University, Blue went on to work as a psychologist in Houston, where she treated teenagers at a drug abuse hospital. It was there that a spur-of-the-moment invitation forever shaped Blue’s life and career. She fell in love with jury selection, something that would become her entry point to an enduring and fruitful career in law.

Despite all her success, Blue is selective when it comes to her memories. “I only remember the cases I lost. I have no memory of my wins,” Blue says. “I remember pain more than joy.” The power of this discomfort has proven to be great fuel for this nationally recognized powerhouse who, with her late husband Fred Baron, built one of the largest environmental law firms in the U.S. – Baron and Blue. More recently, Blue teamed up with five other legendary litigators to form Athea Trial Lawyers, a unique firm that shares resources in pressing cases and advocates for the advancement of women in the industry. Blue is also a member of the Lawdragon Hall of Fame.

Blue partially attributes her success in her various fields to a robust mindfulness and meditation practice – a service she now provides for judges and lawyers alike. What started as a passion project born of the pandemic has caught on like wildfire and illuminated a desperate need in the industry. Blue has not only had to rely on her knowledge, judgment and experience – she’s had to check her ego at the door. In so doing, Blue has etched out a truly singular space for herself.

Lawdragon: How did you first decide to become a lawyer?

BY MEGHAN HEMINGWAY

Lisa Blue: That’s a good question. I was a PhD psychologist in Houston, and I was treating teenagers in a drug abuse hospital. It turned out that a lot of these kids’ parents were trial lawyers. I figured out later that was because Houston was where the really good juries were at the time. Houston back in the 1980s was very liberal, so all the great plaintiffs’ lawyers were there. When their kids had problems, they’d come to me. One day I had a patient’s father say, “Hey, would you like to come help me pick a jury?” So I went to court – that was my first experience and that really influenced me. It was very unexpected and just spur of the moment, “Hey, you want to go to court?” And I fell in love. I thought, wow, this is really fun.

LD: What made you choose South Texas College of Law for law school, and how was that experience for you?

LB: It really kind of chose me. I had the best job in the world – I had a private practice with a psychiatrist in the medical center in Houston. And then I got to head up a drug abuse hospital in Deer Park, which is right outside of Houston. So when I had the experience of having all these lawyers be my patients because of their children, I said, “You know what? I want to go to law school to understand more of this.” I never thought I’d practice law, because I loved the psychology part. I worked my way through law school and when I got my first job as a DA, I thought, “God, this is heaven, because I get to talk to people.” So ultimately, I got to do both – I got to maintain a private practice and go to law school.

LD: The best of both worlds. And you’ve gone on to try – how many cases, have you kept count?

LB: I’ve always loved trying cases. I’ve tried 125 criminal cases as first chair. On civil cases, as first chair, I have tried a little over a hundred. I got lucky because I was a DA for around six or seven years, and I was an asbestos toxic tort lawyer. At that time, we were trying three or four asbestos cases a month.

LD: What are the trials that stand out as memorable to you?

LB: It’s funny, I only remember the ones I lost. I have no memory of my wins. I felt great about them, but it’s the losses that sting and you remember that pain. Having to tell the family I’m not going to be able to

Thomas R. Harkness*

WHITEHURST HARKNESS

AUSTIN

Barbara J. Hart

GRANT & EISENHOFER

NEW YORK

Christian Hartley

MAUNE RAICHLE HARTLEY

ST. LOUIS

Chad C. Hastings

LESSER LESSER WEST

PALM BEACH

Michael Hausfeld*

HAUSFELD

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Edward Havas

DEWSNUP KING

SALT LAKE CITY

Lexi Hazam

LIEFF CABRASER

SAN FRANCISCO

Denman Heard

HEARD MERMAN

BELLAIRE, TEXAS

Keith Hebeisen

CLIFFORD LAW OFFICES

CHICAGO

Dara Hegar

LANIER LAW FIRM

HOUSTON

Richard Heimann*

LIEFF CABRASER

SAN FRANCISCO

Charles Hepworth

HEPWORTH HOLZER

BOISE

Russ Herman*

HERMAN HERMAN & KATZ

NEW ORLEANS

Stephen Herman

HERMAN HERMAN & KATZ

NEW ORLEANS

Frank Herrera Jr.*

THE HERRERA LAW FIRM

SAN ANTONIO

John Herrick

MOTLEY RICE

MT. PLEASANT, S.C.

Nancy Hersh*

HERSH & HERSH

SAN FRANCISCO

Howard Hershenhorn

GAIR GAIR

NEW YORK

Jamon Hicks

DOUGLAS / HICKS

LOS ANGELES

Ryan Higgins

RUSTY HARDIN & ASSOCIATES

HOUSTON

Eve Hill

BROWN GOLDSTEIN

BALTIMORE

Kurt Holzer

HEPWORTH HOLZER

BOISE

Arash Homampour

THE HOMAMPOUR FIRM

SHERMAN OAKS, CALIF.

Alex Horton

KRIST LAW FIRM

HOUSTON

Sean Houlihan

POWER ROGERS

CHICAGO

T. David Hoyle

MOTLEY RICE

MOUNT PLEASANT, S.C.

Robert B. Hutchinson

COTCHETT PITRE & MCCARTHY

SANTA MONICA

Kelly Hyman

THE HYMAN LAW FIRM

WEST PALM BEACH

Daniel Iracki

COKER LAW

JACKSONVILLE

Cory Itkin

ARNOLD & ITKIN

HOUSTON

Jason Itkin

ARNOLD & ITKIN

HOUSTON

Shauna Itri

SEEGER WEISS

PHILADELPHIA

Howard A. Janet

JANET JANET & SUGGS

BALTIMORE

Evan Janush

LANIER LAW FIRM

NEW YORK

Robert L. Jaskulski

HABUSH HABUSH

MILWAUKEE

Rachel L. Jensen

ROBBINS GELLER

SAN DIEGO

help you, you’re not going to get your medical bills paid. I remember pain more than joy, because it’s something you don’t want to feel.

LD: What are the joyful parts of law for you?

LB: What I’ve really learned as a trial lawyer, and I believe this in my heart, is it’s all in the jury, because the jury is going to determine how they filter the evidence. So that’s always been my love. I’ve written six or seven books on jury selection with Robert Hirschhorn.

My passion has always been judges and trial lawyers. I have this passion for what trial lawyers do and what they have to put up with. That is what really took me to jury selection, because picking a jury, you really get to use what you do as a psychologist. I’ve watched a lot of great lawyers, and I think to myself, “Boy, you’d be a great psychologist,” because they know how to listen – those are the ones that are great at jury selection. They know what they’re after.

LD: I wonder if you could give us some top-level advice or insights, if there’s something you were going to impart to the younger generation of trial lawyers, with regards to jury selection.

LB: My best advice, like anything, is that you’re never going to get good at something unless you do it. That’s number one. Number two is: Throw away your ego.

It’s funny, my most memorable moments are during voir dire. When I was in Fort Worth and I said to a juror, “I’ve just been talking about pain and suffering. I would like to know your definition of pain and suffering.” That juror said to me, “My definition of pain and suffering has been listening to you for two days.” You know what I said? I said, “You sound like my husband.” I’ve had jurors say to me “Miss Blue, I think you’re sleazy. I think you’re the reason why our insurance rates are so high.”

LD: Wow.

LB: Oh I’ve had people just destroy me in court. The way you handle it is you say, “I bet some other jurors are thinking the same thing. If you’re sitting there thinking the same thing, please raise your hand.” The key to jury selection is getting all the people on the jury panel that hate you and hate your case to raise their hand and say, “I hate you and your case, and I want off this jury.” It’s that simple, jury selection. It doesn’t have to be complicated.

LD: How does psychology come into play?

LB: Doing a great jury selection is exactly like doing therapy. It’s not only about understanding people; it’s how to handle people. How to make everything not be about the lawyer. I think if I have any talent in jury selection, it’s that I’m so happy no matter what the person says. I’m not looking for a compliment – I’m curious. I’m just looking to see how they really feel about the kind of case I’m doing. When I teach jury selection, I talk about the first 45 seconds of my therapy sessions. Because my first 45 seconds, that introduction is the same whether I’m picking a jury or I’m talking to a new patient.

LD: That’s fascinating. And how did you initially become involved with politics?

LB: I love politics. I’ve been president of the American Trial Lawyers, which is now the American Association for Justice, but I was also president of the National Trial Lawyers. I did that because I love lawyers, and I’m so sensitive to how our laws affect what we do all the time. All that has to happen is another limit on damages, and then the lawyers wake up and say, “Gosh, how did that happen?” They’re not watching how these laws, national and state, are shaping their clients’ rights. When I married my husband in 1980, he was very involved in politics – Presidential, the Senate, state, everything. It just really rubbed off on me. My husband used to say every day: “Politics matter.” And they really do.

With the new laws on abortion, with gun laws not being restricted, there’s so many political issues that are now touching women more than men. And with our Supreme Court, I think that that piece, that political piece, whether it’s unconscious or not, is going to make women feel like they better get into more power. Because the women in this country are watching their rights just get peeled away, and I think that should really energize our gender.

LD: You teach mindfulness and meditation to judges, correct?

LB: Oh my God. I love it.

LD: How did that come about?

LB: Covid hit. I’m in Dallas and I’m watching my fellow trial lawyers and the courts, and things are not going well in Dallas – I mean we are shut down tight. I’m watching the trial lawyers saying, “God, how am I going to pay my staff? I can’t turn cases.”

I see this flurry of activity of depression and anxiety. So during Covid I got really into the literature on

depression, suicide, anxiety, alcoholism. I wanted to do something as a psychologist to help my trial lawyer friends. So I decided to do something that no one else in the industry, I don’t think, has ever done, which is do a visual meditation mindfulness class. I have now done 125 of them, and I have over 500 people that subscribe to it.

LD: So how does it work?

LB: It’s free. It’s every Monday, and the beauty is you can show up and you blank out your camera and you mute, and it’s all visual slides. It takes about 18 to 22 minutes, but here’s the good news: if you miss it, because lawyers are very busy, it’s sent to you the next week. It’s been great.

This is my belief as a psychologist and a trial lawyer: after Covid you don’t know what all these people are going through. You just don’t. People aren’t talking about it and the studies aren’t far enough along to see the real effect. But God, over a million people died. That’s just stunning. Over a million. And the divisiveness that it’s caused.

LD: It’s so true. The mindfulness and meditation is so needed right now.

LB: It’s so needed, yes. Really for trial lawyers and especially judges, and that’s my new latest and greatest passion in life – emotional and social intelligence for judges. It hasn’t been published yet, but I wrote a whole book about it. Because here’s what I’m finding: lawyers, when they have issues, depression, anxiety, they can go to a group put on by the state bar. Judges have nowhere to go. They cannot go in the public eye, because then people say, “Oh look, that judge is crazy.” “Oh look, that judge can’t work. They’re depressed.” So it’s a terrible situation for judges.

LD: How did you discover meditation and mindfulness as a practice?

LB: When my husband died, I went on antidepressants. I got Lexapro and Prozac and I did all that. Then I fell in love again with a famous TV actor, Larry Hagman. And when he died, I called one of my very best friends, my brother who’s a psychologist in Atlanta. I said, “I don’t know what to do. I’m so depressed because I lost my second soulmate and I don’t know whether to go back on antidepressants, or what I should do.”

He said, “Lisa, go to California and meet with this psychologist who’s also a Buddhist monk by the name of Jack Cornfield, and just see if you can get

through your depression without drugs this time.” So I went out and I met Dr. Jack Cornfield, and he’s been a huge mentor to me on the psychology side. I developed a mindfulness meditation practice to control my own depression and anxiety.

LD: Can you tell us a little about your other mentor, Mark Lanier? What did you learn from him?

LB: What I learned from Mark Lanier was really how to live life. He’s a great lawyer. I’ve been studying under him and picking his juries for over 35 years, and what I love about him is, number one, his relationship with God. He’s a Baptist preacher. I always tease him because in every case, he’s so calm. Never has anxiety before he starts the big opium cases against all these defendants. I’m nervous. He’s never nervous. I’m convinced it’s his relationship with God. He teaches every Sunday.

His second superpower is his ability to super focus. He tries these cases that are two, three, four months long. And he’s the only lawyer putting on all the witnesses. Now that’s pretty amazing.

And number three, I’ve finally figured out after more than 35 years, is his ability to play. He lights up when he talks. He’ll go to Kmart, Target, and he goes to the toy section and he looks around, he finds toys that he can use in the case and they’re always marvelous. They’re fun, they’re memorable – they’re great teaching aids. He’s a genius.

The reason I fell in love with him is because of my learning disabilities – being dyslexic and having anxiety. His ability to put everything into visual pictures made me realize, “Hey, I’m not stupid. Now I understand it,” because that’s the only way I learned.

LD: You’re a member of Athea Trial Lawyers, a groundbreaking collective of top-of-their-game female attorneys. What does it mean to you to be part of it?

LB: I would start with a psychological thought, in that it’s very emotional and meaningful that at this stage of my law practice, I can spend it with people that I love, that I want to be with, and that have an amazing ability to think outside the box. All these women are geniuses, they really are. It’s very meaningful just to be part of this group. And what’s most meaningful is hopefully to pass on what I’ve learned. Because we all teach, and we speak to women, and we want to see women do what Athea has done in whatever way they can. It’s a great way to practice.

Anne F. Johnson

HAGENS BERMAN

AUSTIN

Kristen Johnson

HAGENS BERMAN

CAMBRIDGE, MASS.

Lynn R. Johnson*

SHAMBERG JOHNSON

KANSAS CITY

Rhon Jones

BEASLEY ALLEN

MONTGOMERY, ALA.

Joseph Kalbac Jr.

COLSON HICKS

CORAL GABLES

Julie Braman Kane

COLSON HICKS

CORAL GABLES

Allan Kanner*

KANNER & WHITELEY

NEW ORLEANS

Bruce Kaster

KASTER LYNCH

OCALA, FLA.

Kristina Kastl

KASTL LAW

DALLAS

Brian Katz

HERMAN HERMAN & KATZ

NEW ORLEANS

Steven Kazan*

KAZAN MCCLAIN

OAKLAND

Christopher Keane

KEANE LAW FIRM

SAN FRANCISCO

Anne McGinness Kearse

MOTLEY RICE

MT. PLEASANT, S.C.

Thomas Q. Keefe Jr.

KEEFE KEEFE & UNSELL

BELLEVILLE, ILL.

Don Keenan*

KEENAN LAW FIRM

ATLANTA

Diogenes Kekatos

SEEGER WEISS

NEW YORK

Ashley Keller

KELLER LENKNER

CHICAGO

Michael Kelly*

WALKUP MELODIA

SAN FRANCISCO

Ray Khirallah

HAMILTON WINGO

DALLAS

Marlon Kimpson

MOTLEY RICE

MT. PLEASANT, S.C.

Colin King

DEWSNUP KING

SALT LAKE CITY

Robert King Jr.

CIRESI CONLIN

MINNEAPOLIS

Randall L. Kinnard

KINNARD LAW

NASHVILLE

Aimee Kirby

DOLAN LAW FIRM

LOS ANGELES

David Kirby*

EDWARDS KIRBY

RALEIGH

Daniel Kirschner

CORBOY & DEMETRIO

CHICAGO

Beth Klein

KLEIN FRANK

BOULDER, COLO.

Candice Klein

CHANG KLEIN

HERMOSA BEACH, CALIF.

Amanda Klevorn

BURNS CHAREST

NEW ORLEANS

Thomas Kline*

KLINE SPECTER

PHILADELPHIA

Mary Koch

WAIS VOGELSTEIN

BALTIMORE

Karen Koehler

STRITMATTER KESSLER

SEATTLE

Michelle Kohut

CORBOY & DEMETRIO

CHICAGO

Robert Komitor

LEVY KONIGSBERG

NEW YORK

Mathew R. Korte

CIRESI CONLIN

MINNEAPOLIS

Josh Koskoff

KOSKOFF

BRIDGEPORT, CONN.

Nishi Kothari

BRASHER LAW FIRM, PLL HOUSTON

Robert A. Krause

THE SPENCE LAW FIRM

JACKSON, WYO.

James Kreindler

KREINDLER & KREINDLER

NEW YORK

Scott Krist

KRIST LAW FIRM

HOUSTON

Leslie Kroeger

COHEN MILSTEIN

PALM BEACH GARDENS

Noah Kushlefsky

KREINDLER & KREINDLER

NEW YORK

Brian LaCien

SMITH LACIEN

CHICAGO

Walter Lack

ENGSTROM LIPSCOMB

LOS ANGELES

DeWitt Lacy

LAW OFFICES OF JOHN BURRIS

BEVERLY HILLS, CALIF.

Steven C. Laird

LAIRD & MCCLOSKEY

FORT WORTH

Frank LaMothe

LAMOTHE LAW FIRM

NEW ORLEANS

Brent Landau

HAUSFELD

PHILADELPHIA

Joseph Landy

LESSER LESSER

WEST PALM BEACH

W. Mark Lanier

LANIER LAW FIRM

HOUSTON

Daniel Lapinski

MOTLEY RICE

CHERRY HILL, N.J.

Timothy Lawn

RAYNES LAWN

PHILADELPHIA

Jennifer L. Lawrence

THE LAWRENCE FIRM

COVINGTON, KY.

Richard Lawrence*

THE LAWRENCE FIRM

COVINGTON, KY.

Robert Lazear

SCHWEBEL GOETZ

MINNEAPOLIS

Marianne LeBlanc

SUGARMAN

BOSTON

T. Matthew Leckman

LECKMAN LAW/LITTLEPAGE BOOTH

PHILADELPHIA

James Ledlie

MOTLEY RICE

MT. PLEASANT, S.C.

Katie Croby Lehmann

CIRESI CONLIN

MINNEAPOLIS

Travis Lenkner

KELLER LENKNER

CHICAGO

Theodore Leopold

COHEN MILSTEIN

PALM BEACH GARDENS

Gary Lesser

LESSER LESSER

WEST PALM BEACH

Adam Levitt

DICELLO LEVITT

CHICAGO

Andrew Levy

BROWN GOLDSTEIN

BALTIMORE

Richard S. Lewis*

HAUSFELD

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Micha Star Liberty LIBERTY LAW

OAKLAND

David Lira

ENGSTROM LIPSCOMB

LOS ANGELES

Zoe Littlepage

LITTLEPAGE BOOTH/ATHEA

HOUSTON

Judith Livingston*

KRAMER DILLOF

NEW YORK

Michael Livingston*

DAVIS LEVIN

HONOLULU

Sarah London

LIEFF CABRASER

SAN FRANCISCO

Ramon Rossi

LOPEZ LOPEZ MCHUGH

NEWPORT BEACH, CALIF.

