ATHEA TRIAL LAWYERS TURN OBSTACLES INTO OPPORTUNITY
“The special forces unit for complex litigation.”
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RELENTLESS | REVOLUTIONARY | RECOGNIZED
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.
POMERANTZ CONGRATULATES
JEREMY A. LIEBERMAN AND JENNIFER PAFITI ON BEING NAMED AMONG LAWDRAGON’S 500 LEADING LAWYERS IN AMERICA
Jeremy A. Lieberman, Managing Partner
Jennifer Pafiti, Partner and Head of Client Services
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
Hansen
Geo rey Harrison
Pachman
Srinivasan
Max Tribble
Nelson
We are proud to have over half of the rm’s partnership included in this year’s guide –more than any other litigation rm.
Rick Hess
Shawn Rabin
Raymond
Robert Rivera Jr.
18 THE ALCHEMY OF ATHEA
The firm of legendary women lawyers transforms obstacles into opportunity.
28
SYSTEMIC EXCELLENCE, FOR A NEW ERA
Minner Vines is achieving its goal for repeatable, team-based results.
36 SPEARHEADING ACCOUNTABILITY IN THE ENVIRONMENTAL SPACE
Pomerantz and investors are leading the charge in holding corporations accountable for environmental harm.
44
UNITED IN JUSTICE
The elite team at Grossman Roth Yaffa Cohen is transforming lives.
52 KNOWING THE PLAYBOOK, CHANGING THE GAME
Oregon’s Spooner Staggs has switched sides. The former defense attorneys now help injured individuals take on insurance companies.
58 ELEVATING THE GAME FOR YOUNG LAWYERS
Coston Consulting’s new program is leveling up the next generation of law firm partners.
Lawdragon Honoree 2006 - 2024
Frank N. Darras, founding partner of America’s top disability insurance law firm, is humbled and honored by his continued inclusion in Lawdragon’s 500 Leading Lawyers in America.
Highly skilled professionals face unique insurance claim challenges when a disability threatens their livelihood.
As the preeminent disability law firm, DarrasLaw represents elite athletes and professionals in all types of disability insurance litigation.
These high-stakes disputes are not for the faint of heart, but DarrasLaw continues to triumph and resolve more bad faith disability cases than any other rm in the country.
The rm’s century of collective litigation and claims experience has yielded unparalleled results and insurance bene ts for clients worldwide.
DarrasLaw is proud to o er free consultations on all disability insurance matters.
9 7
65 THE LAWDRAGON 500 LEADING PLAINTIFF LAWYERS
Our three annual guides represent the very best of the bar in Plaintiff Financial; Plaintiff Consumer; and Civil Rights & Plaintiff Employment. Featuring Limelights with:
66 Lesley Weaver of Bleichmar Fonti
71 Tyler Staggs of Spooner Staggs
75 Angela Mason of The Cochran Firm
78 Ryan Saba of Rosen Saba
82 Gary Cohen of Grossman Roth
86 Steve Morrissey of Susman Godfrey
90 Brian Vines of Minner Vines
93 Kelly Hyman of The Hyman Law Firm
97 Joshua Silverman of Pomerantz
100 William Mulligan of Grossman Roth
103 Laura Ormsbee of Labaton
107 Tarek Saad of Reid Collins
111 James Gustafson, Cameron Kennedy and Carter Scott of Searcy Denney
115 Maura Kolb of The Lanier Law Firm
118 Ralph Spooner of Spooner Staggs
123 Michael Wernke of Pomerantz
127 Laura Posner of Cohen Milstein
131 Matthew Minner of Minner Vines
135 Elizabeth Bradley of Rosen Saba
139 Andrew Lewis of Searcy Denney
142 Rogge Dunn of Rogge Dunn Group
146 Stephen Garcia of Garcia & Artigliere
149 Tommy Spooner of Spooner Staggs
156 Natalie Weatherford of Taylor & Ring
“It’s a go-to team for
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CHAMBERS AND PARTNERS
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.
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“one of the nation’s greatest plaintiff lawyers”
—LAWDRAGON
“a dealmaker”
—CHAMBERS USA
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
CHRISTOPHER A. SEEGER
PLAINTIFFS’
PERSONAL INJURY FIRM
Power Rogers is proud to announce that every one of our 14 partners was named to the Lawdragon 500 List.
CONGRATULATIONS DEVON C. BRUCE &
LARRY R. ROGERS, JR.
for being named as Lawdragon 500 Leading Lawyers in America.
LAWDRAGON 500 PLAINTIFF CONSUMER LAWYERS
Joseph Balesteri
Devon Bruce
Kathryn Conway
Carolyn Daley
Sean Houlihan
Dominic LoVerde
James Power
Joseph A. Power Jr.*
Thomas M. Power
Larry R. Rogers Jr.
Larry Rogers, Sr.*
Thomas Siracusa
Jonathan Thomas
Robert R. Thomas
(*) Lawdragon Hall of Fame
Kenneth T. Lumb
Thomas A. Demetrio
Francis Patrick Murphy
Michelle M. Kohut
Chad D. Kasdin
Micahel D. Ditore
Tommy Demetrio
William T. Gibbs
Philip Corboy, Jr.
Daniel S. Kirschner
Edward G. Willer
Mitchell W. Bild
Conrad C. Nowak
Collin J. Gill
Helen Lucaitis
Putting Power Behind Plaintiffs
We’re revolutionizing the litigation landscape for plaintiffs with a groundbreaking, tech-driven approach to mass arbitrations, mass torts, and more. We are a 180+ team of professionals who have secured recoveries for over 500,000 clients.
Combining our unmatched 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.
Together with our partners, we will continue to take on the most powerful defendants in the world—and win.
T’S EASY TO READ ABOUT THE WORK OF THESE PLAINTIFFS’ LAWYERS AND BE CONSUMED BY THE EVILS AND MALFEASANCE THAT MADE THEIR MISSION SO NECESSARY – THE WORST FINANCIAL CRIMES BY CORPORATE GIANTS, THE AGGRESSIVE PEDDLING OF DEADLY DRUGS OR THE RACIST AND SEXIST DISCRIMINATION BY THOSE IN POSITIONS OF POWER. THESE ARE THE SEEMINGLY DAILY SCOURGES OF OUR SOCIETY, PROBLEMS THAT ARE MULTIPLYING AND FINDING NEW AVENUES OF EXPRESSION IN ALL CORNERS OF THE GLOBE.
All of that is true. Fortunately, this remarkable group of lawyers puts it all on the line with courage and clout that matches their defense counterparts. They show us the power of the law to tell the other side of the story, proving time and again how even the most vulnerable individuals can find paths to justice and restitution. It doesn’t always happen, but the lawyers here show that it is at least almost always possible, that the fight is worth taking to even the largest of courtroom opponents.
Who else could bring those responsible for the horrors of opioids to account – wresting a settlement now topping $40B from drug manufacturers, distributors and a vast array of wrongdoers on behalf of cities, counties and others that suffered monstrous harm to the lives and well-being of their populations?
That is but one example – a big one, of course, but one of many tales featuring legendary plaintiffs’ lawyers along with ascendant stars from the massive trial “boutiques” to the single-office family-led shops. What better showcase for the achievements of the past and the promise of the future than Athea Trial Lawyers – a pandemic-era creation from six of the most accomplished women law partners who maintain leadership positions in their own firms.
That unprecedented assembly of courtroom talent is also an apt expression of the spirit of the pages that follow – a recognition that diversity and inclusion are inseparable from the hope contained in the dedication of our honorees.
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Chris Searcy
Sia Baker-Barnes
Mariano Garcia
Ted Babbitt
Brenda Fulmer
Jack Scarola
Hardee Bass
Matt Schwencke
Cameron Kennedy
Jim Gustafson
Greg Barnhart
Laurie Briggs
Karen Terry
Brian Denney
Cal Warriner
The Alchemy
Photo provided by the firm.
of Athea
The firm of legendary women lawyers transforms obstacles into opportunity.
BY ALISON PREECE
STANDING IN FRONT OF THE JUDGE’S DAIS, Randi McGinn asked her clients – the widower and family of Essie Nakajjigo – to leave the spellbound courtroom before the next part of her opening statement in the wrongful death lawsuit: her description of the Ugandan activist’s decapitation. Nakajjigo was a prominent human rights activist, named Uganda’s Ambassador for Women and Girls. She had opened a community and health center in Uganda when she was just 17 years old, and hosted a popular reality TV show in Uganda focused on educating and empowering women. She had moved to the U.S. at the age of 24 to continue her education and expand her human rights activism.
Athea Trial Lawyers is something of an anomaly in the legal industry. The firm is made up of six women, all successful trial lawyers at the top of their games. Each of them founded – and still run – their own firms, some with trusted partners, others in solo practice.
The extraordinary young woman was visiting Arches National Park in Utah in April 2020 with her new husband, when an unsecured gate arm swung towards them, impaled the car and decapitated her in front of his eyes. In opening arguments, McGinn and her partners at Athea Trial Lawyers laid out their case against the government, asking for significant damages to account for the future earning potential of this “warrior for good.”
Behind the scenes, the women of Athea had been working for two years, preparing for this moment. The case had come via recommendation to Deborah Chang, who, only weeks earlier, had parted from a
large law firm and opened the groundbreaking Athea Trial Lawyers, an all-female litigation shop made up of some of the top plaintiff trial lawyers in the nation. When Nakajjigo’s family approached Chang, she knew this was exactly the type of case that Athea had been formed to take on.
S trength in n umber S
ATHEA TRIAL LAWYERS IS SOMETHING OF AN nomaly in the legal industry. The firm is made up of six women, all successful trial lawyers at the top of their games. Each of them founded – and still run – their own firms, some with trusted partners, others in solo practice.
Then, in the early days of the pandemic, Deborah Chang had an idea: What if we banded together? Chang – who is known for her record-breaking personal injury verdicts, along with her wizardry when it comes to storytelling and the visual aspects of a trial – approached each of the women. She explained that the new firm would be a chance to share successes and burdens, so they could focus on the types of cases that interest them and the causes they care about. It would create a power hub where they could advocate fiercely for their clients while showing that women belong in the courtroom, and thus motivate new generations of women lawyers throughout the country.
Chang knew exactly who she wanted for this mission. Randi McGinn, the trailblazing New Mexico attorney who takes on police departments, 24-hour convenience stores, back-dealing doctors and hazardous roadways. The jury selection savant Lisa Blue, a psychologist and trial lawyer who, with her late husband, Fred Baron, had formed one of the largest environmental law firm in the country. Medical mass torts and human rights attorney Zoe Littlepage, praised for her skills at framing a case and eviscerating witnesses in cross-examination. Dallas-based Charla Aldous, known for her astounding trial verdicts and whose ease in front of a jury makes it clear that’s where she belongs. And Bibi Fell, affectionately called the “baby lawyer” of the group, a tech whiz who has amassed an incredible track record of wins in wrongful death and traumatic brain injury cases in her nearly two decades of practice.
The attorneys were all familiar with each other by the time Chang approached them, either personally or by reputation. They are all regulars on the speaking circuit, and Littlepage, Aldous and McGinn are in
Keller/Anderle LLP
UNRIVALED TRIAL LAWYERS
the Inner Circle of Advocates – an elite, invitationonly group of the top 100 trial lawyers in the nation. McGinn, in fact, served as the first female President of this traditionally male-dominated group.
None of the women needed to give it a second thought: They each gave Chang a resounding yes. Not only would they be able to combine resources and tackle cases that frame important issues, particularly those impacting women; they would also be able to lean on each other, easing the often-lonely life of a top female litigator.
A F oundAtion o F C ompASS ion
IT WAS THE CALL THAT EVERY PARENT DREADS: Her daughter had cancer. Bibi Fell’s girl was just 4 years old, bright and vivacious, and now everything about her future was uncertain.
“What they don’t tell you is that when a child gets sick, the whole family gets sick,” says Fell, who was a sole practitioner at Fell Law before joining Athea. After her youngest girl was diagnosed, the family moved to Cincinnati and her oldest developed bulimia. Then her middle child developed severe depression and anxiety.
Then, against the backdrop of a global pandemic, Fell’s husband told her he was transgender and the couple began divorce proceedings.
“It was completely overwhelming,” says Fell, who was juggling several cases and firm administration while taking depositions from hospital rooms. “I was ready to leave the law.”
What kept her holding on was the partnership at Athea. “A lot of women in law have this idea that we’re competing against men, who don’t have to worry about family as much, and so we always have to show up in a position of strength,” says Fell. “Being part of Athea meant I had people to turn to and say: I need help.”
It’s all too easy for women to drop out of the profession when their families really need them. But Athea had formed just in time for Fell. Her new partners stepped up, not only by taking over her case work, including handling a time-sensitive trial, but through muchneeded emotional support.
“They said to me, ‘You can do this, all right? Take care of your daughter. Let us help with the cases. But don’t give up on practicing law,’” recalls Fell.
Her more seasoned partners understood the
importance of resilience, often gained the hard way through ruptures in their own lives that they too often had to face alone.