Stephen Garcia GARCIA & ARTIGLIERE (LOS ANGELES)

STEPHEN GARCIA

NURSING HOMES ARE AN INCREDIBLY

lucrative business, with the U.S. market estimated at over $70B. But for the staff and the elderly in their care, that might come as a surprise. Many facilities appear chronically underfunded and in need of maintenance or renovation, which became painfully clear during the rapid spread of infections during the pandemic. What’s more, front-line caregivers are often paid minimum wage, despite the skills needed for this demanding and crucial job.

So where is all that money going?

Stephen Garcia has dedicated his career to fighting for the rights of elders in nursing homes and residential care facilities, advocating for funds to be dedicated to proper care. He has represented elders who had suffered abuse and neglect, and families who have lost loved ones to wrongful death at these facilities for over 25 years. His efforts have frequently led to seven-fi gure verdicts, and, crucially, called attention to systemic causes of this mistreatment.

Garcia and others at his firm, Garcia & Artigliere, have made incredible strides in seeking justice and protections for elders in care facilities, particularly in recent years with the issue of chronic understaffing.

In one ground-breaking case, he achieved a rare class certification in a lawsuit accusing a residential care facility of understaffing. The case went on to be settled, with the facility agreeing to increase staffing to meet the needs of its residents.

Understaffing is a critical battleground for fighting abuse against elders in these facilities, since having more workers, particularly CNAs, or certifi ed nursing assistants, can reduce neglect and ensure each resident is getting appropriate attention and care.

“The people on the floor in nursing homes, they’re good people, by and large,” says Garcia. “It’s not the people on the floor that create the problems, it’s the robber barons who own the facilities. They’re paying themselves eight ways from Sunday, taking money out of the facility that could be paying people fairly, and that’s required for appropriate care.”

Garcia’s advocacy for increased staffing at nursing homes extends beyond lawsuits to legislative lobbying. While he has had some incredible wins, includ-

BY ALISON PREECE

ing over $25M in recoveries, it remains a chronic issue that the pandemic only exasperated.

It’s frustrating because, as Garcia explains, “with the robber barons just taking a little less for their riches, say one and a half percent of gross income, they could hire, train and pay fairly sufficient staff to meet the needs of the residents, but nope that will never happen.” Instead, too many facilities are chronically dealing with a small, underpaid staff.

In California, where Garcia does much of his work, a bill was passed a couple years back that required a 10 percent increase in staff at these facilities. He celebrated at the time, but has been frustrated to watch the implementation fall flat.

“They built in a right to be exempt from the law, and every single nursing home claimed to be exempt,” says Garcia. “And the government grants the exemption. It’s all a facade.”

The firm made a decision early on not to take on any Covid-related cases against these facilities. The thinking was, as Garcia explains, “if the government, and our president, and our health professionals can’t figure out what we should be doing, and it’s all constantly evolving, how the heck can these nursing homes be expected to do it?”

That said, the pandemic has correlated with injuries and abuses to the elderly at a frequency that Garcia hasn’t seen since before the revisions to the federal Elder Abuse Act in the early 90s.

In one of his current cases, a resident went missing from a facility – for three whole months. The 87-year-old woman had trouble with walking and other movements, yet the management claims she scaled the 12-foot fence surrounding the facility and wandered off.

“We’re at a curious time right now,” says Garcia, “where litigation and plaintiffs’ lawyers are back to being the last bastion of safety for the poor and underserved.”

Remarkably, Garcia doesn’t seem wearied by these setbacks. Instead, his energy is crackling and robust. He has the force of a silverback gorilla protecting its young, and his passion for his work, several decades into this epic up-hill battle, is glisteningly clear. What keeps him so motivated?

PHOTO BY AMY CANTRELL

“What keeps me going is the younger people in the field,” says Garcia. “It’s my legacy, and I want to teach them about the intricacies of it, so they can carry on and make meaningful social change. I want to stay around long enough to teach them how to do it right.”

Two of those younger people are Garcia’s son, Taylor who is law school, and daughter, Ali who is heading to law school. He would like to see them both join the firm one day.

“I think my son was preordained to be a trial lawyer,” says Garcia. “He spent a lot of time in the car with me, seeing what I do. My daughter has gone her own path, and wants to effect change outside of the courtroom. She wants to be a politician, and help work in some of the less advantaged areas and provide people with assistance.

“That’s what she plans to do with her law degree, whereas I think my son is probably planning on throwing me out the door and trying cases instead of me,” he quips.

Garcia, who has extensive trial experience, advises the younger generation to “be direct” in the courtroom. “You need to be genuine.” He advises young lawyers to work as waiters or bartenders in order to “develop your interpersonal skills, your ability to be compelling, to evoke emotion and evoke thought.”

Garcia is hands-on, and trains his mentees to be the same. “Paper isn’t going to make you real,” he says. “What’s going to make you real is getting your hands dirty. Do the grunt work when nobody else wants to do the grunt work, and go talk to every witness.” Beyond being authentic and straightforward in the courtroom, Garcia advises that, “you need work ethic and tactical understanding. They don’t teach you tactical understanding in law school. They don’t teach you how to zig when the book says you should zag. They don’t tell you how, when your trial’s been prepped one way and it’s not going well, how to go home at night and figure a new way for the morning.

“Those are the talents that make really remarkable trial lawyers.”

As part of his legacy in this fight for elders’ rights, Garcia has brought on some remarkable people to join him at his firm. Bill Artigliere is a decorated West Point graduate and former star baseball player who has worked side by side with Garcia for going on 15

years, and has been counsel of record in matters leading to well over $100M in awards for elder and infirm adults throughout the country.

Matthew Coman is a former federal prosecutor who served as the Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division in the Eastern District of Louisiana. He has tried an impressive 160-plus jury trials to verdict, and was given the National Award for Superior Performance in Litigation by the U.S. Justice Department for his work prosecuting the former mayor of New Orleans on corruption charges in United States v. C. Ray Nagin

David Medby, of counsel to the firm, has already successfully litigated over 100 cases of elder abuse. He was a former law clerk for Garcia at his prior firm, The Law Offices of Stephen Garcia, and has significant class action experience as well.

“We really focused on creating a very, very strong bench and team players,” says Garcia, “and I think we’ve got the right people in place.”

The firm operates on a full contingency basis, which is a philosophy Garcia inherited from his father and three uncles who were all lawyers.

“That’s just the way I was brought up. You’re taking a chance with the cause you’re supporting, and you’re in it with your clients, trying to help them, and not imposing on them to fund your cases,” says Garcia.

This is particularly advantageous for clients in an elder abuse practice, because these aggrieved plaintiffs often lack the funds to take on a corporate Goliath, despite the merits of their case.

“The way we operate, you don’t have to worry about an inability to pay to seek justice,” says Garcia, “because we’ll make sure you get justice.”

Garcia started practicing shortly before the Elder Abuse and Dependent Adult Civil Protection Act was amended in California in 1991, and much of his career has been bringing that legislation to bear in civil courts.

He doesn’t believe passing new laws is necessary to address the issues he takes on today.

“Legitimate, credible enforcement of the rules they have is all that’s required,” Garcia says. “If they did that, if the state did that, the Department of Public Health did that, we would finally see proper care to our loved ones.”

Kathy Love

MCGINN MONTOYA

ALBUQUERQUE

Dominic LoVerde

POWER ROGERS

CHICAGO

Spencer Lucas

PANISH SHEA

LOS ANGELES

Kenneth Lumb

CORBOY & DEMETRIO

CHICAGO

Felix Gavi Luna

PETERSON WAMPOLD

SEATTLE

Thomas Luneau

CASEY GERRY

SAN DIEGO

Sommer Luther

ANDRUS WAGSTAFF

DENVER

Skip Lynch

KASTER LYNCH

OCALA, FLA.

Michael Lyons

LYONS & SIMMONS

DALLAS

Francisco Maderal

COLSON HICKS

CORAL GABLES

Duffy Magilligan

COTCHETT PITRE & MCCARTHY

BURLINGAME, CALIF.

Raj Mahadass

PMR LAW

HOUSTON

Barbara Mahoney

HAGENS BERMAN

SEATTLE

Moshe Maimon

LEVY KONIGSBERG

NEW YORK

Adam Malone

MALONE LAW OFFICE

ATLANTA

Patrick Malone

PATRICK MALONE & ASSOCIATES

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Andrew Maloney III

KREINDLER & KREINDLER

NEW YORK

Steven Marks

PODHURST ORSECK

MIAMI

David H. Marsh

MARSH RICKARD

BIRMINGHAM, ALA.

Amy Rose Martel

CHIHAK & MARTEL

SAN DIEGO

Annika Martin

LIEFF CABRASER

NEW YORK

Reid Martin

MARTIN WALKER

TYLER, TEXAS

Roberto Martinez

COLSON HICKS

CORAL GABLES

Ricardo Martinez-Cid

PODHURST ORSECK

MIAMI

Angela Mason

THE COCHRAN FIRM

DOTHAN, ALA.

Matthew C. Matheny

PROVOST UMPHREY

BEAUMONT, TEXAS

Sean Matt

HAGENS BERMAN

SEATTLE

Neil Maune

MAUNE RAICHLE HARTLEY

ST. LOUIS

David A. Mazie

MAZIE SLATER

ROSELAND, N.J.

Sean McCaffity

SOMMERMAN MCCAFFITY

DALLAS

Matthew McCarley

FEARS NACHAWATI

DALLAS

Douglas J. McCarron

THE HAGGARD LAW FIRM

CORAL GABLES

Niall McCarthy

COTCHETT PITRE & MCCARTHY

BURLINGAME, CALIF.

David McClain*

KAZAN MCCLAIN

OAKLAND

Craig McClellan*

MCCLELLAN LAW FIRM

SAN DIEGO

Seth McCloskey

LAIRD & MCCLOSKEY

FORT WORTH

James McEldrew

MCELDREW YOUNG

PHILADELPHIA

Randi McGinn*

MCGINN MONTOYA/ATHEA ALBUQUERQUE

Christopher McGrath

SULLIVAN PAPAIN

GARDEN CITY, N.J.

Patrick J. McGroder III*

BEUS GILBERT

PHOENIX

Cynthia McGuinn

ROUDA FEDER

SAN FRANCISCO

Brian J. McKeen

MCKEEN & ASSOCIATES

DETROIT

Martin D. McLean

HAGENS BERMAN

SEATTLE

Thomas McManus

SULLIVAN PAPAIN

NEW YORK

Randy McMurray

MCMURRAY HENRIKS

LOS ANGELES

Rick Meadow

LANIER LAW FIRM

HOUSTON

Ted Meadows

BEASLEY ALLEN

MONTGOMERY, ALA.

Andje Medina

ALTAIR LAW

SAN FRANCISCO

Karen Barth Menzies

GIBBS LAW GROUP

OAKLAND

Carlo Mercaldo

MERCALDO LAW FIRM

TUCSON

Marco Mercaldo

MERCALDO LAW FIRM

TUCSON

Ron Mercaldo*

MERCALDO LAW FIRM

TUCSON

Kristine Meredith

DANKO MEREDITH

REDWOOD CITY, CALIF.

Derek Merman

HEARD MERMAN

BELLAIRE, TEXAS

Edward Ruffo

RHEINGOLD GIUFFRA RUFFO & PLOTKIN (NEW YORK)

EDWARD RUFFO

EDWARD RUFFO’S DEDICATION TO JUSTICE

began in elementary school. He witnessed kids being bullied by students and teachers and was incensed by how power imbalances could be wielded against the most vulnerable. He knew that he had to do his part to prevent injustices like those as an adult – so, he became a lawyer.

In nearly 30 years as a medical malpractice and personal injury lawyer, Ruffo has upheld his original mission. Ruffo’s early product liability practice saw him litigate significant cases against major companies like Toyota, Ford and GM. In medical malpractice matters, he has achieved a string of multimillion-dollar verdicts and settlements. Two prominent cases involved representing injured children: In one, he secured $12M for a child who suffered brain damage at birth, and in another, he negotiated a $9M settlement for a child who sustained injuries following poor emergency care.

Ruffo practices across a range of personal injury matters, all with the goal of obtaining justice for people like the children he saw targeted on the schoolyard. “Our practice uses the law – the great equalizer – to render justice in those circumstances where wealthy institutions, corporations or powerful individuals have sacrificed the safety and well-being of others for financial gain,” he explains. “I feel that my cases and results help even an uneven playing field.”

Lawdragon: Tell me a bit about the mix of work that you do at Rheingold Giuffra Ruffo & Plotkin.

Edward Ruffo: I manage a successful personal injury law practice in New York City. We handle any case where harm has been caused by the negligence of others. Negligence is most frequently found in cases of motor vehicle, construction and premises accidents, as well as poor medical practice. Our firm also handles cases against major drug and medical device manufacturers who have injured others with defective products with dangers that were concealed during the pre-marketing. Our office also litigates claims of abuse, harassment and workplace discrimination.

LD: Looking back, how is your career now similar or different to the earlier stages?

ER: The early years were 100 percent devoted to learning how to practice law. That learning included

BY EMILY JACKOWAY

writing briefs, taking and defending depositions and trying cases. The learning certainly continues, but more recent years have been filled with the business side of the law. Learning how to manage individuals and focusing on the intangibles that will allow a practice to succeed are now elements of my career that I never imagined in law school or while working as a young associate.

LD: What about within the industry – what’s changed in personal injury law?

ER: The most surprising development in the evolution of personal injury law is that it now encompasses a consumer-based approach to litigation. For example, the last decade has seen a shift from single-event cases to cases of systemic harm, such as the industry-wide sale of addictive drugs or the contamination of water sources in a community. The victims can now be large population subsets or even local, city, county and state governments whose medical insurance reimbursement programs were forced to pay for treatment of harm that could and should have been avoided.

LD: You were originally a product liability lawyer. What inspired your shift to other cases?

ER: I was initially assigned to handle products liability work out of law school and worked on matters against major automotive and machinery manufacturers. As those products became safer, those claims reduced and out of employment necessity I transitioned to handling claims of general negligence and medical malpractice.

Medical malpractice was especially challenging. I learned the language of medicine without the benefi t of the internet, relying solely on a medical dictionary that soon became my most trusted desk book. I feel that the personal injury lawyer who has learned how to litigate a medical malpractice case is a most highly valued commodity for any firm. That expertise sets you apart in so many ways.

LD: Can you discuss some memorable cases?

ER: Ironically, the most memorable cases don’t necessarily include those with the highest awards or settlements. In large part, if you represent someone with a significant injury with obvious liability, the case speaks for itself, and a lucrative result will be certain. Proud and memorable moments occur when you

“pull the rabbit out the hat.” For the majority of my career, I worked in firms where I was not the most experienced trial lawyer. If you’re not as experienced, you are often left with trying the cases no one else wants. Every firm has a handful of cases that just can’t settle because the liability you thought existed was effectively explained away during the discovery process. These cases still needed to be concluded and became the kamikaze missions, so I was very often assigned as the pilot.

One case particularly stands out. I was able to obtain a successful jury verdict in a case against a reputable physician using an expert who had been effectively shunned by the medical community. In fact, the expert was found by my client, as our firm’s traditional resources for expert location and retention had turned up no one. I met with the expert, developed a theory and bought him a nice suit to wear to court (as he didn’t have one). Thankfully, the jurors kept an open mind and let common sense dictate their verdict.

LD: What are the most challenging aspects of the cases you work on?

ER: Complexity of the subject matter in a case can be a very daunting aspect of my practice. Medical malpractice cases within subspecialities like ophthalmology, neurosurgery and hematology are challenging. By the time it comes to deposing the defendant, I need to know the medicine of the case inside and out or I will do nothing at deposition to lead to a favorable result.

The same is true in cases with complicated concepts of engineering and product design. Recently, I had to navigate through a failure to diagnosis case where it could be argued the delay in diagnosis made little to no difference in the ultimate outcome. When that happens, even cases of clear liability will be unsuccessful. Through the help of experts and review of the case law I was able to fight off efforts to dismiss the case, which now is postured to resolve favorably for my client.

LD: Can you share a lawyer you have come up against in a negotiation or case that you admire?

ER: I hate to put someone on the spot. Suffice it to say that there are several well-seasoned defense attorneys who I wish would “hang it up” already so I might have an easier path to victory. On the defense side, I do feel that a very talented generation of trial lawyers is soon to call it quits and I’m not certain if

the younger defense attorneys have enjoyed the requisite experience to replace them admirably. On my side of the cases, I would say my partners and young associates are all extremely formidable advocates and I’m glad they are on my team.

LD: Are there any current trends you’re seeing in your practice areas?

ER: In positive trends in wrongful death cases, the likelihood is that New York will soon allow close survivors emotional damages for losing a loved one due to negligence.

In malpractice cases, managed healthcare has resulted in many claims where the error is quite often not the dispensing of poor care but failure to follow up with test results or a failure to communicate among healthcare professionals treating the same patients. Long gone is the day of the solo practitioner who would leave his or her office and check on their patients admitted to the local hospital. Managed healthcare has removed the intimacy that medical care was founded upon, like the “house call.” This lack of personalization will likely give rise to more and more claims of malpractice in the ensuing years. Doctors need to see 10 times the number of patients today to earn the same dollar one patient encounter would yield years ago. Accordingly, the time spent with each patient has dwindled and attention to detail has suffered.

Personal injury claims have migrated to the consumer-based litigations where the harm is more widespread and causes both personal physical injury and economic injury to institutions. “Personal” is becoming somewhat of a misnomer as many of the larger and more established firms seek representation by municipal plaintiffs. Abuse cases have also become more prevalent as laws have been enacted to revive statutes of limitations for wrongs occurring in the distant past.

LD: What do you fi nd most fulfi lling about your practice?

ER: The most fulfilling parts of the practice are the testimonials of my clients. My clients become like my family. They all have my cell number and an invitation to contact me at any time, even with the least pressing concern. To hear at the end of the case that my efforts made a huge difference in their life, family, profession and well-being is the greatest reward a career can offer. It’s human nature to enjoy feeling appreciated.

Tom Methvin

BEASLEY ALLEN

MONTGOMERY, ALA.

Seth Meyer

KELLER LENKNER

CHICAGO

Peter E. Meyers

SWANSON GARDNER

RENTON, WASH.

Robert R. Michael*

SHADOAN MICHAEL

ROCKVILLE, MD.

Marcus J. Michles II

MICHLES & BOOTH

PENSACOLA

Donald Migliori

MOTLEY RICE

MT. PLEASANT, S.C.

Dee Miles

BEASLEY ALLEN

MONTGOMERY, ALA.

Betsy Miller

COHEN MILSTEIN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Justin D. Miller

STEWART MILLER SIMMONS

ATLANTA

Michael Miller

THE MILLER FIRM

ORANGE, VA.

Nancy Guy Miller

THE MILLER FIRM

ORANGE, VA.

Ronald Miller

MILLER & ZOIS

BALTIMORE

Tobias Millrood

KLINE SPECTER

PHILADELPHIA

Derrick A. Mills

MARSH RICKARD

BIRMINGHAM, ALA.