Blue’s husband and longtime legal partner passed away when they were in their 50s. While he was dying, she realized she wanted to have his children. So, they froze his sperm and, via a surrogate, she became a mother in her 50s. Now in her 70s, Blue is raising three teenagers by herself. She remarried, but her second husband passed away as well.
Littlepage felt a different type of loss when she left her hometown and family in Barbados to go to boarding school at 12 years old in England, experiencing loneliness and isolation in her formative years. When she graduated at the top of her class in law school, she still couldn’t get a job interview so she opened her own firm.
Not only would the team be able to combine resources and tackle cases that frame important issues, particularly those impacting women; they would also be able to lean on each other, easing the often-lonely life of a top female litigator.
Chang, who is first generation Korean-American, had to make difficult choices in her career starting on the defense side, and her marriage ended in a divorce. Despite her sacrifices, she often had to watch from the sidelines as her male counterparts bonded with male clients over steak dinners and at strip clubs. McGinn discovered that gender bias at a very young age, when she wrote a letter to J. Edgar Hoover when she was 7 years old. Hoover was the longtime director of the FBI, and the young McGinn inquired about becoming an agent. “He wrote back and said, ‘We don’t let girls be FBI agents, but if you’d like to
We thank L awdragon for recognizing more than half of Macrae's recruiters as 2023 Global 100 Leaders in Legal Strategy & Consulting: Justi ne D onahue, L auren Drake, Nick Go seland, A d il Lalan i, Jo e Macra e, Sar a h Mo r ri s , Ja ne S. Robe r ts, An d y Russel l , Jon T r u s ter, a nd Me linda W allman.
WE HAD A VISION seven years ago of becoming a new kind of recruiting firm.
AN IN-SYNC TRANSATLANTI C TEAM perfectly aligned with the needs of top-tier clients and candidates in the world's most important legal markets.
AN INDUSTRY INNOVATOR powered by shared global intelligence, a collaborative spirit that celebrates the contributions of ever y individual, and a relentless drive for: taking law firms and careers to the next level.
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DOUBT about itMacrae is that firm.
study your typing you could come be a secretary,’” she recalls.
Aldous’s dad was a Pentecostal preacher; she grew up in a fundamentalist environment where women were expected to be wives and mothers, nothing more. But she knew she was built for something different.
“The first time I stood in front of a jury,” says Aldous, “I knew it was where I belonged.” Entering the legal profession in the ‘80s, Aldous often found herself the only woman in the room, arguing in front of male judges, seeking out male mentors because that was often the only option.
Zealous advocacy will always be a central tenant of good lawyering. But as more women flourish in the profession, one can see it start to reflect Athena: a little less war, a little more justice.
Life can beat you down, but these women all learned how to alchemize their hardships into opportunity. They opened their own firms and as their success grew, they became active in the speaking circuit, encouraging other women to have well-rounded lives in order to find longevity in the profession.
Littlepage spent 12 years as lead counsel representing a class of women who contracted breast cancer from hormone replacement therapy. She says the case taught her why they’re called cancer survivors. “There’s something about going through something terrible and coming out the other side that made the women more introspective, deeper, more thoughtful,” she says. “They were just incredible women to represent.”
The same could be said for the advocates of Athea Trial Lawyers. They learned how to transmute their pain into strength and compassion. It made them better advocates – and turned each of them into leaders in the community.
“There’s something special about women that have
gone through the fires like you have,” says Littlepage. “You can trust their advice, and you trust they’ll keep your secrets. You can be vulnerable with them, and they’ll never use it against you. It’s very refreshing.”
Fell was able to shift her responsibilities, focusing on her family without abandoning the profession. Now, her daughter is coming up on two years of being cancer-free. And Fell is back in the courtroom.
W omen W A rrior S
ARES AND ATHENA (ALTERNATE SPELLING, ATHEA) are the Greek god and goddess of war, respectively. But their characters were distinguished in a clear split of the masculine and feminine: While Ares represented pure bloodlust, Athena held the virtuous aspects of war, such as justice, military strategy, and protecting the vulnerable from tyrannical rule. She was also the goddess of wisdom.
Zealous advocacy will always be a central tenant of good lawyering. But as more women flourish in the profession, one can see it start to reflect Athena: a little less war, a little more justice. And careers in the field can be less competitive. The archetypical feminine aspects of compassion, collaboration and family balance are all baked into the unstoppable force of Athea Trial Lawyers. These principles are also infusing the larger industry as more and more women enter the profession – and find a way to last in it.
“The rumor is that women can’t work together, that they cat-fight and are mean,” says McGinn. “In my experience, it’s the exact reverse. We are more collaborative. We are less demanding about being the center of attention, more willing to share the limelight and share ideas.
“And by the way, when you do collaborative legal work, where you’re soliciting everybody’s thoughts and ideas, you end up having a much better product at the end, much stronger cases for trial,” she adds.
During Covid, Blue saw upticks in depression and anxiety in the legal industry and wanted to help. She has anxiety and dyslexia, and started practicing meditation and mindfulness after being connected to Jack Kornfield, the psychologist, author and Buddhist monk, several years ago. Blue decided to start a weekly meditation practice for attorneys during the pandemic, which now has over 500 active subscribers. Many of them are women.
“With the new laws on abortion, with gun laws not
Boies Schiller Flexner is a firm of internationally recognized trial lawyers, crisis managers, and strategic advisers known for our creative, aggressive, and efficient pursuit of successful outcomes for our clients. From the thorniest, most high-stakes matters to straightforward business disputes, we have a knack for identifying the strongest arguments, understanding the benefits of each, and determining when and how to deploy them in a case.
We congratulate our Lawdragons on their achievements
being restricted, there’s so many political issues that are now touching women more than men,” says Blue. “Because the women in this country are watching their rights just get peeled away, and I think that should really energize our gender. Women are feeling like they better get into more power.”
That kind of radical caretaking being spurred into action is typical of the women in Athea Trial Lawyers. They see something wrong with the world, they see mistreatment or injustice, and they say: I’m going to fix that. Then they set out and do it.
u rbA n C li FF C oll A p S e
JULIE DAVIS, 65, HAD RECENTLY DEFEATED BREAST cancer. Her family was gathering on a beach in Encinitas, in San Diego County, to celebrate their matriarch’s recovery, in August of 2019. Suddenly, the cliff above them came crashing down. Davis was killed, along with her sister and niece, while her husband and the rest of the family watched helplessly. They scrambled in panic, trying to dig them out and save them, but they were gone. All three women were mothers.
Athea is bringing a case in San Diego Superior Court on behalf of the family members against California, the city of Encinitas and Seabreeze Management Company, alleging negligence and dangerous conditions.
“They built all these houses on top of these cliffs in California, and the city didn’t do anything to stabilize them,” says McGinn. “Erosion and water from the houses destabilize the cliffs further, but they keep the beaches open, even at high tide.”
After passing several procedural hurdles, the case is now proceeding into the discovery phase. The Athea attorneys are clear that they’re not looking for a settlement. The civil trial will be a chance for their clients’ voices to be heard, and for the larger community and government to understand the risks here and take steps to avoid this type of tragedy moving forward. “Working with this amazing family to make sure this never happens to anyone again has been so rewarding,” says Fell, who has walked up and down the cliffs with her daughter on her back.
They are elevating cases into causes. The trials are not just about monetary relief for their clients. It’s also a chance to tell their stories in a public forum, and to ensure that these preventable tragedies are not repeated.
Meanwhile, Essie Nakajjigo’s husband and family were awarded $10,550,000, the largest verdict from a federal judge in Utah history. Following the verdict, Essie’s widower, Ludovic Michaud, said: “It was so important to me to have Essie’s amazing life story told, and having the Athea Trial Lawyers was like having a dream team. They brought in witnesses from Uganda, Paris, Denver, Florida and other places and brought her story to life in that courtroom. Essie always championed women and girls – and she would have wanted the Athea Trial Lawyers standing up and speaking for her. The trial and this verdict have helped me significantly in the healing process and in my journey to find peace.”
A n o live b r A nC h o F S teel
ATHEA TRIAL LAWYERS IS AN ANOMALY IN THE legal industry – at least for now. These women are upending traditional notions of competitiveness in the profession, and infusing it with compassion and collaboration.
Appropriately enough, the symbol for the firm is an olive branch with six olives, one for each attorney. A version of it is forged in steel in an artist’s rendering hanging in their headquarters in El Segundo, Calif.
“The olive branch is the hardiest of plants,” says Chang. “It can grow in the desert when there is no water. During wars and famine and dry spells, it will always survive. We were born of the pandemic. Out of the pandemic, we arose.”
Each one of these titans of the plaintiffs’ bar are powerful, smart and pragmatic. United, they’ve created a force of power and change that’s greater than the sum of their parts.
“There’s something about women in power, women making decisions,” says Littlepage, “because we come at it from a different place. It’s very seldom ego-driven. Instead, it’s a more pragmatic way of achieving our goals. Women tend to not just be battering rams trying to break through, but are more willing to find the way through the mine field that works for everybody.”
“As a psychologist,” says Blue, “I can see goodness. And man, these women, they have so much goodness. It’s never about the money or about the lawyer. It’s always clients first. If I had one mantra for Athea, it would be ‘the client always comes first.’”
“Also,” Aldous says about being part of Athea, “it’s just an incredible amount of fun.”
Brian Vines (left) and Matthew Minner (right)
Photo by: The Malicote Creative Company
SYSTEMIC EXCELLENCE, FOR A NEW ERA
MINNER VINES IS ACHIEVING ITS GOAL FOR REPEATABLE, TEAM-BASED RESULTS.
In every challenge, there’s an inflection point.
The now or never moment.
Brian Vines knows that moment. He’s a mountain climber, and, despite breaking his back in a fall that should have taken his life, he’s back on the rocks again – always choosing to keep climbing. Matt Minner knows that moment. An all-around competitor and athlete, he’s run the Boston Marathon and has pushed through to the finish line even when the mind thinks it’s impossible. That is his mindset for facing his next challenge, the 29,029-foot vertical ascent of climbing Mt. Everest.
Either of them could have stopped in any of those moments. They could have taken the easier path. But they choose to keep going.
It’s the same in the law.
BY EMILY JACKOWAY
THE PARTNERS IMAGINED A FIRM WHERE MODERN SYSTEMS COULD REVOLUTIONIZE THE WAY CASES WERE HANDLED; A FIRM WHERE EVERY ASPECT OF ITS ATTORNEYS’ TALENTS WAS OPTIMIZED TO HELP AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE.
For these plaintiffs’ attorneys, no challenge is too big – inside the courtroom or out. “If you live that way, you live that way,” Minner says. “We don’t back down from hard things. You build character and find out the heights you can reach. That’s true whether it’s a difficult case or pushing beyond the point when your body tells you to stop. We’re not going to back down. We are going to climb higher, reach further, run faster and bring the challenge to our opponent.”
Resilience is required to make something out of those moments. “We’re all going to be presented with opportunities,” Minner continues. “A window is going to open. That window is going to close one day, too. Be ready.”
The partners applied those lessons of risk and resilience when deciding whether to start a new law firm. As in their sports, they saw that window of opportunity, and they took it: In January 2022, Minner Vines Injury Lawyers was born.
A 21ST CENTURY FIRM
While the Lexington, Ky.-based firm exploded out of the gate – with several multimillion-dollar results to their name in just the first year – the partners’ work together has been years in the making. The partners spent more than a decade as colleagues at Hare Wynn Newell & Newton, one of the oldest and most established plaintiffs’ firms in the country.
Minner and Vines first got a taste for working together while representing the State of Kentucky in litigation against pharmaceutical company Merck. The company’s drug, Vioxx, was a pain reliever known to alleviate suffering from osteoarthritis – but was withdrawn over safety concerns after it allegedly caused hundreds of heart attacks and multiple deaths. Minner was co-lead counsel in Kentucky’s case against the corporation, which resulted in a $25M settlement – at the time the largest consumer protection result in the state’s history. The work expanded from there, and the attorneys also took on cases representing other states including both Alaska and Montana.
Over the years, the partners have represented victims in a range of personal injury and wrongful death matters, with more than $1B obtained for their clients between their team members. In one memorable case for Minner, he represented the family of a young police officer who was killed on the job. The case yielded a $37.5M jury verdict.
The new firm arose out of a joint passion for finding new ways to help victims like those. Minner and Vines shared a vision for bringing their standard of excellence into the 21st century. They imagined a firm where modern systems could revolutionize the way cases were handled; a firm where every aspect of its attorneys’ talents was optimized to help as many people as possible.
SCALING EXCELLENCE
They set out with a vision and a strategic plan that Vines describes as “scaling excellence.” The term calls for delivering high-level service to clients in a way that is systematic, repeatable and team-based – ensuring that attorneys collaborate for the best result possible. Minner, a graduate of Vanderbilt Law, and Vines, a graduate of Virginia Law, surrounded themselves with some of the best legal talent in the region and the results followed.