Curtis Miner

COLSON HICKS

CORAL GABLES

Matthew Minner

MINNER VINES MONCUS

LEXINGTON, KY.

Marc Moller*

KREINDLER & KREINDLER

NEW YORK

James R. Moncus III

MINNER VINES MONCUS

LEXINGTON, KY.

Robert Mongeluzzi

SALTZ MONGELUZZI

PHILADELPHIA

A. Elicia Montoya

MCGINN MONTOYA

ALBUQUERQUE

Patrick Montoya

COLSON HICKS

CORAL GABLES

David Moody

HAGENS BERMAN

SEATTLE

Jennifer A. Moore

MOORE LAW GROUP

LOUISVILLE

Thomas Moore*

KRAMER DILLOF

NEW YORK

John Morgan

MORGAN MORGAN

ORLANDO

Mary Ann Morgan

MORGAN TRIAL LAW

WINTER PARK, FLA.

J. Kevin Morrison

ALTAIR LAW

SAN FRANCISCO

Alan W. Mortensen

DEWSNUP KING

SALT LAKE CITY

Peter Mougey

LEVIN PAPANTONIO

PENSACOLA

Joseph Muckleroy

BRASHER LAW FIRM, PLLC

BEAUMONT, TEXAS

Elizabeth Mulvey

CROWE & MULVEY

BOSTON

Daniel Munley

MUNLEY MUNLEY

SCRANTON, PA.

Marion Munley

MUNLEY MUNLEY

SCRANTON, PA.

Andre Mura

GIBBS LAW GROUP

OAKLAND

Anne Marie Murphy

COTCHETT PITRE & MCCARTHY

BURLINGAME, CALIF.

Francis Patrick Murphy

CORBOY & DEMETRIO

CHICAGO

Christopher Nace

PAULSON & NACE

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Majed Nachawati

FEARS NACHAWATI

DALLAS

Kathleen Nastri

KOSKOFF

BRIDGEPORT, CONN.

Korey Nelson

BURNS CHAREST

NEW ORLEANS

Robert J. Nelson

LIEFF CABRASER

SAN FRANCISCO

Tim Newsom

THE LAW OFFICES OF FRANK L. BRANSON

DALLAS

Marie Ng

SULLIVAN PAPAIN

NEW YORK

Darren Nicholson

BURNS CHAREST

DALLAS

Nanci Nishimura

COTCHETT PITRE & MCCARTHY

BURLINGAME, CALIF.

Harold Nix*

NIX PATTERSON

DAINGERFIELD, TEXAS

Christopher S. Norman

WAIS VOGELSTEIN

BALTIMORE

John Norman*

NORMAN & EDEM

OKLAHOMA CITY

Victoria Nugent

COHEN MILSTEIN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Scott Nutter

SHAMBERG JOHNSON

KANSAS CITY

Timothy O’Brien

LEVIN PAPANTONIO

PENSACOLA

Mark S. O’Connor

BEUS GILBERT

PHOENIX

Leigh O’Dell

BEASLEY ALLEN

MONTGOMERY, ALA.

Peter M. O’Malley

CORBOY & DEMETRIO

CHICAGO

Stephen Offutt

OFFUTT LAW

BALTIMORE

Ann Oldfather*

OLDFATHER LAW FIRM

LOUISVILLE

Jack Olender*

JACK OLENDER LAW FIRM

WASHINGTON, D.C.

David R. Olsen

DEWSNUP KING

SALT LAKE CITY

Mike Papantonio*

LEVIN PAPANTONIO

PENSACOLA

Tej Paranjpe

PMR LAW

HOUSTON

Michelle Parfitt

ASHCRAFT & GEREL

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Kevin Parker

LANIER LAW FIRM

HOUSTON

Amin Omar DEAN OMAR

DALLAS

Mel C. Orchard III

THE SPENCE LAW FIRM

JACKSON, WYO.

Chris Panatier

SIMON GREENSTONE

DALLAS

Brian Panish

PANISH SHEA

LOS ANGELES

Nicholas Papain

SULLIVAN PAPAIN

NEW YORK

D’Juana Parks

PROVOST UMPHREY

BEAUMONT, TEXAS

C. Cary Patterson*

NIX PATTERSON

TEXARKANA, TEXAS

Jane Paulson

PAULSON COLETTI

PORTLAND, ORE.

James E. Payne

PROVOST UMPHREY

BEAUMONT, TEXAS

Brandon Peak

PEAK WOOTEN

COLUMBUS, GA.

Thomas Penfield

CASEY GERRY

SAN DIEGO

Cheryl Perkins

WHETSTONE PERKINS

COLUMBIA, S.C.

Scott M. Perry

PERRY CHARNOFF

ARLINGTON, VA.

Craig Peters

ALTAIR LAW

SAN FRANCISCO

Elizabeth Petersen

KANNER & WHITELEY

NEW ORLEANS

Colin Peterson

CIRESI CONLIN

MINNEAPOLIS

Jan Eric Peterson

PETERSON WAMPOLD

SEATTLE

Kathleen Flynn Peterson*

CIRESI CONLIN

MINNEAPOLIS

Rebecca Phillips

LANIER LAW FIRM

HOUSTON

Frank Pitre*

COTCHETT PITRE & MCCARTHY

BURLINGAME, CALIF.

James Pizzirusso

HAUSFELD

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Sherri Plotkin

RHEINGOLD GIUFFRA

NEW YORK

Aaron Podhurst*

PODHURST ORSECK

MIAMI

Bryan Pope

THE COCHRAN FIRM

DALLAS

Cole Portis

BEASLEY ALLEN

MONTOGMERY, ALA

Derek Potts

POTTS LAW FIRM

HOUSTON

Scott Powell

HARE WYNN

BIRMINGHAM, ALA.

James Power

POWER ROGERS

CHICAGO

Frank Branson

THE LAW OFFICES OF FRANK L. BRANSON (DALLAS)

FRANK BRANSON

HUMANKIND GROWS MORE WISE AS THE YEARS

pass – think of Apostle Paul writing of speaking as a child before putting away childish things or Robert Frost penning, “The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected.” That truism also applies to successful attorneys.

There’s a beauty in discussing the value of experience with Dallas’ top plaintiff lawyer, Frank Branson. At the end of his junior year at Texas Christian University, he was accepted into Southern Methodist University Law School. At the end of his first year in law school at SMU, TCU sent him his degree. He has since won every award there is, while continuing to belt monster verdicts out of the jury box every year.

As a young and ambitious attorney, the Dallas trial lawyer took a more calculated and singularly focused view regarding the value of prospective cases. He was less inclined to take on catastrophic injury or wrongful death cases involving elderly victims because, typically, as plaintiffs they had lower earning capacity which combined with a diminished life expectancy to make it more difficult to win higher damage awards.

After running his own practice for four decades, “I realized that sometimes a candle burns brighter at the end than it does in the beginning,” says Branson, whose victories in personal injury cases range from a $242M verdict against Toyota over defective car seats that resulted in devastating injuries to two children to a $7M verdict for a college soccer player whose leg injury in an SUV rollover ended his sports career.

A little over a decade ago, in 2007, Branson persuaded a Texas jury to award nearly $21M to the 83-year-old widow of a 76-year-old man killed when the couple’s vehicle was struck by an 18-wheeler whose driver tested positive for cocaine afterward and had a history of crack abuse.

“I have enjoyed representing clients in their late 70s and 80s when bad things happen to them,” Branson says. “I believe it becomes a compelling story.”

The key, he learned, was relating that story to a jury, making clear that the value in an individual’s life is more than net worth, that it encompasses less tangible activities such as caring for family members, volunteering in community groups and artistic creations.

BY KATRINA DEWEY

“You understand it when you begin to lose loved ones, your mother, your father,” Branson says. “It begins to dawn on you at that time.”

Lawdragon: With the population aging and health issues posing an increasing concern, to be able to tell an older person’s story - which by necessity incorporates their whole life - and negotiate monetary value based on that is a tremendous skill. It’s inspiring that you’ve found a way to get justice for older people.

Frank Branson: You can’t always. But when you listen to their case on the front end, and you follow things, it’s easier. With the 18-wheeler case, the impact of the crash pushed Robert Bohne’s car off to the side and it broke his back and several ribs, causing him to have some mild traumatic brain damage. He was laid up at Parkland Hospital for about six months and died at the age of 76.

Kathleen and Robert had a storybook romance. She was British and had married an American GI during World War II; he died in his late 30s of an aneurysm. When she remarried, it was to Robert, a truck driver in his late 30s who had never married. After he retired, he got up every morning, drew her a bath, cooked her breakfast, drove her any place she wanted to go, and built a porch on the back of their house so that she could sit out and have coffee in the morning and watch the birds.

LD: That’s lovely.

FB: As we started digging into the case and ordered his funeral bills, we found out he was a decorated soldier from the Korean War.

LD: She hadn’t known?

FB: No, she hadn’t. It was fascinating. She had this beautiful British accent and a real sense of humor. He was her life. And when the accident took his life…

LD: In a sense, it took hers.

FB: Before we got to trial, the defense called in a million-dollar offer, which we didn’t respond to. A day or two into trial they raised it, and then asked for a meeting in our office one night and offered her $3M, which they said was the most they would ever pay. We made a counter-offer, and they said, “Never happening.” Ultimately, the jury gave her $21M.

LD: And that’s why you do this, right? When you can help people like Kathleen, you show others that if you

Joseph Power*

POWER ROGERS

CHICAGO

Thomas M. Power

POWER ROGERS

CHICAGO

Gary Praglin

COTCHETT PITRE & MCCARTHY

SANTA MONICA

Jessica Klarer Pride

PRIDE LAW

SAN DIEGO

Peter Prieto

PODHURST ORSECK

MIAMI

Mark Proctor

LEVIN PAPANTONIO

PENSACOLA

Timothy Purdon

ROBINS KAPLAN

BISMARK, N.D.

George ‘Tex’ Quesada

SOMMERMAN MCCAFFITY

DALLAS

Troy Rafferty

LEVIN PAPANTONIO

PENSACOLA

Marcus Raichle Jr.

MAUNE RAICHLE HARTLEY

ST. LOUIS

Christa Haggai Ramey

RAMEY LAW

LOS ANGELES

Emily R. Rankin

THE SPENCE LAW FIRM

JACKSON, WYO.

Audrey Perlman Raphael

LEVY KONIGSBERG

NEW YORK

Jeffrey Rasansky

RASANSKY LAW FIRM

DALLAS

Ramon Rasco

PODHURST ORSECK

MIAMI

Rahul Ravipudi

PANISH SHEA

LOS ANGELES

Stephen Raynes

RAYNES LAWN

PHILADELPHIA

Carey Reilly

KOSKOFF

BRIDGEPORT, CONN.

WHAT IS

STORY, WHAT ARE THE REAL FACTS GOING TO SHOW THIS JURY? IS IT GOING TO BE A COMPELLING STORY? ARE THEY GOING TO FEEL LIKE I DO ABOUT THE CLIENT WHEN IT’S OVER?

fight, you can get justice. It’s wonderful to see value put on the lives of the elderly. You see that there’s more to a life than the value of a person’s earning capacity; these are parents, grandparents, they make coffee in the morning for their spouses, volunteer in the community.

FB: Right. It took me a while as a lawyer to understand that. And it took me a while as a person to understand that.

LD: And partly, that’s because economic analysis has become such a focal point in the law. It’s easy to forget that a value should be ascribed to humanity and to what you do with your community and your family, even if it’s not that you would have earned $10M from working over your next 30 years. It’s wonderful that you’ve taken on those kinds of cases amid what was already an inspiring career. What interested you in becoming a lawyer in the first place? Was it your parents?

FB: In a way, though neither of them were lawyers. My dad was a high school coach and my mother was a high school tennis coach, so competition came naturally. My favorite subjects were history, government and speech. My mother also wanted me to be a lawyer, and that had an impact.

LD: Where did she get that idea?

FB: I have no idea.

LD: No lawyers in her family?

FB: No. I assume it had something to do with how well I did in speech courses.

LD: Did you ever think about becoming a teacher like your folks?

FB: No, I really didn’t. I was proud of both of them, but coaching would have been what I was interested

in. I decided I’d rather do something else. My younger brother became a coach. I knew when I went to college I wanted to be a lawyer.

I didn’t know any lawyers and didn’t have any idea, really, what lawyers did. I liked the concept of becoming a lawyer, though, and I have thoroughly enjoyed the profession.

LD: At what point did you develop the notion of being a courtroom lawyer, a plaintiff lawyer?

FB: When I was in college. At the end of my junior year at Texas Christian, Southern Methodist University offered me a scholarship and allowed me to enter law school and get a degree from TCU after my first year of law school. I got a job in my second year as a waiter, and I waited on tables at a steak restaurant for a while.

LD: Here in Dallas?

FB: Yes. Steak & Ale. So if you can wait on a table for six people who have been waiting in the bar for an hour drinking and are hungry, you can do just about anything that involves people. It provided great experience in selecting juries and getting along with people. And after about a year of that, I took a job as an independent insurance adjuster. And in adjusting claims for insurance companies, I became disenchanted with the way insurance companies treated the kind of people I had grown up with. They investigated cases early and slanted the testimony toward the defendant, then tried to starve the plaintiff out by drawing out the case as well as the payments to the plaintiff even after a settlement.

At that time, the insurance companies would pay the plaintiff without a lawyer “X” amount. Eventually, a long time after the accident, they would pay them “X”+5 if they got a lawyer who they knew was going

INSTEAD OF JUST LOOKING IN THE FRONT END AT WHAT HAPPENED, WHAT THE SPECIAL DAMAGES ARE, YOU LOOK AT DIFFERENT THINGS AS YOU GROW IN EXPERIENCE.

THE

David Rheingold

RHEINGOLD GIUFFR

NEW YORK

Joseph Rice*

MOTLEY RICE

MT. PLEASANT, S.C.

Jeffrey C. Rickard

MARSH RICKARD

BIRMINGHAM, ALA.

Peter W. Riley

SCHWEBEL GOETZ

MINNEAPOLIS

David Ring

TAYLOR & RING

MANHATTAN BEACH, CALIF.

Lyssa Roberts

PANISH SHEA

LOS ANGELES

Daniel S. Robinson

ROBINSON CALCAGNIE

NEWPORT BEACH, CALIF.

Mark P. Robinson Jr.*

ROBINSON CALCAGNIE

NEWPORT BEACH, CALIF.

Joe Roden

RUSTY HARDIN & ASSOCIATES

HOUSTON

Sarah Roger

CRAIN BROGDON ROGERS

DALLAS

Larry R. Rogers Jr.

POWER ROGERS

CHICAGO

Larry Rogers Sr.*

POWER ROGERS

CHICAGO

Ann H. Rosato

PETERSON WAMPOLD

SEATTLE

Daniel Rose

KREINDLER & KREINDLER

NEW YORK

Neal Roth

GROSSMAN ROTH

CORAL GABLES

Daniel Rottier

HABUSH HABUSH

MADISON

Ben Rubinowitz

GAIR GAIR

NEW YORK

Edward Ruffo

RHEINGOLD GIUFFRA

NEW YORK

to settle the case. And they’d pay “X”+10 if they got a lawyer who was going to do some work on it, try to settle it after some work, and then refer it to a trial lawyer if it didn’t settle. At that time, the late 1960s in Dallas, there were very few law firms that were truly plaintiffs’ lawyers who could afford to pay for preparing the case and trying it – and had lawyers capable of taking it to trial. The insurers paid those two or three firms whatever it took to get the case settled at the courthouse if they were worried about it. I decided I wanted to be in that group of lawyers.

LD: Good call.

FB: I thought I could change the dynamics. Even with the really good lawyers, the insurers would wait until they were on the courthouse steps to try to settle the case. So I tried to turn the dynamics around in the following ways. First, I went back after law school and got a master’s of law in legal medicine at SMU. And then I tried to move the decision-making point from the courthouse steps back further, using video. So I’d take video statements of everything that I thought was injurious to the defendant, or positive to my client, then invite the defense to my office, serve them a nice dinner and a nice bottle of wine, and show them the video, give them a demand that they could pay within 30 days. And if they didn’t pay it, I’d raise the demand. And that worked. I had to try the first half a dozen lawsuits, though. You can’t just say that and not do it.

LD: How long did you work as an insurance adjuster?

FB: For about a year and a half.

LD: So you saw that playbook.

FB: Yes. And I felt like Gen. George Patton in the movie “Patton,” where he says to the Desert Fox, General Erwin Rommel, “I read your book, you son of a bitch.”

LD: It sounds like you were able to relate to the insureds early on, in part because of your background.

FB: Yes. We were just average folks.

LD: What was your first job as an attorney?

FB: I started out with a two-person firm in Grand Prairie because I knew, by that time, I wanted to be a trial lawyer, and they told me I could try whatever I wanted. A lot of the firms I interviewed with were going to put me in the books for two or three years and let me deal in the Justice of the Peace courts and the county courts. And I wanted to get in the courtroom and learn how it worked.

The first year I was with them, I tried a capital murder case, some other criminal cases and a truck wreck here in Fort Worth. Among others, I also handled a divorce, which showed me enough to know I never wanted to try a divorce case again.

LD: What other lessons did you learn from that assortment of cases?

FB: That the client and the justness of the client’s cause made all the difference. And the lawyer is no better than the justness of their client’s cause, no matter how hard you work.

I also learned that I really didn’t want to be a criminal lawyer and that I enjoyed the civil side. After about a year, a larger plaintiffs’ firm, Bader Wilson, offered me a job and brought me downtown. John B. Wilson, a workers’ comp lawyer, was my mentor. I carried his bag for a long time, tried a lawsuit or two with him, and then tried other cases.

Like any law firm, manure flows downhill and the new kid on the block is at the bottom of the hill. So I tried a whole lot of lawsuits that in later years I wouldn’t have taken. Over the roughly eight years I was with that firm, and became a partner in it, I got hit with cow patties thrown from virtually any direction in a courtroom. It was great. I won some and lost some, but I tried a lot of cases. And the result is that you feel comfortable when you walk into a courtroom. Probably the most nervous I’ve ever been was the first case I tried, which was the capital murder case. When I went to the courthouse, I didn’t know I was going to try it. I had done the investigation on the case, and an older lawyer, a highly experienced criminal lawyer, was with me and was supposed to try the case. Our client had participated in an armed robbery where the service attendant was stabbed 37 times. Both defendants were young people, and the older lawyer kept saying our client was going to get off because he was testifying against the other suspect. Then, at what I thought was going to be an arraignment hearing, the other suspect pleaded guilty to nine life sentences stacked. The older lawyer came to me and said, “Son, it’s time for you to try your first case. I’ll sit with you and keep you out of trouble.”

LD: What a way to get your first trial.

FB: His position was that the client had already admitted to going along with the armed robbery. He had confessed to that, and said he stabbed the deceased a couple of times at the insistence of the other defendant. Participating in the armed robbery made it a

Ryan D. Saba

ROSEN SABA

EL SEGUNDO, CALIF.

Michael Sacchet

CIRESI CONLIN

MINNEAPOLIS

Douglas S. Saeltzer

WALKUP MELODIA

SAN FRANCISCO

Regan Safier

KLINE SPECTER

PHILADELPHIA

Peter J. Saghir

GAIR GAIR

NEW YORK

Brian Salvi

SALVI SCHOSTOK

CHICAGO

Patrick Salvi*

SALVI SCHOSTOK

CHICAGO

Patrick A. Salvi II

SALVI SCHOSTOK

CHICAGO

S. Shay Samples

HARE WYNN

BIRMINGHAM, ALA.

Elise Sanguinetti

ARIAS SANGUINETTI

EMERYVILLE, CALIF.

Diana Santa Maria

LAW OFFICES OF DIANA SANTA MARIA

DAVIE, FLA.

Joseph G. Sauder

SAUDER SCHELKOPF

BERWYN, PA.

Shana Scarlett

HAGENS BERMAN

BERKELEY, CALIF.

John ‘Jack’ Scarola*

SEARCY DENNEY

WEST PALM BEACH

Matthew D. Schelkopf

SAUDER SCHELKOPF

BERWYN, PA.

Frederick Schenk*

CASEY GERRY

SAN DIEGO

Scott Schlesinger

SCHLESINGER LAW OFFICES

FT. LAUDERDALE

Peter Schmit

ROBINS KAPLAN

MINNEAPOLIS

felony murder, so all we could do is try to keep him from getting the death penalty. I think he put on one character witness, and I put on the rest of the case. I would go home at night and read black-letter murder law, and it worked out that the jury stayed out a long time and came back with a life sentence, which was a total victory. I’ve never walked into any courtroom since feeling nearly as anxious as I did every day in that case. It did make it a lot easier to try many of these other lawsuits, though.

LD: It gives you context for what’s at stake. So after those nine years learning to be a trial lawyer, did you start your firm?

FB: I started it in 1978. I took cases that I liked, where I liked the facts and I liked the clients. I thought I could help them. That’s what I’ve been doing since.

LD: Is there much of a difference between the cases you liked then, and now? Or are they still largely the same kinds of cases?

FB: Cases today share some of the characteristics as my earlier cases. Things change. Your breadth of experience changes and the size and complexity of the cases that are referred to you change. Your understanding of what’s happening in a courtroom changes. They call it practice for a reason. You really do get better as you do it more.

Instead of just looking in the front end at what happened, what the special damages are, you look at different things as you grow in experience. What is the story, what are the real facts going to show this jury? Is it going to be a compelling story? Are they going to feel like I do about the client when it’s over?

LD: What would you say is the most important aspect of being a trial lawyer?

FB: It’s real simple: It’s hard work. And generally, those who work the hardest win the case. That’s not always true, but it’s a real high percentage. Credibility matters, too. And generally hard work produces credibility, but you have to be credible with the court and with the jury, and that takes time. It may take five years, it may take 10, it may take 50 to gain the respect of courts and juries. But you need to be credible. And you stay credible with both by telling them the truth.

LD: They know when you’re not.

FB: That’s right. If you say, “I’m going to prove this,” and then don’t prove it, they know. The one that

I see more than you should is the court asking a lawyer, “We’ve got a break coming up, Mr. Johnson, in five minutes. How much longer do you need?” And Mr. Johnson says, “I can finish, judge.” And 15 minutes later, he’s still talking. And then what do you say to the jury? “Not only am I not credible, I’m keeping you here over break.”

LD: And the jurors may need to use the restroom or be hungry. And every time that happens, it’s such a clear signal that the lawyer thinks that his or her needs are more important than those of the judge and the jury.

FB: Right, and it’s not a good thing. The other thing that I think is critical is watching the witness. A lot of lawyers have a list of questions, and they go over the list and go to the next question without fully taking in what the witness is saying. And when you can get a witness on the witness stand and begin to follow their thought processes, sometimes you get the witness to agree with your position.

LD: Right. But that, too, ties to the hard work. And it’s so important to communicate these lessons. There’s no shortcut to knowing your witness and knowing how they think, not just how they’re going to respond to questions. And to know that you have to engage with them, and to really know where they’re coming from.

FB: The other thing I think is important in trial lawsuits is imagination. You have to look for things that jurors are familiar with and link them to the case. In one trial, I got an expert witness retained by the other side to testify that he had made more money in a certain period of time testifying for defendants than it cost to run the National Guard or the fire department of Tucson, Ariz., where we were in trial. They were just some things that when the jury has the comparative size of what was paid to the expert witness, it makes a difference.

LD: Is that one of the techniques that helps when you get to the point of trying to resolve a case? What’s the most important item in your toolbox at that stage?

FB: That the defendant knows you will be ready for trial and have years of successful verdicts under your belt.

LD: Well, you seem to be a master of the telling detail, like talking about the gentleman who was killed in the car crash building his wife a porch so she could drink coffee and watch her birds.

FB: It’s the difference in reading an outline of the book and reading the book.

Jonathan Schochor

SCHOCHOR & STATON

BALTIMORE

Richard Schoenberger

WALKUP MELODIA

SAN FRANCISCO

James Schwebel*

SCHWEBEL GOETZ

MINNEAPOLIS

Matthew Schwencke

SEARCY DENNEY WEST

PALM BEACH

Carmen Scott

MOTLEY RICE

MT. PLEASANT, S.C.

Timothy Scott

FEGAN SCOTT

CHICAGO

Jennifer Scullion

SEEGER WEISS

RIDGEFIELD PARK, N.J.

Christian Searcy*

SEARCY DENNEY

WEST PALM BEACH

Ibiere Seck

SECK LAW

CANOGA PARK, CALIF.

Christopher Seeger

SEEGER WEISS

RIDGEFIELD PARK, N.J.

Scott Segal

SCOTT SEGAL

CHARLESTON, W. VA.

Joseph Sellers

COHEN MILSTEIN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Derek Sells

THE COCHRAN FIRM

PHILADELPHIA

Adam Shea

PANISH SHEA

LOS ANGELES

Loretta Sheehan

DAVIS LEVIN

HONOLULU

Liz J. Shepherd

DOLT THOMPSON

LOUISVILLE

Danielle Sherriff

LESSER LESSER

WEST PALM BEACH

Alicia Sieben

SCHWEBEL GOETZ

MINNEAPOLIS

William R. Sieben

SCHWEBEL GOETZ

MINNEAPOLIS

Philip Sieff

ROBINS KAPLAN

MINNEAPOLIS

Roman Silberfeld*

ROBINS KAPLAN

LOS ANGELES

James Sill

FULMER SILL

OKLAHOMA CITY

Matthew J. Sill

FULMER SILL

OKLAHOMA CITY

Susan Silvernail

MARSH RICKARD

BIRMINGHAM, ALA.

Chris Simmons

LYONS & SIMMONS

DALLAS

Henry R. Simmons

CLIFFORD LAW OFFICES

CHICAGO

John Simmons

SIMMONS HANLY CONROY

ALTON, ILL.

Madeleine Simmons

STEWART MILLER SIMMONS

ATLANTA

Jeffrey B. Simon

SIMON GREENSTONE

DALLAS

John G. Simon

THE SIMON LAW FIRM

ST. LOUIS

Linda Singer

MOTLEY RICE

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Thomas Siracusa

POWER ROGERS

CHICAGO

Hezekiah Sistrunk Jr.

THE COCHRAN FIRM

ATLANTA

Adam M. Slater

MAZIE SLATER

ROSELAND, N.J.

Bruce A. Smith

WARD SMITH & HILL

LONGVIEW, TEXAS

D. Neil Smith

NIX PATTERSON

DALLAS

Mariano Garcia SEARCY DENNEY (WEST PALM BEACH, FLA.)

MARIANO GARCIA

MARIANO GARCIA’S COMMITMENT TO JUSTICE

is rooted in community. As a child, his family immigrated to the U.S. from Argentina. Now in West Palm Beach, Fla., a diverse city with a large immigrant population, Garcia is passionate about providing pathways to justice for families like his own – inside of the courtroom and out.

As shareholder at renowned Florida personal injury firm Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley, Garcia pursues claims for victims of negligence in cases of medical malpractice, motor vehicle crashes, product liability and more. While his fight is for the everyman, his case results have been anything but ordinary. In one career-defining case, he took on Big Tobacco in a wrongful death suit involving a woman who died of emphysema following a tobacco addiction. The case went to trial, and the jury returned a verdict of $20M for Garcia’s client.

Garcia’s other results have included a string of multimillion-dollar settlements, including a $14M settlement in a slip and fall case, a $14.5M settlement in a surgery case and a $12M settlement in a hospital death case. Garcia and his firm were also involved in the mammoth litigation involving the Surfside condo collapse in Miami, which garnered nationwide attention.

Garcia devotes a significant amount of time to furthering the well-being of his community outside of his firm, as well. He is a past president of the Legal Aid Society, which provides free legal services to the most vulnerable members of the community, including immigrants seeking lawful permanent residence, upholding fair housing laws and more. In addition to legal efforts, the Society also assists victims of domestic violence with housing and healthcare, ensures disabled children receive accessible education and spearheads other community-driven efforts.

Garcia is a member of the Hispanic Bar Association and served a four-year term screening judicial applicants on the 15th Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission. He also volunteers for the non-profit Jack the Bikeman, which supports migrant workers and their children.

Lawdragon: How does your experience immigrating to the U.S. as a child inform your practice now?

Mariano Garcia: My experience with immigration informs a lot of what I do, and my approach to cli-

BY EMILY JACKOWAY

ents who have had a similar experience. I represent many Latino clients in our community and throughout the state, and I can relate to them on that level. When I think about what it was like to come to a new place – not speaking the language, having to learn how things work – I think about what an enormous and risky decision that must have been for my parents. As a parent myself, I don’t know if I would’ve had the courage to undertake such a challenge.

Not many people leave the country of their origin willingly. People are usually forced to make that decision due to sociopolitical strife and wanting something better for their family. My parents left Argentina at a very difficult time there. So, I think understanding that struggle gives me credibility with clients since they know I’ve also been through that experience and can relate to their circumstances and can empathize with them. Understanding that experience breaks down a lot of barriers.

LD: How did you decide that you wanted to become a lawyer?

MG: I was very involved in scouting growing up, which was formative for me. The Boy Scouts are a public service organization, so that helped to mold a dedication to community service and helping others.

LD: How did you get into personal injury law specifically?

MG: I did insurance defense for the first eight years of my career. Then I just got to the point where I decided that that was not what I wanted to do long term. Being on the other side aligned better with my belief system, my personality and my goals relating to trial work.

LD: What early cases in your personal injury practice stand out as particularly formative?

MG: Many of the early cases involved representing clients who didn’t speak English. Spanish is my first language. Being bilingual gives me a distinct advantage not only in terms of helping native speakers express what they need to express, but I also understand how they’re thinking in the Spanish language. Language isn’t just linguistics, but cultural expression. Representing people who were not native speakers instilled in me a confidence in the judicial system because my clients were able to obtain justice despite

Michael Smith

LESSER LESSER

WEST PALM BEACH

Rod W. Smith

AVERA & SMITH

GAINESVILLE, FLA.

Shelby Smith

HAGENS BERMAN

SEATTLE

Tempe D. Smith

HARE WYNN

BIRMINGHAM, ALA.

Todd Smith*

SMITH LACIEN

CHICAGO

William Smith*

ABRAMSON SMITH

SAN FRANCISCO

R. Allen Smith Jr.

THE SMITH LAW FIRM

RIDGELAND, MISS.

Daniel Smolen

SMOLEN LAW

TULSA

Kathryn Snapka

SNAPKA FIRM

CORPUS CHRISTI, TEXAS

Thomas Sobol

HAGENS BERMAN

BOSTON

Alison Soloff

SOLOFF & ZERVANOS

PHILADELPHIA

Donald Soloff

SOLOFF & ZERVANOS

PHILADELPHIA

Andrew Sommerman

SOMMERMAN MCCAFFITY

DALLAS

Dan Sorey

SOREY & HOOVER

LONGVIEW, TEXAS

Michael Sorich

CAVANAGH LAW GROUP

CHICAGO

Christine Spagnoli

GREENE BROILLET

EL SEGUNDO

Shanin Specter

KLINE SPECTER

PHILADELPHIA

Gerry Spence*

THE SPENCE LAW FIRM

JACKSON, WYO.

Andrew Spielberger

BALABAN SPIELBERGER

LOS ANGELES

Robert Spohrer*

SPOHRER DODD JACKSONVILLE

Cynthia St. Amant KANNER & WHITELEY

NEW ORLEANS

Kerry Staton

SCHOCHOR & STATON

BALTIMORE

Kathryn Stebner

STEBNER GERTLER

SAN FRANCISCO

Bruce Stern

STARK & STARK

LAWRENCEVILLE, N.J.

Corey Stern

LEVY KONIGSBERG

ATLANTA

L. Chris Stewart

STEWART MILLER SIMMONS

ATLANTA

Larry Stewart*

STEWART TILGHMAN

MIAMI

William K. Strifert

SCHWEBEL GOETZ

MINNEAPOLIS

Paul Stritmatter*

STRITMATTER KESSLER

HOQUIAM

Neil Sugarman*

SUGARMAN BOSTON

Kenneth Suggs

JANET JANET & SUGGS

COLUMBIA, S.C.

Robert Sullivan*

SULLIVAN PAPAIN GARDEN CITY, N.J.

Arthur D. Swanson SWANSON GARDNER

RENTON, WASH.

Dennis Sweet III

SWEET & ASSOCIATES

JACKSON, MISS.

Laura Tamez

THE HERRERA LAW FIRM

SAN ANTONIO

Anthony Tarricone

KREINDLER & KREINDLER

BOSTON

the prejudices that many people have against those who don’t speak English.

Many people think that if you’re going to access the judicial system, you should be able to speak English. So, being able to represent folks who would otherwise not have the ability to access and interact with the judicial system and see their cases to conclusion is extraordinarily satisfying.

LD: Did you have any mentors who helped shape your career in those early days?

MG: I was very fortunate to have good mentors. My earliest mentor was Brooks Rica. Another one is John Lurvey. I still stay in touch with them. They are very good lawyers and were both excellent mentors in a traditional way. Both made sure that I had every opportunity to get into the courtroom and that I developed as a trial lawyer. It’s so important to have that guidance.

And now, of course, I work with the most extraordinary group of lawyers, including Chris Searcy, whom I’ve had the good fortune to try a couple of cases with.

LD: What do you enjoy about working with the attorneys at your firm?

MG: Everybody takes their work very seriously, they’re fearless advocates, and all are dedicated to obtaining excellent results on behalf of our clients.

LD: Tell me about the $20M verdict you achieved in the tobacco-related wrongful death case.

MG: That case was a highlight of my career. We assembled a terrific trial team with my partners Sia Baker-Barnes and Hardee Bass, we worked so well together. The defendants and their lawyers were formidable. There were many obstacles to overcome, since people who don’t know the history of cigarettes view smoking as a choice, not an addiction, so we had to combat a lot of stereotypes.

I handled jury selection, which took a little over a week. We started with over 300 people, and after we got through hardships, we were left with 167 jurors to interview. So, I started off talking to a group of 167 people, and we whittled that down to six jurors, the minimum required to hear a civil jury trial in Florida, with no alternates, which was risky because if any of the six were dismissed, it would be end of the case. Remarkably, all six jurors hung in there until the very end. But then, intermediate appellate court reversed the verdict, finding that the amount

of the verdict wasn’t justified, and we appealed to the Florida Supreme Court. Ultimately, the Florida Supreme Court agreed with us and reinstated the verdict, which was ultimately paid when SCOTUS refused to accept review.

We represented a wonderful client who had a compelling story about what happened to her mother – and the jury obviously agreed. That case stands out not just because of the result, but because of the wonderful working experience with my partners.

LD: It must have been fulfilling to see that case all the way through trial with such a large verdict. Can you discuss any recent cases you’ve worked on?

MG: The last trial that I had was in December of 2021. This was during the time when courts were opening up, shutting down and then opening back up again in response to the pandemic. The Miami Courthouse, where we tried this medical malpractice case, closed after the Surfside collapse which prompted an inspection of the courthouse building. The courthouse reopened on Dec. 6., in time for us to start trial. We tried the case, got a nice verdict on a Friday, and on the following Monday, the courthouse closed again because of the pandemic.

LD: Wow. And tell me about working on the Surfside collapse suit.

MG: One of our founding partners, Jack Scarola, was appointed to the leadership committee which meant that we all did common benefi t work for the entire class including investigating the claims that could be brought against various potential defendants. Then, after a recovery of more than $1B was accomplished for the benefit of wrongful death and personal injury claimants, we represented four families who were in the building when it collapsed. Two of those families experienced multiple deaths and the other two families were in the building when the collapse began, but were miraculously able to escape, and they brought PTSD claims.

The case was a remarkable experience because of the speed with which the case moved. Judge Michael Hanzman, was a task master, held everyone to very strict timelines and became intimately involved in every detail of the case, including the victims and their families. He knew who they all were and where they lived in the building.

In one case, we represented the family of a husband and wife and their 1-year-old child. She was pregnant, expecting their second child. They were

John C. Taylor

TAYLOR & RING

MANHATTAN BEACH, CALIF.

Larry Taylor

THE COCHRAN FIRM

DALLAS

Sam E. Taylor

LANIER LAW FIRM

HOUSTON

Ralph J. Tease

HABUSH HABUSH

GREEN BAY

Karen E. Terry

SEARCY DENNEY

WEST PALM BEACH

Jonathan Thomas

POWER ROGERS

CHICAGO

Robert R. Thomas

POWER ROGERS

CHICAGO

Tad Thomas

THOMAS LAW OFFICES

LOUISVILLE

Brandon Thompson

CIRESI CONLIN

MINNEAPOLIS

Tyler S. Thompson

DOLT THOMPSON

LOUISVILLE

Fred Thompson III*

MOTLEY RICE

MT. PLEASANT, S.C.

Timothy Tietjen

ROUDA FEDER

SAN FRANCISCO

Evan Torgan

TORGAN COOPER

NEW YORK

Richard Tousignant

SCHWEBEL GOETZ

MINNEAPOLIS

Paul Traina

PANISH SHEA

LOS ANGELES

Timothy S. Trecek

HABUSH HABUSH

MILWAUKEE

Kevin W. Tucker

EAST END TRIAL GROUP

PITTSBURGH

Lucy Tufts

CUNNINGHAM BOUNDS

MOBILE, ALA.

all killed. It was just heart-wrenching. There wasn’t a dry eye in the courtroom during their damages hearing.

Although I consider myself as having played a very small role in this case, it was a an extremely valuable experience.