One of the firm’s younger lawyers, Jonathan Fannin, has witnessed the evolution of the firm’s collaborative technological systems. Since many of the attorneys’ cases are in similar areas, he remembers that some years ago they began by
building a PDF that contained links for frequently used resources, letter templates, request forms and other often-used systems. Now, that PDF has evolved into a fully integrated setup and case management system.
BEFORE VINES WAS A LAWYER, HE WAS AN ENGINEER, AND HE APPLIES THAT ANALYTICAL MINDSET TO RUNNING THE NEW FIRM AND OPTIMIZING GROWTH. VINES RELIES ON CALCULATED RISK IN PLANNING THE FIRM’S STRATEGY.
Fannin adds that the firm’s staff is instrumental in keeping these systems afloat: “Your systems only work if you have the right people running them. I can’t say enough about our staff,” he says. “We have definitely created a winning environment here where they are invested in our clients and our cases.”
Updating the practice of law technologically and ideologically for the 21st century isn’t just effective in the courtroom – it’s also good business practice, Minner adds. “So many law firms just practice law and don’t handle the business in an entrepreneurial way,” says Minner. “Well, that’s what we do. Every case, to a certain extent, is an entrepreneurial endeavor. We track, measure and analyze everything.”
Before Vines was a lawyer, he was an engineer, and he applies that analytical mindset to running the new firm and optimizing growth. Vines relies on calculated risk in planning the firm’s strategy. He thinks of it like his passion for mountain-climbing, which he doesn’t consider a daredevil activity – just calculated risk. “It’s very systematic,” he says. Vines explains that the firm places an emphasis on varying the kinds of cases they take on – the size, the matter, the risk, the result at stake, using his engineering background to generate balance, efficiency and quality.
The business outlook is, vitally, in service of the clients’ interests. “Our business is successful when our clients are successful,” says Vines. “If I can build a successful business, by definition, we’re helping more people.”
Fannin agrees: “We do have a business, but we’re in the business of helping people,” he says.
“CULTURE EATS STRATEGY FOR BREAKFAST”
With a compact and skilled team, developing a sense of collaboration between the lawyers has been paramount for the firm. “I love the quote, ‘Culture eats strategy for breakfast,’” says Minner. He notes that they have been detailed about keeping the culture collegial from before the firm’s first day, down to the smallest details: When it came to picking the space, they chose a location that would give each attorney and team member a window office. “People work better in a great environment and our clients get better results from a great team of committed professionals,” he adds.
That level of respect for associates is not an empty gesture: Associates at Minner Vines do real work. In one pivotal case, Fannin remembers, he took all 20-plus depositions. “There aren’t a whole lot of folks at that age who get opportunities to work on that level of litigation,” he says. After a great result in a particular case, one client wrote, “Jon Fannin is a modern-day warrior!”
Like the senior partners, Fannin also couples his career with passion for a high-stakes sport: Jiu Jitsu. He likens the associate experience at Minner Vines to the challenges of the martial art: “Like in Jiu Jitsu, you have to get a little bit uncomfortable to grow,” he says. “These cases are high stakes. There are people depending on these settlements and verdicts for healthcare and accommodations they need. So, it should be uncomfortable. If it’s not, you’re not taking it seriously.”
That outlook is what Minner says the firm needs in its new talent – the ability to work hard and take a chance not just in the work, but on themselves. The courage to see that open window and take advantage of it. “The lawyers we hire here
Sher Garner Cahill Richter Klein & Hilbert, L.L.C., located in New Orleans, Louisiana is a nationally renowned full service law firm recognized for commercial litigation and transactions.
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.
Sher Garner Cahill Richter Klein & Hilbert, L.L.C.
Members, James M. Garner & Leopold Z. Sher
IN A CASE INVOLVING THE LOSS OF A COLLEGE FRESHMAN TO ALCOHOL-RELATED HAZING ACTIVITIES, IN ADDITION TO LITIGATING THE CASE, MINNER ASSISTED THE FAMILY IN CHANGING THE LAW IN KENTUCKY TO MAKING HAZING A FELONY.
often come from defense firms where they could have a very secure practice. A lot of them could work just about anywhere they want. But they want to take a risk on themselves. I know they’re going to fit in if they’re hungry,” he says. “Because of that opportunity, because of our results, because of our culture, we have been able to bring in the best of best lawyers in our region.”
WHERE THEY ARE…
Two years into the firm’s life, the attorneys have already yielded results that not only deliver incredible compensation to their clients, but enact change. First, they achieved a substantial result of over $26M dollars in a product liability case against an exceptional defense team led by one of the biggest firms in New York. A $12M result in another product liability case followed. Then, in a hard-fought case, the firm received a multimillion-dollar verdict for a mother and her family – a rare case where the life of an unborn child was successfully advocated for in court. At time of publication, the firm had just finalized another $7M result for a deserving family and co-counseled in a more than $9M result in an environmental flooding case. In another case, the firm achieved a more than $14M settlement on behalf of parents whose son, student-athlete Grant Brace, died from heatstroke during a wrestling practice at the University of the Cumberlands. In bringing the suit, the family hoped to secure not only compensation, but a promise that preventable heat-related illnesses like the one that took their son’s life wouldn’t take any others. The school implemented the B.R.A.C.E. protocol, which assists in training how to react when these illnesses strike to ensure they can be treated. Those are just a few of the million-dollar results this New Era firm has achieved in only its first two years. Pharmaceutical litigation and alcohol and hazing-related deaths on college campuses are two hot-button issues for the firm. Minner has spent the last several years representing families of students at Kentucky universities who have lost their children to these deaths, including a 4-year-old boy who was killed at a football game by a fraternity pledge leaving a game day party driving under the influence. In another case involving the loss of a college freshman to alcohol-related hazing activities, in addition to litigating the case, Minner assisted the family in changing the law in Kentucky to making hazing a felony. Minner has appeared in several publications and on “Good Morning America” advocating for changes to prevent hazing-related deaths on college campuses.
… AND WHERE THEY’RE GOING
The attorneys’ focus now, even in the firm’s early stages, is longevity. In the next five or 10 years, Vines says what he wants “is for this firm to be helping even more people than it is today and that it doesn’t need me. I’m not saying I don’t want to be here, but I want to build an organization that has principles and systems, so when new people come on board, they’re going to learn those values instead of being dependent on a personality.”
Fannin is astonished by the firm’s growth: “I thought it would take three or four years for us to get to where we are right now,” he says. “That is a testament to the hard work that everybody puts in and to the partners’ leadership for putting us in bright places for opportunities.”
To Vines, it’s not unlike his love for mountain climbing. Just one mountain is never enough. “Once you climb a mountain, there’s another one behind it,” he says. “There’s always another mountain.”