LD: Looking outside of your firm, tell me about your work as the past president of the Legal Aid Society.

MG: Legal Aid is one of the larger law firms in our community. Bob Bertisch, who has been the executive director almost since its inception, does valuable work on behalf of the most vulnerable people in our community, and he has an exceptional team of lawyers. I served as president of the board for years because I believe in their mission. We all have an obligation to help others, especially those who need access to our justice system.

LD: Tell me about your work with judicial appointments, as well. You served on the 15th Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission, and you also advocate for Hispanic judges with the Hispanic Bar, right?

MG: Right. I got involved with the Hispanic Bar as a young lawyer and became president of the organization. I then continued to serve as a board member and I’m now serving as an advisor of the organization.

LD: Why is it so vital to have judges from underrepresented communities?

MG: We have one of the fastest-growing Latino communities in Florida. It’s projected that by 2050, Latino individuals will make up 50 percent of the population of Palm Beach County. So, we believe that the judiciary should reflect the population, and there should be qualified judges who are of Hispanic background. We’ll support them in any way the organization can to help them achieve that goal.

LD: Outside of your practice and your public service work and bar association memberships, what do you do for fun?

MG: I’ve been around cars and airplanes all my life. My father’s a mechanic. I worked with him, so I’ve been around cars and car racing for a long time. I’m a member of the Sport Car Club of America. Ten years ago, I did some club racing, and now I just do track days or high-performance driving events. So, I have a car that I take to those events every couple months.

LD: That’s so fun.

MG: Some people think I’m crazy for doing it, but it’s done on a racetrack which is a very controlled environment.

I was also exposed to aviation as a youngster. I’m a commercial multi-engine instrument-rated pilot and I’ve owned several airplanes throughout the years. I think the experience rubbed off on my son, who is an airline pilot. I don’t fly as much anymore, but aviation is still one of my passions.

LD: Wow. Is that experience helpful in your aviation crash cases?

MG: It is. Over the years I’ve been involved in a number of airplane and helicopter crash cases. I understand the aviation language and what’s involved in flying and maintaining an aircraft, which comes in very handy for those types of cases.

LD: You mentioned your son – do you have any other children?

MG: I do – a daughter, as well, who’s a junior at Harvard University.

I don’t think that any trial lawyer could do their job without the support of a very understanding and patient spouse and family. I hit the lotto when I met my wife, Shelley. I don’t think that the families, and spouses in particular, get enough credit for what they have to tolerate in terms of the demands upon our time and the stress associated with representing people who have experienced something awful in their lives. I think that in order to do this job well, you have to really absorb a lot of what your clients are experiencing, since so many of the stories are just heartbreaking.

LD: How do you take care of yourself in that regard?

MG: Rest, exercise and caffeine.

LD: Do you have any advice for newer lawyers?

MG: Being a lawyer gives you a platform. It gives you the ability to learn about a lot of different things. Although the work is great, it’s important to leverage our knowledge and abilities by becoming involved in the community that we serve.

I’ve been lucky to have had the support of my law firm in serving the community. For me, it’s kind of selfish because I always get a lot more out of it than I put into it. The sense of satisfaction, the people that I meet and the ability to make a small difference in somebody’s life is very rewarding.

G. Bryan Ulmer III

THE SPENCE LAW FIRM

JACKSON, WYO.

Dawn Vallejos-Nichols

AVERA & SMITH

GAINSVILLE

Brandon Vaughn

ROBINS KAPLAN

MINNEAPOLIS

Carol C. Villegas

LABATON SUCHAROW

NEW YORK

Brian Vines

MINNER VINES MONCUS

LEXINGTON, KY.

Kenneth Vogelstein

WAIS VOGELSTEIN

BALTIMORE

Aimee Wagstaff

ANDRUS WAGSTAFF

LAKEWOOD, COLO.

Gary Wais

WAIS VOGELSTEIN

BALTIMORE

Brent Walker

ALDOUS WALKER

DALLAS

Derrick Walker

ALLEN ALLEN ALLEN & ALLEN

RICHMOND

John ‘Jack’ Walker

MARTIN WALKER

TYLER, TEXAS

Mary Anne Walling

SULLIVAN PAPAIN

GARDEN CITY, N.J.

Judson Waltman

LANIER LAW FIRM

HOUSTON

Michael S. Wampold

PETERSON WAMPOLD

SEATTLE

Arnold Wang

ARIAS SANGUINETTI

LOS ANGELES

Johnny Ward

WARD SMITH & HILL

LONGVIEW, TEXAS

Navan Ward

BEASLEY ALLEN

MONTGOMERY, ALA.

C. Calvin Warriner III

SEARCY DENNEY

WEST PALM BEACH

Donald Watson

GARY WILLIAMS PARENTI

STUART, FLA.

Mikal Watts

WATTS GUERRA

SAN ANTONIO

Natalie Weatherford

TAYLOR & RING

MANHATTAN BEACH, CALIF.

Lisa Weinstein

GRANT & EISENHOFER

CHICAGO

Stephen Weiss

SEEGER WEISS

RIDGEFIELD PARK, N.J.

Paul Weitz

THE COCHRAN FIRM

NEW YORK

Geoffrey Wells

GREENE BROILLET

EL SEGUNDO

Gregory K. Wells

SHADOAN MICHAEL

ROCKVILLE, MD.

Noah Wexler

ARNOLD & ITKIN

HOUSTON

Daniel Whalen

ENGSTROM LIPSCOMB

LOS ANGELES

Jeanmarie Whalen

DOMNICK CUNNINGHAM

PALM BEACH GARDENS

Tim Wheeler

GREENE BROILLET

SANTA MONICA

Charles W. Whetstone Jr.*

WHETSTONE PERKINS

COLUMBIA, S.C.

H. James ‘Jamie’ White WHITE LAW

OKEMOS, MICH.

Matthew White

GRAY & WHITE LOUISVILLE

William Whitehurst*

WHITEHURST HARKNESS

AUSTIN

Conlee Whiteley

KANNER & WHITELEY

NEW ORLEANS

Reggie Whitten

WHITTEN BURRAGE

OKLAHOMA CITY

Edward Willer

CORBOY & DEMETRIO

CHICAGO

David Williams

KLINE SPECTER

PHILADELPHIA

Jason Williams

SMITH LACIEN

CHICAGO

Lorenzo Williams

GARY WILLIAMS PARENTI

STUART, FLA.

Steven Williams

JOSEPH SAVERI LAW FIRM

SAN FRANCISCO

Lawrence Wilson

LANIER LAW FIRM

HOUSTON

Paul Wingo

HAMILTON WINGO

DALLAS

Matthew Winter

DAVIS LEVIN

HONOLULU

David G. Wirtes Jr.

CUNNINGHAM BOUNDS

MOBILE, ALA.

R. Brent Wisner

BAUM HEDLUND

LOS ANGELES

Michael Worel

DEWSNUP KING

SALT LAKE CITY

Andrew Yaffa

GROSSMAN ROTH

CORAL GABLES

Greg Yaffa

DOMNICK CUNNINGHAM

PALM BEACH GARDENS

C. Steven Yerrid*

YERRID LAW FIRM

TAMPA

Marty Young

GOUDARZI & YOUNG

GILMER, TEXAS

Amy Zeman

GIBBS LAW GROUP

OAKLAND

John Zervanos

SOLOFF & ZERVANOS

PHILADELPHIA

Diandra ‘Fu’ Debrosse

Zimmerman

DICELLO LEVITT

BIRMINGHAM, ALA.

Laura Zois

MILLER & ZOIS

BALTIMORE

As we moved forward in the twilight of the global pandemic and through an uncertain economy to the liminal edge of whatever horror comes next, these lawyers gave us hope of better days.

They have dedicated their careers to standing up for our rights in workplaces and in society – a mission that’s never been more important. Social justice as a cause is enduring, as is the right to work in a safe, fair and equitable environment.

We applaud each of our 500 members for their dedication to a better world for us all. Lawyers denoted by an asterisk are those who have previously been inducted into the Lawdragon Hall of Fame.

This guide is 50 percent female and 27 percent inclusive. We delight in the diversity of these leaders who show that law firms, too, can embrace and lead in equality.

The Lawdragon 500 Leading Plaintiff Employment & Civil Rights Lawyers guide was created through nominations and independent journalistic research vetted by peers and adversaries.

Sally Abrahamson

WERMAN SALAS

CHICAGO

Vicki Lafer Abrahamson*

ABRAHAMSON RDZANEK

CHICAGO

Gregg McLean Adam

MESSING ADAM

AN FRANCISCO

J. Bernard Alexander

ALEXANDER MORRISON & FEHR

LOS ANGELES

Gloria Allred

ALLRED MAROKO

LOS ANGELES

Ilona Demenina Anderson

SAENZ & ANDERSON

AVENTURA, FLA.

Jennie Lee Anderson

ANDRUS ANDERSON

SAN FRANCISCO

Stuart Andrews

URNETTE SHUTT

COLUMBIA, S.C.

Lori Andrus

ANDRUS ANDERSON

SAN FRANCISCO

Margaret Angelucci

ASHER GITTLER

CHICAGO

Sarah Arendt

WERMAN SALAS

CHICAGO

Rebekah Bailey

NICHOLS KASTER

MINNEAPOLIS

Anita Bala

BUCKLEY BEAL

ATLANTA

Lisa Banks

KATZ MARSHALL & BANKS

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Allyson Belovin

LEVY RATNER

NEW YORK

Jonathan Ben-Asher

RITZ CLARK & BEN-ASHER

NEW YORK

Tiffanie Benfer

HARDWICK BENFER

DOYLESTOWN, PA.

Rachel Berlin

BENJAMIN HALL & LAMPROS

ATLANTA

Jennifer Bennett

GUPTA WESSLER

SAN FRANCISCO

Harvey Berger

BERGER WILLIAMS

SAN DIEGO

Lynne Bernabei*

BERNABEI & KABAT

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Nicole G. Berner

JAMES & HOFFMAN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Jonathan Berns

DOBSON GOLDBERG

ST. LOUIS

Inga Bernstein

ZALKIND DUNCAN

BOSTON

Stephen Berzon*

ALTSHULER BERZON

SAN FRANCISCO

Michael Bien

ROSEN BIEN

SAN FRANCISCO

Rachel Bien

OLIVIER SCHREIBER & CHAO

LOS ANGELES

Amanda Biondolino

SASS LAW FIRM

TAMPA

Saba Bireda

SANFORD HEISLER

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Laureve D. Blackstone

LEVY RATNER

NEW YORK

Alan C. Blanco

ROTHMAN GORDON

PITTSBURGH

Beth Bloom

BLOOM LAW

SEATTLE

Katherine Blostein

OUTTEN & GOLDEN

NEW YORK

Tanesha Walls Blye

SAENZ & ANDERSON

AVENTURA, FLA.

Ellen Boardman

O’DONOGHUE & O’DONOGHUE

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Kathleen Bogas*

BOGAS & KONCIUS

BINGHAM FARMS, MICH.

Karine Bohbot

BOHBOT & RILES

OAKLAND

Manuel Boígues

WEINBERG ROGER

ALAMEDA, CALIF.

Maria de las Nieves Bolaños

FISH POTTER BOLAÑOS

CHICAGO

Subhashini Bollini

CORREIA & PUTH

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Megan A. Bonanni

PITT MCGEHEE

ROYAL OAK, MICH.

David Borgen

GOLDSTEIN BORGEN

OAKLAND

Jeffrey L. Bornstein

ROSEN BIEN

SAN FRANCISCO

Mary Bortscheller

COHEN MILSTEIN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Elizabeth L. Bradley

ROSEN SABA

LOS ANGELES

Lynne Jaben Bratcher

BRATCHER GOCKEL

INDEPENDENCE, MO.

Elaine Charlson Bredehoft

CHARLSON BREDEHOFT

RESTON, VA.

Valerie Brender

RUKIN HYLAND

SAN FRANCISCO

Matthew D. Brinckerhoff

EMERY CELLI

NEW YORK

David Brody

SHERIN & LODGEN

BOSTON

Christopher Brook

PATTERSON HARKAVY

CHAPEL HILL

Molly Brooks

OUTTEN & GOLDEN

NEW YORK

Carla Brown

CHARLSON BREDEHOFT

RESTON, VA.

Deane B. Brown

HUGHES SOCOL

CHICAGO

Tracey L. Brown

THE COCHRAN FIRM

NEW YORK

Edward Buckley

BUCKLEY BEAL ATLANTA

M. Malissa Burnette

BURNETTE SHUTT

COLUMBIA, S.C.

Lisa Butler

MAINE EMPLOYEE RIGHTS GROUP

BANGOR, MAINE

Alejandro Caffarelli

CAFFARELLI & ASSOCIATES

CHICAGO

Gregory Care

BROWN GOLDSTEIN LEVY

BALTIMORE

James W. Carroll

ROTHMAN GORDON

PITTSBURGH

Shanon Carson

BERGER MONTAGUE

PHILADELPHIA

Adam Augustine Carter

THE EMPLOYMENT LAW GROUP

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Andrew G. Celli

EMERY CELLI

NEW YORK

Eve Cervantez

ALTSHULER BERZON

SAN FRANCISCO

Connie K. Chan

ALTSHULER BERZON

SAN FRANCISCO

Lin Chan

LIEFF CABRASER

SAN FRANCISCO

Kelly Chanfrau

CHANFRAU & CHANFRAU

DAYTONA BEACH

Katharine Chao

OLIVIER SCHREIBER & CHAO

SAN FRANCISCO

Ed Chapin

SANFORD HEISLER

SAN DIEGO

Stephen Chertkof

HELLER HURON

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Gregory Chiarello

OUTTEN & GOLDEN

NEW YORK

Sam Maduegbuna

MADUEGBUNA COOPER (NEW YORK)

SAM MADUEGBUNA

WHEN NIGERIAN-BORN TRIAL LAWYER SAM

Maduegbuna first came to the United States in the early 1990s, he didn’t expect to stay. But when he realized how significantly he could help fellow immigrants and other underprivileged groups in the U.S., he knew he was needed here.

Nearly 30 years later, Maduegbuna has had the privilege of fighting for the less privileged, often against seemingly indomitable entities and frequently obtaining large recoveries. He has successfully tried cases on behalf of civil rights victims in federal and state courts, obtaining significant jury verdicts and settlements. He also has successfully argued motions at the New York and federal appellate courts. In addition to its focus on civil rights and employment litigation, Maduegbuna Cooper handles an array of tort lawsuits and pro bono cases. Also, though Maduegbuna did not return to Nigeria for work, he continues to practice on the international stage by handling commercial transactions involving doing business in Nigeria and other parts of Africa.

Lawdragon: What are the core values of the firm? How do they help you succeed in court?

Sam Maduegbuna: Our core values begin with honesty and truth. We believe in brutal honesty. Trust is the foundation and cornerstone of our work. We shine light on the truth and expose through the trial process the lies, the hypocrisy, and the betrayal. We do not ignore the truth in the weakness of any case but use the truth to build a winning case. We value personal responsibility. We provide objective,

honest advice and guidance – we do not just tell clients what they want to hear. We call a spade a spade. Each case that comes our way presents a unique narrative and it is our responsibility to unravel the threads and seek the truth.

Another core value is empathy. We come to the practice of law with an intense desire to change and confront wrongdoing, but with tremendous feeling and capacity for empathy. We believe that the key to our clients’ stories is not in the head, but in the heart. We start and stand with the client – we are always one with the client in the challenge or adversity he or she is facing.

A third value is that of ardent practice. We practice, develop and sharpen our advocacy and persuasion skills on a continuing basis, whether in oral arguments, briefs or trial presentation. We understand that mastering persuasion requires continuous improvement, through daily practice and personal development, and hands-on practice and testing.

Finally, we are trial ready from the jump. We approach every case as though it is going to trial today. We develop exceptional trial strategy for our cases, by building the story of the case from our very first contact. Our non-stop preparation for trial ensures our success at trial, and often dictates our large recoveries and excellent results, even for those cases that settle.

LD: What do you find most fulfilling in the practice of law?

PHOTO BY NICK COLEMAN

WE VALUE PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. WE PROVIDE OBJECTIVE, HONEST ADVICE AND GUIDANCE – WE DO NOT JUST TELL CLIENTS WHAT THEY WANT TO HEAR. WE CALL A SPADE A SPADE. EACH CASE THAT COMES OUR WAY PRESENTS A UNIQUE NARRATIVE AND IT IS OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO UNRAVEL THE THREADS AND SEEK THE TRUTH.

SM: The practice of law is not just a profession but a calling – a way to touch lives, bring justice and make a lasting impact on my individual lives and in my community.

The law, to me, is not just a set of rules but a powerful tool for creating a fair and just society.

Beyond the intellectual pursuit of the law, I cherish most the human element. I have formed deep connections with many of my clients, taking the time to listen to their stories and understand their struggles. To me being a trial lawyer meant being a voice for the voiceless, a defender of the oppressed, and a beacon of hope for those in need.

LD: Can you discuss some of your most notable cases?

SM: In the Glaves-Morgan v. City of New York employment discrimination and retaliation case, a New York jury found Robert Doar, a commissioner for the city’s Human Resources Administration Agency, and his First Deputy prejudiced . Doar was appointed under high praise by then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and his father had served as an assistant attorney general in the Justice Department during the Kennedy administration.

We sued Doar and his First Deputy for gender and racial discrimination. After months of hotly contested discovery, including depositions of difficult high-level officials, most of whom were experienced lawyers, we roundly defeated the city’s motion for summary judgment. Just before trial, the offer to settle was an insultingly low five figures. As a result, we tried the case to a jury verdict before the late renowned United States District Judge Harold Baer. This ended up being the first case where a sitting New York City commissioner was found by a jury to have acted discriminatorily. The jury found on all claims for Ms. Glaves-Morgan, a Black female and a graduate of Yale and Brooklyn Law School, who was Executive Deputy Commissioner and the Agency’s Chief Contracting Officer. The jury was about to determine the amount of punitive damages Commissioner Doar and his First Deputy should

personally pay when the City of New York agreed to pay all that Ms. Glaves-Morgan wanted and all our attorneys’ fees and costs, totaling $1.5M.

This result was widely published, making all major New York papers and legal publications, including The New York Times and The New York Law Journal.

LD: I also read about the drug testing case involving Delta. Can you discuss that?

SM: For the unlawful termination of Richard Drake by Delta Airlines, after five days of trial, a New York jury found that some of Drake’s drug tests by Delta were not the product of random selection and awarded Drake $2.5M in damages over the various tests. Drake was a wonderful flight attendant and union leader and, more importantly, a great human being. He was falsely accused of adulterating his urine sample during a federally mandated drug testing. Drake claimed that his drug tests were not the product of random selection – that he was specifically targeted for three drug tests in three consecutive quarters as a means of eliminating him. He was a well-known union leader and organizer at Pan Am, which had just then been acquired by Delta. Drake alleged that the tests caused him to experience emotional distress, damage to his reputation, personal humiliation, mental anguish and suffering and deprivation of liberty. A New York jury agreed.

LD: What are some activities you like to do away from work?

SM: True to my heritage as a descendant of Nigerian Anglican reverends, I love singing hymns. As a teenager, I was a chorister in the Anglican Church. I also get great enjoyment out of collecting and appreciating art – particularly contemporary African art. I find joy in identifying and patronizing African artists, some of whom end up becoming international stars. Interior decorating using art is something that is also a source of much fun for me.

I also am well-travelled. I have made a few sky dives in Nevada, and multiple cliff divings in Negril Jamaica and other parts of the Caribbean.

TO ME BEING A TRIAL LAWYER MEANT BEING A VOICE FOR THE VOICELESS, A DEFENDER OF THE OPPRESSED, AND A BEACON OF HOPE FOR THOSE IN NEED.

Lewis Chimes

LEWIS CHIMES

STAMFORD

Barbara ‘B.J.’ Chisholm

ALTSHULER BERZON

SAN FRANCISCO

Jeanne M. Christensen

WIGDOR

NEW YORK

Anne L. Clark

VLADECK RASKIN

NEW YORK

Denise Clark

CLARK LAW GROUP

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Miriam Clark

RITZ CLARK & BEN-ASHER

NEW YORK

Shaylyn Cochran

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Peter C. Cohen

CHARLSON BREDEHOFT

RESTON, VA.

Jack Cohoon

BURNETTE SHUTT

COLUMBIA, S.C.

name name

FIRM FIRM FIRM (CITY)

Kyla Cole

NEILL LEGLER COLE

DALLAS

Francis Collins

KAHN SMITH

BALTIMORE

Stephen Console

CONSOLE MATTIACCI

PHILADELPHIA

Samuel J. Cordes

ROTHMAN GORDON

PITTSBURGH

Linda Correia

CORREIA & PUTH

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Marc Cote

FRANK FREED

SEATTLE

Colleen E. Coveney

KATZ MARSHALL & BANKS

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Burton Craige

PATTERSON HARKAVY

CHAPEL HILL

Chelsea Crawford

BROWN GOLDSTEIN LEVY

BALTIMORE

Shawn Crowley

KAPLAN HECKER

NEW YORK

Susan Crumiller

CRUMILLER

BROOKLYN

Jillian Cutler

FRANK FREED

SEATTLE

Jenna M. Dabbs

KAPLAN HECKER

NEW YORK

Cornelia Ho-Chin Dai

HADSELL STORMER RENICK & DAI

PASADENA, CA

Glenn Danas

CLARKSON LAW

MALIBU, CALIF.

Linda Dardarian

GOLDSTEIN BORGEN

OAKLAND

Frank Darras

DARRASLAW

ONTARIO, CALIF.

Emile Davis

DOLAN LAW FIRM

SAN FRANCISCO

Susan Davis

COHEN WEISS NEW YORK

David P. Dean

JAMES & HOFFMAN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Peter DeChiara

COHEN WEISS NEW YORK

Nicole Horberg Decter

SEGAL ROITMAN

BOSTON

Lori Deem

HUGHES SOCOL CHICAGO

Jeffrey Demain

ALTSHULER BERZON

SAN FRANCISCO

Amanda DeMatteis

GARRISON LEVIN-EPSTEIN

NEW HAVEN

Kelly Dermody

LIEFF CABRASER

SAN FRANCISCO

David deRubertis

THE DERUBERTIS LAW FIRM

STUDIO CITY, CALIF.

Reena Desai

NICHOLS KASTER

MINNEAPOLIS

V. James DeSimone

V. JAMES DESIMONE LAW

MARINA DEL REY, CALIF.

Maria G. Diaz

THE DIAZ LAW FIRM

LOS ANGELES

Francesca Dioguardi

ROSEN SABA

EL SEGUNDO, CALIF.

Jerome Dobson

DOBSON GOLDBERG

ST. LOUIS

Kevin Docherty

BROWN GOLDSTEIN

LEVY BALTIMORE

Christopher Dolan

DOLAN LAW FIRM

SAN FRANCISCO

Kate Doniger

KAPLAN HECKER

NEW YORK

Stephen Drew

DREW COOPER

GRAND RAPIDS, MICH.

Mark Dunlap

MAINE EMPLOYEE RIGHTS GROUP

PORTLAND, MAINE

Christine Dunn

SANFORD HEISLER

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Ronald Dunn

GLEASON DUNN

ALBANY

Lori Ecker

LAW OFFICES OF LORI D. ECKER

CHICAGO

Daniel Edelman

KATZ MARSHALL & BANKS

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Cate Edwards

EDWARDS BEIGHTOL

RALEIGH, NC

Keith Ehrman

MCGUINN HILLSMAN

SAN FRANCISCO

Herbert Eisenberg

EISENBERG & SCHNELL

NEW YORK

Lisa Ells

ROSEN BIEN

SAN FRANCISCO

Jay D. Ellwanger

ELLWANGER LAW

AUSTIN

Alan B. Epstein*

SPECTOR GADON

PHILADELPHIA

Joseph Espo

BROWN GOLDSTEIN LEVY

BALTIMORE

Yvette Everhart

SASS LAW FIRM

TAMPA

Alan B. Exelrod*

RUDY EXELROD

SAN FRANCISCO

Michael Fayette

PINSKY SMITH

GRAND RAPIDS, MICH.

Tracy L. Fehr

ALEXANDER MORRISON & FEHR

LOS ANGELES

Brenda Feis

FEIS GOLDY

CHICAGO

Nicholas Femia

O’DONOGHUE & O’DONOGHUE

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Menaka N. Fernando

OUTTEN & GOLDEN

SAN FRANCISCO

Robert Fetter

MILLER COHEN

DETROIT

Charles Field

SANFORD HEISLER

SAN DIEGO

Michael A. Filoromo

KATZ MARSHALL & BANKS

WASHINGTON, D.C.

James Finberg

ALTSHULER BERZON

SAN FRANCISCO

Julie E. Fink

KAPLAN HECKER

NEW YORK

David J. Fish

FISH POTTER BOLAÑOS

CHICAGO

Michele R. Fisher

NICHOLS KASTER

MINNEAPOLIS

Samuel Fisher

WIGGINS CHILDS

BIRMINGHAM, ALA.

Stephen J. Fitzgerald

GARRISON LEVIN-EPSTEIN

NEW HAVEN

Benjamin Flam

GORDON LAW GROUP

BOSTON

Kobie Flowers

BROWN GOLDSTEIN LEVY

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Bruce A. Fredrickson

WEBSTER & FREDRICKSON

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Andy Freeman

BROWN GOLDSTEIN LEVY

BALTIMORE

Andrew H. Friedman

HELMER FRIEDMAN

BEVERLY HILLS, CA

Dale K. Galipo

LAW OFFICE OF DALE K. GALIPO

WOODLAND HILLS, CALIF.

Ernest J. Galvan

ROSEN BIEN

SAN FRANCISCO

Joseph C. Garrison

GARRISON LEVIN-EPSTEIN

NEW HAVEN

Carol J. Garvan

ACLU OF MAINE

PORTLAND, MAINE

Rachel Geman

LIEFF CABRASER

NEW YORK

Narendra Ghosh

PATTERSON HARKAVY

CHAPEL HILL

Felicia Gilbert

SANFORD HEISLER

SAN FRANCISCO

Karla Gilbride

PUBLIC JUSTICE

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Carol Gillam

GILLAM LAW FIRM

LOS ANGELES

Hal Gillespie*

GILLESPIE & SANFORD

DALLAS

Joseph Gillespie

GILLESPIE & SANFORD

DALLAS

Charles Gilligan

O’DONOGHUE & O’DONOGHUE

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Cara Greene

OUTTEN & GOLDEN (NEW YORK)

CARA GREENE

CARA GREENE HAS A STRICT EMPLOYEES-ONLY policy.

She’s spent nearly two decades working in employment law where she tackles the many forms discrimination takes in the workplace. Pervasive systems built to favor some and leave others behind still sit stubbornly in place at many establishments. More than that though, Greene explains that “companies rely on a confidential, opaque process to avoid accountability.” Perhaps that’s why she’s so passionate about working for the workers.

A partner at Outten & Golden in New York, Greene litigates equal pay and discrimination disputes and advises executives and lawyers on their own employment matters. She has litigated a mix of individual and class action suits on behalf of a wide variety of clients, ranging from low-wage hourly workers to highly compensated professionals and everyone in between. Regardless of the case, regardless of the client, Greene wholeheartedly believes that “everyone deserves the same quality of legal representation.”

Greene is co-lead counsel in the Goldman Sachs gender discrimination class action that settled weeks before it was scheduled to go to trial, for $215M. In a case that was 13 years in the making, Greene represented a certified class of female Vice-Presidents and Associates challenging Goldman Sachs’ pay and promotion policies.

Archaic systems of discrimination can have the power to extend beyond the workplace ecosystem, to leave their mark on our individual selves and manifest in ironic ways. And while the quest for equality can feel like a record on repeat, Greene maintains that we are, in fact, making progress – she’s seen some impactful changes, firsthand.

Lawdragon: Let’s dive right into the Goldman Sachs case. Congrats on the settlement. You were preparing for trial as co-lead trial counsel?

Cara Greene: Yes, along with my partner, Adam Klein, and co-counsel at Lieff Cabraser. The case had been certified as a class action and the class period went back to 2002. So this was a group of women spanning more than two decades. The claims that were certified by the court were for disparate impact and disparate treatment related to the performance evaluation systems and the promotion systems.

LD: The difference here being intention?

BY MEGHAN HEMMINGWAY

CG: Exactly. Disparate impact is where, what would otherwise appear to be a neutral policy has a negative impact on a particular group of individuals. In this case, we alleged it was having a negative impact on women. Sometimes in the operation of a system, even though the system appears like it should work, in practice, it doesn’t.

With disparate treatment however, it’s not just that it happens to have a negative impact on a group of individuals. There’s some intentionality around the decisions that are made that negatively impact the women. The lawsuit itself was filed in 2010 and the case wound its way through the courts. It’s incredibly satisfying to have reached a resolution. I don’t think any of us expected when that case started that it would take as long as it has taken.

LD: Thirteen years.

CG: I think we counted 13 babies that were born through the life of this case, to the clients and legal team. We’ve had deaths, divorces, marriages. There’s certainly been a welding of personal and professional milestones.

LD: Congratulations again. A big part of your practice involves fighting for equal pay for women. Do you think we’re getting closer?

CG: I do think we are getting closer. There have been some changes at a legislative level that have had an impact. For instance, the salary history ban really did have an impact for women. It allowed them to move to a position and not have the impact of prior discriminatory pay decisions follow them. I’ve had clients who changed jobs and immediately saw a significant increase in compensation, as a direct result.

There are other changes that have been made with respect to salary transparency. New York recently began to require employers to post what the salary ranges are for new positions. But for someone who has been paid in a discriminatory or unequal way, it’s not just about fixing it going forward – there needs to be restitution. They need to be made whole on the lost income that they experienced.

LD: You work for a broad spectrum of clients – lowwage workers up to white-collar executives. Do you have a different approach from one end of the spectrum to the other?

Amy Gladstein*

GLADSTEIN REIF

NEW YORK

Bradley Glazier

BOS & GLAZIER

GRAND RAPIDS, MICH.

Marie Gockel

BRATCHER GOCKEL INDEPENDENCE, MO.

Nathan Goldberg*

ALLRED MAROKO

LOS ANGELES

Jon Goldfarb

WIGGINS CHILDS

BIRMINGHAM, ALA.

Eileen Goldsmith

ALTSHULER BERZON

SAN FRANCISCO

Barry Goldstein

GOLDSTEIN BORGEN

OAKLAND

Byron R. Goldstein

GOLDSTEIN BORGEN

OAKLAND

Joyce Goldstein

JOYCE GOLDSTEIN & ASSOCIATES CLEVELAND

Nathan Goldstein

SEGAL ROITMAN

BOSTON

Jill Goldy

FEIS GOLDY CHICAGO

Lisa Gomez

COHEN WEISS

NEW YORK

Joshua R. Goodbaum

GARRISON LEVIN-EPSTEIN

NEW HAVEN

Philip J. Gordon

GORDON LAW GROUP

BOSTON

David E. Gottlieb

WIGDOR

NEW YORK

Jon Green

GREEN SAVITS

FLORHAM PARK, N.J.

Debra Greenberger

EMERY CELLI

NEW YORK

Cara Greene

OUTTEN & GOLDEN

NEW YORK

CG: I approach each client with the same respect. Each case is valued as being as important and as deserving of excellent service as any other case. That’s something I feel very passionately about – everyone deserves the same quality of legal representation. Of course, there are differences in terms of the circumstances you’re dealing with. You have to be able to identify what is important to each client. And that obviously can be widely different between a low-wage worker and a C-suite executive.

LD: How do you approach that?

CG: I like to sit down with the client and find out what they need to move forward, to be made whole. What does a successful outcome look like here? Then we structure our approach towards that end. And while sometimes litigation is necessary – and I’m a litigator, I love to litigate, it’s what I’m good at – very often, there are ways to achieve those goals that don’t require litigation.

LD: Can you tell me about the race discrimination case you resolved on behalf of a group of Black financial services professionals?

CG: That case involved five Black women who had all experienced similar setbacks in their careers. When you start to pull back and see a pattern of different trajectories in careers, a pattern of different compensation, then you start to recognize it as more than just coincidence.

In that case, it wasn’t a class action, but it was the power of a group of people that banded together and were able to show these patterns. They really made the firm take notice in a way that would’ve been difficult for them to achieve, I think, on their own.

I actually mediated that case when I was nine months pregnant. About four days before giving birth.

LD: Talk about multi-tasking!

CG: Those moments where personally something monumental is happening, and something professionally too, are very unique and special occurrences.

LD: Absolutely. Speaking of the personal and professional being entwined, can you share with us any discrimination or bias that you’ve faced in your career?

CG: It’s definitely happened. I’ve had clients who told me they really needed a white beard to advocate for them. I’ve had opposing counsel who have been unhappy with my advocacy on behalf of my clients, and have picked up the phone and called my male partners to complain about me.

I had one client who decided not to use me and I didn’t know why. At the time, I was noticeably pregnant. About a year later, he came back and said, “I want to retain you. I made a huge mistake. You were pregnant, you were young, and I didn’t think that you were the right person for me. But now I realize, I let my bias get in the way of what was best for me. Would you consider taking me on as a client now?”

LD: Did you?

CG: I did. I appreciated that he owned it, that he realized he was wrong. And he pointed to the irony too – that case was an age discrimination case. As we went through it, he said, “I never really believed discrimination occurred. When women told me that they felt discriminated against, or people of color told me, I didn’t really believe it until it happened to me. And now I realize I have to go back and reevaluate all of those times. Even myself, how I treated you when you were pregnant.”

We were able to get to a really good outcome, and he became a very dear client to me, despite that start. That kind of experience really exposes your own biases. People are growing and evolving, myself included, and so I give a lot of grace to that. I give a lot of grace to companies who haven’t done the right thing, but want to do the right thing.

LD: Have you seen a shift in things since you began your practice? So much has happened on a societal level in terms of understanding our own implicit bias. Are we starting to “do better”?

CG: We refer to it as discrimination 2.0, right? It may not be as blatant, people may not make overtly discriminatory statements that really expose their biases, but very often they’re still there. And they manifest themselves in ways that are equally harmful to our clients. While I’ve certainly not seen an elimination of bias, there is perhaps a broader understanding of how it operates in practice.

Successful companies are those that are putting into place systems that check for that bias. Instead of relying on subjective criteria to evaluate employees, putting into place objective criteria. Instead of having a black box system of compensation where it’s doled out in a way that’s not transparent and where it’s oftentimes tied to the feelings of one particular person, putting in place a transparent compensation system, that again, is tied to objective criteria. I am seeing that sort of advancement, where an understanding allows for systematic change within an organization that helps to eliminate some of the impacts of bias.

LD: That’s great to hear.

CG: That’s what makes the equal pay class action work very exciting. In addition to recovering compensation that’s been denied to my clients, you have that chance to influence how a company does business.

LD: Would you say that’s why you’ve chosen to focus on employment law?

CG: I really fell into this area of law when I was in law school. I needed a job and a friend’s husband worked at Outten & Golden and they hired me. I started working and realized this is the way I was meant to help people. Employment law became my passion. I can really make an impact on a person’s life, and that’s something special.

LD: What made you realize the kind of impact you could have when it comes to helping more vulnerable people?

CG: One of my earliest cases was a class case against a grocery store in Brooklyn. I advocated on behalf of the workers who were bagging groceries for tips. The grocery store was not paying them any wages. They were all immigrants and just not aware of their rights. I remember one woman, she was about 65 or 70, and she was asked to work 12 to 14 hours, and not allowed to take a restroom break. She soiled herself standing by. It was so eye-opening to realize that in our country there is still such inequality and so many people who are vulnerable.

I was able to advocate for her and her colleagues, and we came to a very good resolution. That was one of the first times I felt that impact, that what I’m doing really matters.

LD: Yes, that’s great and I know you’ve said similar things about your work with pregnancy discrimination.

CG: Pregnancy discrimination is something that I feel very strongly about. I represented a woman who was in a professional services firm and had experienced pregnancy discrimination. It was made very evident that the reason they had denied her a promotion was because she had been out for a series of IVF treatments and then finally successfully became pregnant. It derailed her career. We took that case to arbitration and had a very successful win.

LD: That’s encouraging.

CG: I think sometimes it can become discouraging when you read the newspaper, so it’s good to see that the system still works. To see that there is still a way to get justice for people like her. I’m a mother of four so those cases are very meaningful to me.

LD: Can you talk about forced arbitration and why it’s an issue for employees?

CG: I think one of the biggest challenges that employees face with respect to vindicating their rights is forced arbitration. The majority of white-collar workers I work with have no idea that they’ve been required to sign away their rights to a jury trial. Some of them are devastated to learn that because they really want to expose the practices that have been going on. These companies rely on a confidential, opaque process to avoid accountability. Of course there are instances when arbitration can be a good thing, I’m not someone who categorically rejects arbitration, but it should always be voluntary. It should always be because the parties mutually have decided that this is the best forum for their claims to be resolved.

We’ve been very involved in efforts to change the law to prohibit forced arbitration. There’s been legislative change around sexual harassment cases, but it shouldn’t be just sexual harassment. Someone who has been racially discriminated against should have that same right to choose where to bring their claims. Someone who has been denied equal pay should have that same right. That is a critical area where there still needs to be change more broadly. New York passed a law prohibiting forced arbitration, but it was preempted by the Federal Arbitration Act. So really, for things to change there needs to be an act by Congress.

LD: How would you describe your approach to your work?