It’s just about having the courage to make the climb.
HELP
TRANSFORM
Spearheading Accountability in the Environmental Space
Pomerantz and investors are leading the charge in holding corporations accountable for environmental harm.
IN THE LAST FIVE YEARS, corporate America has undergone a seismic shift as environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices have rocketed up the priority list of shareholder concerns. As scandals in these areas have shaken stock prices, investors are looking to hold corporations accountable for the ethical and social impacts of their policies. Securities litigation is a key tool that investors are utilizing to hold corporations to their ESG commitments.
Leading securities firm Pomerantz has been at the forefront of litigation responding to poor ESG corporate governance. They have an impressive track record in cases concerning complex, hot-button issues in the environmental space. They have represented shareholders who suffered losses related to corporations’ misstatements and failures to disclose material information about their breaches of environmental regulations and the environmental disasters that have sometimes ensued. On behalf of damaged investors, Pomerantz successfully went up against Fiat Chrysler following its emissions cheating scandal and oil giant BP following its historic Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Now, the firm is leading litigations against telecommunications companies for claims related to the environmental and health effects of their lead-sheathed cable networks.
BY EMILY JACKOWAY
“There are important issues that investors, governments and the financial community care about that go far beyond simply, ‘were the financial statements accurately reported,’” says Managing Partner Jeremy Lieberman.
“If a corporation’s misstatements on environmental issues cause financial losses, that corporation should be held accountable and the shareholders should be vindicated. That’s the philosophy we espouse and that is reflected throughout all our cases.”
Pomerantz is the world’s longest-running firm dedicated to investor-side representation, with a nearly ninety-year history of championing investor rights. The firm prides itself on creating precedent-setting case law – shaping the future of securities litigation as it has shaped its past.
current fiber optic network. The Journal investigation tallied more than 2,000 abandoned or unaltered leadcovered cables across the country. It concluded that those leftover cables resulted in dangerous lead levels in waterways and surface soil, and posed health hazards to telecom employees and individuals who live near the exposed cables, including customers.
If a corporation’s misstatements on environmental issues cause financial losses, that corporation should be held accountable and the shareholders should be vindicated. That’s the philosophy we espouse.
USTelecom professed in a recent statement that the industry prioritizes the health and safety of its workers and that the science does not indicate that the cables are a public health issue. AT&T, Lumen and
If a corporation’s misstatements on environmental issues cause financial losses, that corporation should be held accountable and the shareholders should be vindicated.
That’s the philosophy we espouse.
Looking at activity in the securities bar and at new government regulations, it’s clear: Environmental practices are of major concern to investors and will continue to make up a significant portion of the bar’s immediate future. The team at Pomerantz is forcefully taking on the mantle.
CURRENT EVENTS: AT&T AND LUMEN
Pomerantz is litigating shareholder claims as lead counsel in separate class actions against major telecommunications companies Lumen Technologies and AT&T. The actions come after historic nosedives in stock prices for both companies following an explosive Wall Street Journal report in July 2023. The report detailed the undisclosed use and abandonment of lead-sheathed cables across the country by the nation’s largest telecom companies, including AT&T and Lumen. The cases allege that the companies were aware of the dangers posed by these cables while simultaneously professing their commitment to good corporate citizenship.
The lead-covered cables were originally placed in the late 19th century; their use was standard practice until the mid-20th century, when telecom companies transitioned to plastic sheathing, and, eventually, to the
Verizon, three of the companies named in the Journal report, are currently working with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as the Agency conducts a multi-stage investigation into the lead cables left behind by these companies.
After the Journal report was published, stocks dipped to 30-year lows. “The market responded with complete shock,” says Justin D’Aloia, the Pomerantz partner leading the cases. In the AT&T case, for example, the firm is representing the New York City Public Pension Funds, which suffered losses of around $102.5M during the class period.
“Through our investigation, we uncovered that these companies had known about the cables and the dangers that they posed for decades,” D’Aloia claims. “They were professing their commitment to environmental stewardship and the safety of their employees while not disclosing the fact that they were, in fact, abandoning these cables across the United States and subjecting their employees to handling the ones that continue to remain in their network to lead exposure.”
D’Aloia joined Pomerantz in 2022 after more than a decade on the securities defense side at Weil, Gotshal & Manges. Ready for a change post-pandemic, D’Aloia joined Pomerantz as a partner in pursuit, he says, of
the intellectual freedom a plaintiffs’ practice could provide. He was drawn by Pomerantz’s existing roster of influential institutional clients that were signing on to some of the largest cases in the securities bar, and by the firm’s record of creating new law with cuttingedge legal strategies.
D’Aloia’s work on these particular cases, though, has a more personal connection: The Wall Street Journal article highlighted cable hanging by a middle school in West Orange, New Jersey – just blocks away from his grandmother’s house. “It is such a compelling matter to me,” says D’Aloia, given both the gravitas of the allegations and the intimate connection.
The cases are in early stages, with the Lumen action pending in the Western District of Louisiana and the AT&T
nitrogen oxides while in a testing environment but allowing dangerous amounts of the chemicals to be released under normal driving conditions.
When the violations were disclosed beginning in 2015, Fiat Chrysler’s stock price plunged, damaging investors.
The settlement was achieved after three and a half years of hard-fought litigation. Discovery involved analyzing millions of pages of documents concerning highly complex issues of emissions software programming and resulted in the exchange of reports by eleven experts on issues implicating U.S. as well as European regulations. Pomerantz created precedent-setting case law in defeating each of defendants’ several motions to dismiss the claims. The firm also significantly
The SEC is announcing mandates that companies make disclosures regarding their climate impact. “That has been a watershed event,” D’Aloia says, “a major recognition by regulators that ESG is truly something that investors care about.”
case in the Northern District of Texas. “It’s obviously a very relevant topic right now, and I couldn’t be more excited to be involved in litigation to hold these companies accountable for their misdeeds,” D’Aloia adds.
HISTORIC WINS: BP AND FIAT
The telecom cases involve litigating hot-button topics and going up against household-name corporations. That’s standard practice for Pomerantz lawyers.
In 2019, Pomerantz, as lead counsel, achieved a $110M settlement with automobile company Fiat Chrysler, as well as several of its former executives, in the wake of the company’s safety and emissions regulations scandal. Plaintiffs alleged that the defendants misled shareholders by claiming that the company was complying with various regulations governed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (“NHTSA”), the EPA and the European Union. As it was ultimately revealed, Fiat Chrysler had long violated NHTSA safety rules by purposefully delaying notifying vehicle owners of defects and failing to repair the defects for months or even years. It was also cheating on emission tests by employing “defeat device” software designed to allow cars to limit emissions of
advanced investors’ ability to obtain critically important discovery from regulators that are often at the center of securities actions.
The SEC is announcing mandates that companies make disclosures regarding their climate impact. “That has been a watershed event,” D’Aloia says, “a major recognition by regulators that ESG is truly something that investors care about.”
When Pomerantz sought a deposition from a former employee of NHTSA, the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) denied the request pursuant to the “Touhy regulation,” which controls when private parties may call certain government employees to testify in private litigation. Pomerantz partner Michael J. Wernke, who led the litigation with Lieberman, then filed an action against USDOT and NHTSA arguing that the Touhy regulation only applies to current employees. The court agreed. Wernke explained, “Now, highly regulated entities like USDOT and NHTSA will be unable to stop former employees from being deposed, leading to greater transparency and critical testimony in similar future cases.”
According to Lieberman, the ability to pin the Fiat Chrysler investors’ losses on specific false statements made by the company was central to the success of
the case. The company’s warranty liability disclosures contained broad statements asserting their compliance with environmental laws.
“We would say those assertions were not true because they were not complying,” says Lieberman, “but what made the case so successful was that Fiat Chrysler had warranty liability disclosures which were very precise. That’s really the hook in these cases: Can you find a demonstrably false statement, and then convince the court that it’s material because of the exposure and liability that ensues.” Lieberman, Wernke and their team ultimately convinced the court of the specificity of the statements Fiat Chrysler made, which is far from a simple task. “Many times, the court will decide that a corporate statement is too fuzzy; it’s mere puffery,” says Lieberman. Pomerantz is accustomed to fighting such uphill battles, as it did in another massive environmental win – this time, against BP, with claims arising from the company’s infamous 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
The firm represented investors in BP’s London-traded ordinary shares who were seeking to recover losses in U.S. courts but were barred from doing so by the Supreme Court’s ruling in Morrison v. Nat’l Australia Bank. The groundbreaking win in this case was the first to outmaneuver the restrictions Morrison set on investors.
The hotly contested litigation lasted nine years, with Pomerantz systematically overcoming motions to dismiss in 2013, 2014 and 2017. Each of those wins had its own precedent-setting effects. Defeating BP’s forum non conveniens arguments, for instance, allowed institutional investors from both the U.S. and around the world to simultaneously pursue English common law claims regarding their losses in U.S. courts – which brought Pomerantz clients from Canada, France, the Netherlands, Australia and the U.K., in addition to the U.S.
During the litigation, the firm coordinated multi-year, in-depth discovery efforts to access and compel key information from BP, overseeing review of 425,000 initial documents and 150,000 more from the searches Pomerantz compelled.
Pomerantz persuaded the court to uphold a “holder” claim for stock retained (not purchased) in reliance on the fraud, a type of claim barred under U.S. law for decades since Blue Chip Stamps v. Manor Drug Stores, in 1975. Pomerantz also persuaded the court to reject BP’s attempt to extend the U.S. federal Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act of 1998 (SLUSA) to reach, and dismiss, its clients’ foreign law claims in deference to non-existent remedies under the U.S. federal securities laws.
After nearly a decade, Pomerantz partner Matthew L. Tuccillo and his team prevailed with a landmark settlement for every one of the firm’s nearly three dozen institutional investor clients, several of which switched their legal counsel to have Pomerantz oversee the latter stages of litigation and settlement. While the terms are confidential, Tuccillo describes them as “highly favorable.” Beyond the monetary recovery, the firm’s work on the case opened a path for investors in foreign-traded securities to pursue recovery in U.S. courts.
BREAKING NEW GROUND IN REGULATIONS
As groundbreaking cases like these continue to be litigated for securities claims, Pomerantz expects to see climate-based securities cases ramping up – and resulting government regulations coming down.
D’Aloia explains that while the primary mechanisms for litigation have remained the same since the explosion of ESG, the SEC is now announcing mandates that companies make disclosures regarding their climate impact. “That has been a watershed event in the area of ESG,” D’Aloia says. “This is a major recognition by regulators that ESG is truly something that investors care about.”
The new SEC regulations, which were announced in March, will require disclosures of climate-related risks that relate to business strategy, operations or financial condition; material impacts of those risks; processes for managing climate-related risks; information on climate-related targets or goals and more.
“It’s a changing framework,” Lieberman says. “The more environmental issues become a concern for the investment community and society at large, the more the SEC is attempting to impose disclosure requirements. Then, all of a sudden, companies face liability under the securities laws or have regulatory issues. In a way, the fact that the issue is organically taking its own shape helps us to litigate these cases.”
With its finger on the pulse of investor concerns, as it has been for more than eight decades, the team at Pomerantz is embracing the moment.
“I don’t see this issue going away,” D’Aloia agrees. “I see it continuing to grow in scale and importance. As facts come out showing that companies are not being consistent or transparent with their environmental disclosures, you’re going to see more and more litigation to hold them accountable.”
Some of Our Results:
PRODUCT DEFECT
A $242 million product liability trial verdict, which was reduced to a $200 million judgment affirmed by the Dallas Court of Appeals, was settled while pending at the Texas Supreme Court to the satisfaction of all parties.
BUSINESS CONTRACTS
$43 million jury verdict in a fraud/intentional torts case related to oil and gas acquisitions (awaiting disposition).
CONSTRUCTION DEFECT
$34 million settlement from the collapse of a Dallas Cowboys practice facility.
PRODUCT DEFECT
$24.75 million settlement for a seriously injured woman in an alleged defective product case.
TRUCK CRASH
$20.8 million jury verdict, reduced to $17 million by a trial court and resolved by confidential settlement, for the 83-year-old widow of a 76-year-old man killed when a tractor-trailer carrying hazardous waste caused a chain-reaction crash on a Texas highway.
BUS CRASH
Several large settlements for bus-crash lawsuits, including a significant postverdict settlement for the family of a woman who died from injuries she suffered in a crash.
Frank L. Branson has earned the highest honor for a Texas trial lawyer - the Texas Bar Foundation's 2021 Ronald D. Secrest Outstanding Trial Lawyer Award.
FRANK L. BRANSON
United in Justice
The elite team at Grossman Roth Yaffa Cohen is transforming lives.
F OR MORE THAN THREE DECADES, Florida elite Grossman Roth Yaffa Cohen has fought for victims of medical malpractice and general negligence, with more than $1B in recoveries, numerous unsafe policies altered and countless lives changed
The secret to their success: a tight-knit, exceptional team.