CG: I am a problem solver. I try to be very creative in how I approach a situation because I do believe that where there’s a will, there’s a way. There’s a solution, we’ve just got to figure it out.

And that for me is a lot of fun, because it feels like you have a lot of latitude. Sometimes you have to get really creative. So I think of myself as a creative problem solver.

LD: Does that align with how you think others might perceive you?

CG: How other people would describe me, I think, is the iron fist in the velvet glove. I’m not a table pounder. I’m not someone who makes an emotional appeal every time I get on the phone, but I bring it when it’s necessary. I think employers have learned not to mistake my professionalism and politeness, for lack of backbone. I think earlier on in my career, that was difficult to establish. But people know me now. They know I want to be constructive, but if we need to litigate, I will litigate. I’ll take you to the mat.

Paula Greisen

KING & GREISEN

DENVER

Susanne Sachsman Grooms

KAPLAN HECKER

NEW YORK

Gay Crosthwait Grunfeld

ROSEN BIEN

SAN FRANCISCO

Deepak Gupta

GUPTA WESSLER

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Caren Gurmankin

CONSOLE MATTIACCI

PHILADELPHIA

Todd Gutfleisch

HARRIS ST. LAURENT

NEW YORK

Barbara Hadsell

HADSELL STORMER RENICK & DAI

PASADENA, CA

Ryan Hagerty

ASHER GITTLER

CHICAGO

Kate Hallward

LEONARD CARDER OAKLAND

Doug Hamill

MIKEL & HAMILL

CHATTANOOGA

Andrea Hamm

MILLER COHEN

DETROIT

D. Michael Hancock

COHEN MILSTEIN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Karen L. Handorf

BERGER MONTAGUE

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Adrienne Hansen

MAINE EMPLOYEE RIGHTS GROUP

PORTLAND, MAINE

Chad Hansen

MAINE EMPLOYEE RIGHTS GROUP

PORTLAND, MAINE

Katherine H. Hansen

GLADSTEIN REIF

NEW YORK

Virginia L. Hardwick

HARDWICK BENFER

DOYLESTOWN, PA.

John Harney

O’DONOGHUE & O’DONOGHUE

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Donna L. Harper

SEDEY HARPER

ST. LOUIS

Tom Harrington

THE EMPLOYMENT LAW GROUP

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Jonathan Harris

HARRIS ST. LAURENT

NEW YORK

Genie Harrison

GENIE HARRISON LAW FIRM

LOS ANGELES

Dean M. Harvey

LIEFF CABRASER

SAN FRANCISCO

Alexandra Harwin

SANFORD HEISLER

NEW YORK

Michael Hausfeld*

HAUSFELD

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Jeremy Heisler

SANFORD HEISLER

NEW YORK

Matthew Helland

NICHOLS KASTER

SAN FRANCISCO

Gregory D. Helmer

HELMER FRIEDMAN

BEVERLY HILLS, CA

David Henderson

ELLWANGER LAW

AUSTIN

Marisel Hernandez

JACOBS BURNS

CHICAGO

Adam Herzog

KATZ MARSHALL & BANKS

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Anita Hill*

BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY

BOSTON

Eve Hill

BROWN GOLDSTEIN LEVY

BALTIMORE

Janet E. Hill

HILL & ASSOCIATES

ATHENS, GA.

Kristina Hillman

WEINBERG ROGER

ALAMEDA, CALIF.

Kent Hirozawa

GLADSTEIN REIF

NEW YORK

Laura Ho

GOLDSTEIN BORGEN

OAKLAND

Steven K. Hoffman

JAMES & HOFFMAN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Sarah Riley Howard

PINSKY SMITH

GRAND RAPIDS, MICH.

Evan Hudson-Plush

COHEN WEISS

NEW YORK

Susan Huhta

OUTTEN & GOLDEN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Kristen Hurley

GORDON LAW GROUP

BOSTON

Daniel Hutchinson

LIEFF CABRASER

SAN FRANCISCO

Chris Hwang

LEONARD CARDER

SAN FRANCISCO

John F. Hyland

RUKIN HYLAND

SAN FRANCISCO

Jeremiah Iadevaia

VLADECK RASKIN

NEW YORK

Lee W. Jackson

JAMES & HOFFMAN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Edgar N. James

JAMES & HOFFMAN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Toni Jaramilla

TONI JARAMILLA

LOS ANGELES

Jason Jasmine

MESSING ADAM

SACRAMENTO

Pamela Jeffrey

LEVY RATNER

NEW YORK

William Jhaveri-Weeks

THE JHAVERI-WEEKS FIRM

SAN FRANCISCO

Jocelyn Jones

SEGAL ROITMAN

BOSTON

Stephen Jordan

ROTHMAN GORDON

PITTSBURGH

Lisa Joslin

GLEASON DUNN

ALBANY

Alan Kabat

BERNABEI & KABAT

WASHINGTON, D.C.

James Kan

GOLDSTEIN BORGEN

OAKLAND

Walter Kane

CARY KANE

NEW YORK

Roberta A. Kaplan

KAPLAN HECKER

NEW YORK

James Kaster

NICHOLS KASTER

MINNEAPOLIS

Lucas J. Kaster

NICHOLS KASTER

MINNEAPOLIS

Debra S. Katz

KATZ MARSHALL & BANKS

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Paul Kelly

SEGAL ROITMAN

BOSTON

Steve Kelly

SANFORD HEISLER

BALTIMORE

Katherine Smith Kennedy

PINSKY SMITH

GRAND RAPIDS, MICH.

Troy Kessler

KESSLER MATURA

MELVILLE, N.Y.

Diane S. King

KING & GREISEN

DENVER

Paul Kiyonaga

KIYONAGA & SOLTIS

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Adam Klein

OUTTEN & GOLDEN

NEW YORK

Hanan Kolko

COHEN WEISS

NEW YORK

Russell Kornblith

SANFORD HEISLER

NEW YORK

Kalpana Kotagal

COHEN MILSTEIN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Sharon Krevor-Weisbaum

BROWN GOLDSTEIN LEVY

BALTIMORE

Kathy Krieger

JAMES & HOFFMAN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Scott Kronland

ALTSHULER BERZON

SAN FRANCISCO

Kellee Boulais Kruse

THE EMPLOYMENT LAW GROUP

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Avi Kumin

KATZ MARSHALL & BANKS

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Louis Kushner

ROTHMAN GORDON

PITTSBURGH

Holt Lackey

ELLWANGER LAW

AUSTIN

Nathaniel Lambright

BLITMAN & KING

SYRACUSE

Michelle Lamy

LIEFF CABRASER

SAN FRANCISCO

Nancy B.G. Lassen

WILLIG WILLIAMS

PHILADELPHIA

Barbara Lawless*

LAWLESS & LAWLESS

SAN FRANCISCO

Therese Lawless

LAWLESS & LAWLESS

SAN FRANCISCO

Wendi Lazar

OUTTEN & GOLDEN

NEW YORK

Dolores Leal

ALLRED MAROKO

LOS ANGELES

Caryn C. Lederer

HUGHES SOCOL

CHICAGO

Andrew P. Lee

GOLDSTEIN BORGEN

OAKLAND

Michelle G. Lee

RUDY EXELROD

SAN FRANCISCO

Zachary Leeds

COHEN WEISS

NEW YORK

Kelly Chanfrau CHANFRAU & CHANFRAU (DAYTONA BEACH, FLA.)

KELLY CHANFRAU

FOR THE CHANFRAUS, COMMITMENT TO

justice for victims is a family trait. More than a decade ago, Kelly Chanfrau joined her family fi rm, Chanfrau & Chanfrau, representing victims of employment discrimination, personal injury and civil rights violations – keeping the family tradition fl ourishing.

Chanfrau’s years of work on the plaintiffs’ side follows a previous decade as a partner at a national defense firm, representing Fortune 500 companies and nationwide retailers in employment cases. But the pull to the plaintiffs’ side was strong, and it brought her back home to family in Daytona Beach – both in the office and out of it.

The family fi rm was founded by her father and uncle in 1976. Now, the firm remains family-run by Chanfrau, her father and her brother. The family’s involvement in the legal profession extends back nearly 90 years: In 1936, Chanfrau’s great-grandmother became the first official court reporter in Volusia County, Fla.

Chanfrau represents clients ranging from victims of workplace sexual assault to employees discriminated against due to their race, to victims of police violence. Last year, Chanfrau litigated a case on behalf of a woman whose daughter was killed when a Florida Highway Patrol officer ran her down with his car. The settlement came to $500,000 and the young woman’s name will be included in police training going forward. A portion of her previous practice remains, as she advises major corporations on compliance issues.

Her dedication to aiding victims of employment and discrimination cases has seen Chanfrau named among the Lawdragon 500 Leading Plaintiff Employment & Civil Rights Lawyers for the last three years running.

Lawdragon: Tell us a bit about your practice areas – what kinds of cases do you see in your civil rights work? Is it mostly in the employment arena?

Kelly Chanfrau: My civil rights work covers a range of cases. I represent individuals who have been harmed by the government, like the case where my client was run over by a police officer. I represent whistleblowers who stand up to the government after they have reported illegal activity and then are retaliated against.

BY EMILY JACKOWAY

In the employment arena, I represent women who have been sexually assaulted in the workplace and in other areas, and I represent women who are discriminated against based upon their race, pregnancy, or disability. I also represent men who have been discriminated against in some capacity.

LD: What kinds of employment discrimination cases against men do you see?

KC: Sexual harassment cases are one kind; men can be sexually harassed just like women. Then, I have several male clients who have been discriminated against because they have a disability, such as cancer. Men who are veterans can be discriminated against when they have to take time to go and perform their military duties and are retaliated against when they ask for time off.

LD: Your plaintiffs’ work is such a switch from your original practice on the defense side. How did that happen?

KC: I really enjoyed working for my previous firm, FordHarrison. I was trained wonderfully there, and I eventually made partner. But after I had a child, my husband and I decided that we wanted to move closer to home where my mother and father lived. And we wanted to join my dad and brother in the family business: pursuing justice for those that had been injured. My husband and I moved here from Tampa in 2010, and I’ve been here ever since. My husband is actually now our executive director, so it’s a complete family business.

LD: That’s great. How does the family dynamic work in the office? What’s it like?

KC: It’s amazing. My dad and my brother support me 100 percent in everything I want to do, even very risky cases. No matter what I do, they love me and the choices I make. It’s wonderful, and I’m very proud of both of them.

My dad is probably one of the best trial lawyers ever to come out of Volusia County. He’s known throughout the state. My brother is also an amazing trial attorney. He’s developed a wonderful personal injury practice and is well-known throughout the state, as well. I love working with them. I mean, I am a sister to my brother, so we sometimes jab each other a little bit, but it’s always in fun. He’s the best partner I could ever ask for, and so is my dad.

LD: They must have been so thrilled when you came back.

KC: Oh, they were. It was really neat.

LD: So, you grew up with all these lawyers. Did you always know you wanted to be a lawyer, or did you ever think about any other career paths?

KC: I loved listening to my dad come home and talk about his trials and his cases. I can remember him doing that from the time I was fi ve or six, so I loved hearing about that. I just found it fascinating. There was a time in my life when I was not sure if I wanted to be a lawyer or not. I wanted to work as a writer for film. My college major was creative writing, and my minors were in humanities and film. But a couple years after law school, I moved to Boston and worked in a large advertising agency, and I decided while I was there that really law was going to be my focus. With a career in the law, you can change lives and communities for the better. I really believe that, so especially with my family being in law, it just felt like a natural step for me.

LD: Are there any recent cases you’ve handled that stand out to you?

KC: Last year, I represented a young woman who had been gang raped. The damages that she suffered were astronomical. After fi ghting for fi ve years, we fi nally were able to resolve her case weeks before it was supposed to go to trial. The amount of money that we obtained for her was substantial and will allow her to be comfortable and to get the care and treatment that she needs.

Watching her change through this process and grow into someone who can, hopefully, now have some healing really has been one of the most profound experiences of my life.

LD: Was there a criminal conviction before the civil trial?

KC: Unfortunately, the criminal case is still ongoing because she wasn’t able to identify her attackers. It was dark, and it was at a large party – almost 1,000 people. But recently, the DNA of one of her attackers was found in CODIS, which is a federal DNA profiling system for felons.

LD: What other cases stand out to you?

KC: I represented an African American man in an employment case. He was clearly discriminated against based upon his race and was then retali-

ated against once he complained about it. So, he sued the city of Daytona Beach.

Going through that case with him was one of the most incredible experiences as a lawyer because he was just such a wonderful man, and we ended up resolving the case right before trial for $600,000. He so deserves the job, and it was clear that his race was a part of it.

LD: Are there any trends that you’re seeing in the personal injury, employment, whistleblower or discrimination spaces in the Florida courts these days?

KC: Retaliation is on the rise. For example, I’m currently representing a county jail director who was fi red for reporting inmate abuse. In my opinion, we are going through a time where companies, for some reason, will break the law brazenly if they think that they can get away with it, and they will just lawyer up and fight until they win.

I am amazed at some of the stories that come into my office. The discrimination is harder to find because people are trained on what not to say, but it’s definitely there.

LD: How do you decide what cases to take on?

KC: We get a lot of phone calls and referrals, so we have an intake process. I have a list of 12 to 15 factors that we’re looking for in employment cases that I’ve developed over the last 12 years, and a lot of those factors are just so that we can quickly and thoroughly understand if there is a case or not. My intake paralegal is amazing, and she’s actually a former client.

LD: What was the case that you did for her?

KC: I represented her against Orange County School Board. She was a teacher, and she was a whistleblower against the school. She was retaliated against after she reported that the school was not safe for children.

LD: Looking back, are there any cases that stand out to you in your time on the defense side?

KC: Earlier in my career I worked on a large sexual harassment case for a major client. I was on the defense side, and that case changed a lot for me. I had to really look myself in the mirror and see if this is what I wanted to do. Read the full Q&A at: https://www.lawdragon.com/lawyerlimelights/2023-04-04-civil-rights-and-employmentlaw-kelly-chanfrau.

Jane Legler

NEILL LEGLER

COLE DALLAS

Cassandra Lenning

OUTTEN & GOLDEN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Danielle Leonard

ALTSHULER BERZON

SAN FRANCISCO

Dinah Leventhal

O’DONOGHUE & O’DONOGHUE

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Ethan Levin-Epstein

GARRISON LEVIN-EPSTEIN

NEW HAVEN

Michael Levin-Gesundheit

LIEFF CABRASER

SAN FRANCISCO

Carl Levine

LEVY RATNER

NEW YORK

Andrew Levy

BROWN GOLDSTEIN LEVY

BALTIMORE

Stacey Leyton

ALTSHULER BERZON

SAN FRANCISCO

Valdi Licul

WIGDOR

NEW YORK

Brooke Lierman

BROWN GOLDSTEIN

LEVY BALTIMORE

Arthur Liou

LEONARD CARDER

SAN FRANCISCO

Daren Lipinsky

RIZIO LIPINSKY

CHINO HILLS, CALIF.

Jennifer Liu

THE LIU LAW FIRM

MENLO PARK

Jennifer Lord

PITT MCGEHEE

ROYAL OAK, MICH.

Dana E. Lossia

LEVY RATNER

NEW YORK

David A. Lowe

RUDY EXELROD

SAN FRANCISCO

Paul Lukas

NICHOLS KASTER

MINNEAPOLIS

Nikki Velisaris Lykos

RAMAGE LYKOS

PITTSBURGH

Ilann Margalit Maazel

EMERY CELLI

NEW YORK

Brian MacDonough

SHERIN & LODGEN

BOSTON

Richard G. Mack Jr.

MILLER COHEN

DETROIT

Samuel O. Maduegbuna

MADUEGBUNA COOPER

NEW YORK

Emily Maglio

LEONARD CARDER

SAN FRANCISCO

May Mallari

TONI JARAMILLA

LOS ANGELES

Louis P. Malone III

O’DONOGHUE & O’DONOGHUE

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Jannah Manansala

WEINBERG ROGER

ALAMEDA, CALIF.

Chaya Mandelbaum

RUDY EXELROD

SAN FRANCISCO

Deborah Marcuse

SANFORD HEISLER

BALTIMORE

Beth Margolis

GLADSTEIN REIF

NEW YORK

Michael Maroko

ALLRED MAROKO

LOS ANGELES

David J. Marshall

KATZ MARSHALL & BANKS

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Tammy Marzigliano

OUTTEN & GOLDEN

NEW YORK

William S. Massey

GLADSTEIN REIF

NEW YORK

Laura Mattiacci

CONSOLE MATTIACCI

PHILADELPHIA

Deborah A. Mattison

WIGGINS CHILDS

BIRMINGHAM, ALA.

Marijana Matura

KESSLER MATURA

MELVILLE, N.Y.

Joshua Matz

KAPLAN HECKER

NEW YORK

Frank Mazzaferro

FITAPELLI & SCHAFFER

NEW YORK

Cary McGehee

PITT MCGEHEE

ROYAL OAK, MICH.

H. Vincent McKnight

SANFORD HEISLER

WASHINGTON, D.C.

John McKnight

SANFORD HEISLER

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Christopher M. McNerney

OUTTEN & GOLDEN

NEW YORK

Matthew S. McNicholas

MCNICHOLAS & MCNICHOLAS

LOS ANGELES

Patrick McNicholas

MCNICHOLAS & MCNICHOLAS

LOS ANGELES

Walter ‘Terry’ Meginniss

GLADSTEIN REIF

NEW YORK

Andrew Melzer

SANFORD HEISLER

NEW YORK

Ellen J. Messing*

MESSING RUDAVSKY

NEWTON, MASS.

Gary Messing

MESSING ADAM

SACRAMENTO

Thomas Mew

BUCKLEY BEAL

ATLANTA

Ossai Miazad

OUTTEN & GOLDEN

NEW YORK

Kim Michael

HARRIS ST. LAURENT

NEW YORK

Donna Mikel

MIKEL & HAMILL

CHATTANOOGA

Bruce A. Miller

MILLER COHEN

DETROIT

Dale Minami

MINAMI TAMAKI

SAN FRANCISCO

Renee Mochkatel

ALLRED MAROKO

LOS ANGELES

Matthew H. Morgan

NICHOLS KASTER

MINNEAPOLIS

Eleanor Morton

LEONARD CARDER

SAN FRANCISCO

Laurence S. Moy

OUTTEN & GOLDEN

NEW YORK

Kate Mueting

SANFORD HEISLER

WASHINGTON, D.C.

John Mullan

RUDY EXELROD

SAN FRANCISCO

Meredith Munro

KING & GREISEN

DENVER

Rahul Munshi

CONSOLE MATTIACCI

PHILADELPHIA

Matthew Murry

ALTSHULER BERZON

SAN FRANCISCO

Wendy Musell

LAW OFFICES OF WENDY MUSELL OAKLAND

Beth R. Myers

BURNS LEVINSON BOSTON

Christine Neill

NEILL LEGLER

COLE DALLAS

Anthony Nguyen

SHEGERIAN & ASSOCIATES

SANTA MONICA

Leah M. Nicholls

PUBLIC JUSTICE

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Michael Okun

PATTERSON HARKAVY

CHAPEL HILL

Monique Olivier

OLIVIER SCHREIBER & CHAO

SAN FRANCISCO

Brian Olney

HADSELL STORMER RENICK & DAI

PASADENA, CA

Ernest Orsatti

QUATRINI LAW GROUP

PITTSBURGH

Jennifer Ostertag

GENIE HARRISON LAW FIRM

LOS ANGELES

R. Scott Oswald

THE EMPLOYMENT LAW GROUP

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Wayne N. Outten*

OUTTEN & GOLDEN

NEW YORK

Cliff Palefsky*

MCGUINN HILLSMAN

SAN FRANCISCO

Zoe Palitz

ALTSHULER BERZON

SAN FRANCISCO

Joseph Paller Jr.

GILBERT & SACKMAN

LOS ANGELES

Michael D. Palmer

SANFORD HEISLER

NEW YORK

Robert Palmer Pitt

MCGEHEE ROYAL

OAK, MICH.

Lawrence Pearson

WIGDOR

NEW YORK

Kathleen Peratis

OUTTEN & GOLDEN

NEW YORK

Rebecca Peterson-Fisher

LIU PETERSON-FISHER

BURLINGAME, CALIF.

Sean Phelan

FRANK FREED

SEATTLE

Patricia Pierce

WEIR GREENBLATT PIERCE PHILADELPHIA

Melissa Pierre-Louis

PIERRE-LOUIS WASHINGTON LAW FIRM

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Matthew Piers HUGHES SOCOL

CHICAGO

Joshua Piovia-Scott

CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

OAKLAND

Nina T. Pirrotti

GARRISON LEVIN-EPSTEIN

NEW HAVEN

Michael L. Pitt

PITT MCGEHEE

ROYAL OAK, MICH.

Peggy Goldberg Pitt

PITT MCGEHEE

ROYAL OAK, MICH.

P. Casey Pitts

ALTSHULER BERZON

SAN FRANCISCO

David P. Pogrel

LEONARD CARDER

SAN FRANCISCO

Anna Prakash

NICHOLS KASTER

MINNEAPOLIS

Erin Pulaski

RUDY EXELROD

SAN FRANCISCO

Daniel Purtell

ALTSHULER BERZON

SAN FRANCISCO

Jonathan Puth

CORREIA & PUTH

WASHINGTON, D.C.

John C. Quinn

KAPLAN HECKER

NEW YORK

Colleen Ramage

RAMAGE LYKOS

PITTSBURGH

Debra Raskin

VLADECK RASKIN

NEW YORK

Daniel Ratner

LEVY RATNER

NEW YORK

Michael Ravalli

GLEASON DUNN ALBANY

Caroline Rdzanek

ABRAHAMSON RDZANEK

CHICAGO

James Reif*

GLADSTEIN REIF

NEW YORK

Randy Renick

HADSELL STORMER RENICK & DAI

PASADENA, CA

Kalman Resnick*

HUGHES SOCOL

CHICAGO

Stephanie Reynolds

BERGER WILLIAMS

SAN DIEGO

Gregory A. Rich

DOBSON GOLDBERG

ST. LOUIS

Lori Rifkin

RIFKIN LAW OFFICE

BERKELEY

Jessica Riggin

RUKIN HYLAND

SAN FRANCISCO

Elizabeth Riles

BOHBOT & RILES

OAKLAND

Thomas J. Riley

TOBIN CARBERRY

NEW LONDON, CONN.

David M. Ring

TAYLOR RING

MANHATTAN BEACH

Mark Risk

MARK RISK

NEW YORK

Susan Ritz

RITZ CLARK & BEN-ASHER

NEW YORK

Beth M. Rivers

PITT MCGEHEE

ROYAL OAK, MICH.

Elizabeth Rodgers

GORDON LAW GROUP

BOSTON

James E. Rollins Jr.

SCHWARTZ ROLLINS

ATLANTA

Peter Romer-Friedman

GUPTA WESSLER

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Alan Romero

ROMERO LAW

PASADENA

Alexis Ronickher

KATZ MARSHALL & BANKS

WASHINGTON, D.C.

James R. Rosen

ROSEN SABA

LOS ANGELES

Sanford Jay Rosen*

ROSEN BIEN

SAN FRANCISCO

Katherine Rosenfeld

EMERY CELLI

NEW YORK

David Rosenfeld*

WEINBERG ROGER

ALAMEDA, CALIF.

KIM MICHAEL

top plaintiff employment lawyers goes hand-in-hand with her work on the employer side of the courtroom and negotiating table. She says the practice mix has made her a better lawyer for all her clients, which is amply supported by her decades of results in a vast array of employment matters. The N.Y.-based partner at Harris St. Laurent & Wechsler counts name partner and fellow Lawdragon honoree David Wechsler as her most important mentor. The pair practiced together at Wechsler & Cohen for more than 15 years before joining the Harris St. Laurent firm in 2020.

Lawdragon: How did you first become interested in employment law?

Kim Michael: In college, I thought I wanted to get my Ph.D. in psychology. I spent a semester during my junior year working for a professor at Cornell who had interviewed children in the juvenile justice system and was writing a book about the psychological developments that had led those children to where they were in life. I then spent a summer interning for a psychology professor at Stanford University, working on a chapter

BY JOHN RYAN

of his book dealing with whether psychologists (who did not have M.D. degrees) should be legally permitted to prescribe psychiatric medications in addition to psychiatrists. In both situations, I found myself much more interested in the legal issues than the psychological ones, so I decided to go to law school.

In order to prepare myself for law school, and during law school, I worked as a paralegal with David Wechsler, a stalwart in the plaintiffs’ employment law arena, who became and has been for many years my partner and an incredible mentor.

When I started practicing, I found that employment work leveraged my psychology background and interest to a large degree, which is what led me to join David and his firm full-time after spending three years at Mayer Brown.

LD: What are some aspects about this work that you find professionally satisfying?

KM: I spend much of my time working on behalf of employees and find it tremendously rewarding

Kim Michael HARRIS ST. LAURENT & WECHSLER (NEW YORK)

WHEN I STARTED PRACTICING, I FOUND THAT EMPLOYMENT WORK LEVERAGED MY PSYCHOLOGY BACKGROUND AND INTEREST TO A LARGE DEGREE.

to help individuals embarking on an exciting new opportunity or who are going through an employment separation or dispute, which can be a genuinely traumatic event. On the other hand, when I represent employers, I take it as an opportunity to show employees that companies can treat people the right way but also will not just roll over in the face of frivolous allegations. Working for both makes me a better attorney, as I know how to anticipate and respond to arguments on all sides.

LD: Out of all the work you’ve done in your career, what would you say is the most interesting matter you’ve handled?

KM: While the vast majority of the cases I have handled have been employment matters, I would have to say the most “interesting” one was a commercial litigation. We represented an individual who had, in a prior litigation, sued Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss and their company, Winklevoss Capital Management, for their breach of an agreement to purchase our client’s stock. The Winklevoss twins then sued our client, claiming, among other things, malicious prosecution and defamation concerning statements our client made in the press about their failure to live up to their end of the deal. We defeated their claims at both the trial and appellate levels, including litigating the issue of whether the brothers were “public figures” for purposes of the defamation claim.

LD: Is there a recent result or case you can discuss?

KM: We recently procured a JAMS arbitration award for a corporate financial advisor of over $2.7M, including liquidated damages and attorneys’ fees, for breach of contract, quantum meruit, and violation of the New York Labor Law arising out of his former employer’s improper withholding of his earned bonus based on net profits of a transaction for which he was the lead investment banker.

We also recently represented a leveraged finance executive in a FINRA arbitration against his prior employer, Morgan Stanley & Co., for wrongfully withholding his deferred compensation based on claims the employee allegedly failed to provide required “retire-

ment” notice and allegedly engaged in “competitive activity” by joining a specialized private equity firm. We obtained an award of over $2.2M. This matter was important to the broker-dealer community because it established, among other things, the specious nature of an employer’s claims that narrow private equity work following work for a global investment bank was improperly “competitive.”

LD: Was there a course, professor or experience that was particularly memorable or important in what practice you chose?

KM: My favorite course in law school was a course about gender and the law in which I wrote a paper comparing the portrayal by fiction writers over time of particular historical women.

LD: What advice do you have now for current law school students?

KM: A strong work ethic will take you very far and, while it is a cliché, it is often true that you get out of something what you put in.

LD: How would you describe your style as a lawyer? Or, how do you think others see you?

KM: I pride myself on developing working relationships with adversaries while still being aggressive when necessary. It’s not about being the loudest voice in the room and burning bridges doesn’t help anyone. I’ll go to war when needed, but strategically seeking the best resolution for my client is always the top priority. As a result, I often receive referrals from the very law firms and businesses I confront at trial or in arbitration. While I maintain mutual respect with the adversaries with whom I negotiate, they know well that I am unafraid to challenge them when things heat up.

LD: What do you do for fun when you’re outside the office?

KM: I practice yoga regularly and am very interested in spirit distillation (particularly whisky and rum) and mixology.

Danny Rosenthal

JAMES & HOFFMAN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Tad Roumayah

SOMMERS SCHWARTZ

SOUTHFIELD, MICH.

Michael Rubin

ALTSHULER BERZON

SAN FRANCISCO

Dahlia Rudavsky

MESSING RUDAVSKY

NEWTON, MASS.

Antonio Ruiz

WEINBERG ROGER

ALAMEDA, CALIF.

Peter Rukin

RUKIN HYLAND

SAN FRANCISCO

Ryan Saba

ROSEN SABA

LOS ANGELES

Martin Saenz

SAENZ & ANDERSON

AVENTURA, FLA.

Jahan Sagafi

OUTTEN & GOLDEN

SAN FRANCISCO

Susan M. Saint-Antoine

CONSOLE MATTIACCI

PHILADELPHIA

Yaman Salahi

EDELSON

SAN FRANCISCO

Maureen Salas

WERMAN SALAS

CHICAGO

Laura Salerno-Owens

MARKOWITZ & HERBOLD

PORTLAND

Richard A. Salzman

HELLER HURON

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Zoe Salzman

EMERY CELLI

NEW YORK

David Sanford

SANFORD HEISLER

NEW YORK

Jim Sanford

GILLESPIE & SANFORD

DALLAS

Cynthia Sass

SASS LAW FIRM

TAMPA

Glen Savits

GREEN SAVITS

FLORHAM PARK, N.J.

Jessica M. Scales

SEDEY HARPER

ST. LOUIS

David E. Schlesinger

NICHOLS KASTER

MINNEAPOLIS

Laura Schnell

EISENBERG & SCHNELL

NEW YORK

Christian Schreiber

OLIVIER SCHREIBER & CHAO

SAN FRANCISCO

Robert L. Schug

NICHOLS KASTER

MINNEAPOLIS

Aniko Schwarcz

COHEN MILSTEIN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Bryan Schwartz

BRYAN SCHWARTZ LAW

OAKLAND

Debra Schwartz

SCHWARTZ ROLLINS

ATLANTA

Jennifer Schwartz

OUTTEN & GOLDEN

SAN FRANCISCO

Kate Schwartz

HUGHES SOCOL

CHICAGO

Michael Scimone

OUTTEN & GOLDEN

NEW YORK

Judith A. Scott

JAMES & HOFFMAN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Keith Secular

COHEN WEISS

NEW YORK

Mary Anne Sedey*

SEDEY HARPER

ST. LOUIS

Scott M. Seedorf

O’DONOGHUE & O’DONOGHUE

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Joseph Sellers

COHEN MILSTEIN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Derek Sells

THE COCHRAN FIRM

NEW YORK

Sam Shapiro

EMERY CELLI

NEW YORK

Heidi Sharp

THE SHARP FIRM

CLINTON TOWNSHIP, MICH.

Kevin Sharp

SANFORD HEISLER

NASHVILLE

Anne Shaver

LIEFF CABRASER

SAN FRANCISCO

Carney Shegerian

SHEGERIAN & ASSOCIATES

SANTA MONICA

Nancy Shilepsky*

SHERIN & LODGEN

BOSTON

Amy Shulman

OUTTEN & GOLDEN

NEW YORK

Nekki Shutt

BURNETTE SHUTT

COLUMBIA, S.C.

Nicholas H. Sikon

OUTTEN & GOLDEN

NEW YORK

Jill Silverstein

SILVERSTEIN WOLF

ST. LOUIS

Jennifer R. Simon

O’DONOGHUE & O’DONOGHUE

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Kristen Sinisi

BERNABEI & KABAT

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Jay Smith

GILBERT & SACKMAN

LOS ANGELES

Joel Smith

KAHN SMITH

BALTIMORE

Mary-Kate Smith

LEWIS CHIMES

STAMFORD

Paul E. Smith

PATTERSON HARKAVY

CHAPEL HILL

Steven Andrew Smith

NICHOLS KASTER

MINNEAPOLIS

Joyce Smithey

SMITHEY LAW GROUP

ANNAPOLIS, MD.

Debra Soltis

KIYONAGA & SOLTIS

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Lisl Soto

WEINBERG ROGER

LOS ANGELES

Brock Specht

NICHOLS KASTER

MINNEAPOLIS

Caren Spencer

WEINBERG ROGER

ALAMEDA, CALIF.

Marcus Spiegel

ALLRED MAROKO

LOS ANGELES

Rachhana Srey

NICHOLS KASTER

MINNEAPOLIS

Kerianne Steele

WEINBERG ROGER

ALAMEDA, CALIF.

Melissa Lardo Stewart

OUTTEN & GOLDEN

NEW YORK

Matthew S. Stiff

KATZ MARSHALL & BANKS

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Kevin Stoops

SOMMERS SCHWARTZ

SOUTHFIELD, MICH.

Dan Stormer*

HADSELL STORMER RENICK & DAI

PASADENA, CA

Robert Stroup

LEVY RATNER

NEW YORK

Robert Stulberg

STULBERG & WALSH

NEW YORK

Adam Sturdivant

DREW COOPER

GRAND RAPIDS, MICH.

Michael Subit

FRANK FREED

SEATTLE

Dana Sullivan

BUCHANAN ANGELI

PORTLAND

Geraldine Sumter

FERGUSON CHAMBERS & SUMTER

CHARLOTTE

Curt Surls

CURT SURLS

MANHATTAN BEACH

Daniel Swanson

SOMMERS SCHWARTZ

SOUTHFIELD, MICH.

Justin M. Swartz

OUTTEN & GOLDEN

NEW YORK

Van Swearingen

ROSEN BIEN

SAN FRANCISCO

Sean Tamura-Sato

MINAMI TAMAKI

SAN FRANCISCO

John C. Taylor

TAYLOR RING

MANHATTAN BEACH

Jonathan Taylor

GUPTA WESSLER

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Matthew Taylor

MESSING ADAM

SAN FRANCISCO

Gabrielle E. Tenzer

KAPLAN HECKER

NEW YORK

Joyce Thomas

FRANK FREED

SEATTLE

Raymond P. Tolentino

KAPLAN HECKER

NEW YORK

Vincent Tong

TONG LAW

OAKLAND

Laurie Traktman

GILBERT & SACKMAN

LOS ANGELES

Amelia Tuminaro

GLADSTEIN REIF

NEW YORK

Anne Vladeck

VLADECK RASKIN

NEW YORK

Michael Vogelsang

THE EMPLOYMENT LAW GROUP

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Sherrie Voyles

JACOBS BURNS

CHICAGO

David Wachtel

TRISTER ROSS

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Kenneth Wagner

BLITMAN & KING

SYRACUSE

Mark T. Walsh

GLEASON DUNN

ALBANY

Patrick Walsh

STULBERG & WALSH

NEW YORK

Susan J. Walsh

VLADECK RASKIN

NEW YORK

Earl S. Ward

EMERY CELLI

NEW YORK

Natalie Weatherford

TAYLOR RING

MANHATTAN BEACH

Christine Webber

COHEN MILSTEIN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

David G. Webbert

JOHNSON WEBBERT

PORTLAND, MAINE

Jessie Weber

BROWN GOLDSTEIN LEVY

BALTIMORE

David Wechsler

HARRIS ST. LAURENT

NEW YORK

Jillian Weiss

LAW OFFICES OF JILLIAN WEISS

NEW YORK

James Weliky

MESSING RUDAVSKY

NEWTON, MASS.

Raymond A. Wendell

GOLDSTEIN BORGEN

OAKLAND

Douglas Werman

WERMAN SALAS

CHICAGO

Matt Wessler

GUPTA WESSLER

CAMBRIDGE, MA

John West

ALLRED MAROKO

LOS ANGELES

Benjamin Westhoff

SEDEY HARPER

ST. LOUIS

Carolyn Wheeler

KATZ MARSHALL & BANKS

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Peter Whelan

BERNABEI & KABAT

WASHINGTON, D.C.

David Gray White

KAHN SMITH

BALTIMORE

Twila White

LAW OFFICE OF TWILA WHITE

LOS ANGELES

Douglas Wigdor

WIGDOR

NEW YORK

Gregory Wiggins

WIGGINS CHILDS

BIRMINGHAM, ALA.

Michael Willemin

WIGDOR

NEW YORK

Alaine Williams

WILLIG WILLIAMS

PHILADELPHIA

Timothy G. Williams

BERGER WILLIAMS

SAN DIEGO

Deborah Willig*

WILLIG WILLIAMS

PHILADELPHIA

Christopher Wilmes

HUGHES SOCOL

CHICAGO

O. Andrew F. Wilson

EMERY CELLI

NEW YORK

Janet Wise

SASS LAW FIRM

TAMPA

Micah Wissinger

LEVY RATNER

NEW YORK

Ferne Wolf

SILVERSTEIN WOLF

ST. LOUIS

Nicholas Woodfield

THE EMPLOYMENT LAW GROUP

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Melissa Woods

COHEN WEISS

NEW YORK

Charlie Wysong

HUGHES SOCOL

CHICAGO

Stephanie Yasuda

YOON LAW

LOS ANGELES

Michelle C. Yau

COHEN MILSTEIN

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Anne Yen

WEINBERG ROGER

ALAMEDA, CALIF.

Kenneth Yoon

YOON LAW

LOS ANGELES

Chauniqua D. Young

OUTTEN & GOLDEN

NEW YORK

Joshua F. Young

GILBERT & SACKMAN

LOS ANGELES

Tiseme Zegeye

LIEFF CABRASER

SAN FRANCISCO

Steven G. Zieff*

RUDY EXELROD

SAN FRANCISCO

Keith Jay Zimmerman

KAHN SMITH

BALTIMORE

Ellen J. Zucker

BURNS LEVINSON

BOSTON

Jennifer D. Zumarraga

SASS LAW FIRM

TAMPA

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