With 11 attorneys between the firm’s Miami and Boca Raton offices, each lawyer is handpicked by leadership as ambassadors of the firm’s talent and ethos. Through working on carefully selected cases that speak to the firm’s mission and choosing attorneys who fit those endeavors, they have created a self-perpetuating foundation that echoes the firm’s founding strengths and values in its attorneys.
BY EMILY JACKOWAY
Photo by: The Malicote
“This job is about who you are more than it really is about what you do. That’s the thing that clients tend to focus on when they’re putting their trust in someone to do something so important for them.”
– julian catala
For more than three decades, Florida elite Grossman Roth Yaffa Cohen has fought for victims of medical malpractice and general negligence, with more than $1B in recoveries, numerous unsafe policies altered and countless lives changed.
The secret to their success: a tight-knit, exceptional team.
With 11 attorneys between the firm’s Miami and Boca Raton offices, each lawyer is handpicked by leadership as ambassadors of the firm’s talent and ethos. Through working on carefully selected cases that speak to the firm’s mission and choosing attorneys who fit those endeavors, they have created a self-perpetuating foundation that echoes the firm’s founding strengths and values in its attorneys.
“The unmatched talent and unwavering dedication of our team are truly extraordinary,” emphasizes firm co-founder Stuart Grossman. “The gravity of the cases they tackle is immense, and each attorney brings a unique blend of skill and passion to champion our clients’ causes in some of the most critical and highstakes legal battles imaginable.”
While each lawyer excels individually, it’s their ability to work together that takes their efforts to the next level. The firm prides itself on a non-hierarchical, collaborative environment. The named partners work hand-in-glove with the firm’s next generation of talent on the equal footing befitting the prowess
each lawyer displays in the courtroom.
In addition to the four named partners, that team includes Alex Arteaga-Gomez, Julian Catala, Aimee Ferrer, Eric Halsey, William Mulligan and Ryan Yaffa. Each one of them brings their own specialized expertise and flair to their work. Together, they create an all-around powerhouse firm.
The Players
THE FIRST OF THOSE SIX to join the firm was Eric Halsey, who came to GRYC’s Boca Raton office in 2015 after nearly a decade litigating in Miami. A personal injury attorney from day one of his legal career, he was drawn in by the opportunity to work with, “real people who have real problems,” he says. Halsey focuses on medical malpractice and is known for rigorous preparation and a detail-oriented commitment to the understanding of the medicine and the facts of the case. “He has an ability to see through to what matters,” partner Julian Catala notes.
Catala, who joined the firm the next year, is celebrated for his dominance in trial – honed early on by starting out as an Assistant State Attorney at the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office. “Julian is the best lawyer on his feet that I’ve ever seen in a courtroom,” says Halsey. He is known for his keen listening in cross-examination –preparation combined with hard-hitting improvisation. “Julian just listens to what they say, and he knows how to attack,” Halsey adds. “Defense lawyers are scared to death of lawyers like Julian who can think on their feet, so he garners respect very quickly.”
William Mulligan also joined in 2016, after working on the insurance defense side. He’d always known it was only a matter of time before he switched to plaintiffs’ law; in law school, he found fulfillment working in free legal services for individuals. On that note, he is known for his ability to connect with people, from clients to judges to witnesses to opposing counsel. He is also “unequivocally dedicated” to his cases, says associate Ryan Yaffa. “He’s not scared of any challenge. He’s committed to his craft and he’s always looking for that edge. He’s thinking about his cases at all times, and he’s wicked creative.”
Yaffa, meanwhile, was raised by the firm. Son of name partner Andrew Yaffa, he started at GRYC as a law student and continued with the firm following his graduation in 2020. “[As a child] I would attend depositions, attend mediations, see these clients
Rosen Saba, LLP would like to congratulate Partners Jim Rosen, Ryan Saba, Elizabeth Bradley and Francesca Dioguardi for being selected in 2023 as four of the Top 500 Leading Civil Rights and Plainti Employment in the United States by Lawdragon Magazine. Rosen Saba, LLP is a civil litigation and trial rm prosecuting matters throughout the United States. In 2023 alone,
our rm won numerous jury and bench trials, including obtaining a $62 million unanimous federal jury verdict.
At Rosen Saba, LLP, we are committed to creating excellent working partnerships between attorneys through referrals. We partner with various law rms and pay maximum referral fees per California State Bar rules.
who were suffering and saw the firm’s devotion to improving their situation – to making everlasting and meaningful changes on the policy side to prevent similar occurrences from ever happening again. It seemed like a worthy cause to devote myself to,” he says. In the years since, he has made his mark; the firm’s partnership describes him as a lawyer with a fierce work ethic who is unafraid to ask important questions.
Then there’s Alex Arteaga-Gomez and Aimee Ferrer, who worked together at one time before coming to GRYC. Arteaga-Gomez, who joined in 2018, spent four years as an Assistant Federal Public Defender for the Southern District of Florida where he gained trial and appellate experience after private practice at the Law Offices of Scott A. Srebnick and White & Case. Ferrer, who joined the firm last year, rose through the ranks to become Supervisory Assistant Federal Public Defender prior to becoming part of the GRYC team. In her time with the Federal Public Defender’s office, she tried numerous federal jury trials – multiple of them with Arteaga-Gomez.
Ferrer saw the opportunity to join GRYC as one that allowed her to utilize her razor-sharp litigation skills in new and challenging ways, while also getting to work with Arteaga-Gomez, whose work she respects: “He is one of the smartest attorneys I know, and incredibly hardworking,” she says. “That is what drew me to come here: the ability to work, not just with Alex, but with a team that Alex vouched for.”
Both attorneys see their current work at GRYC as a continuation of their missions to aid underserved communities. “The victims in our cases are largely people who have suffered challenges throughout all aspects of their life. Advocacy for them is often very similar to any other underserved group of people,” says Arteaga-Gomez.
For Ferrer, public service is a core tenant of her work both within the firm and outside of it: She is first vice-chair of the Miami-Dade Commission on Human Rights Board and is also the Board Chair of Engage Miami, a youth civic engagement organization.
The Game
ONE OF THE FIRM’S MOST SIGNIFICANT litigations in recent memory was a firmwide effort. In 2021, a condominium building in Surfside, Fla. collapsed, killing 98 people, injuring many others, and leaving all the residents of the condo, Champlain Towers South,
“The victims in our cases are largely people who have suffered challenges throughout all aspects of their life. Advocacy for them is often very similar to any other underserved group of people.”
– alex arteaga - gomez
without a home. GRYC attorneys were appointed as co-lead counsel and wrongful death damage claim liaison counsel.
Yaffa describes the experience as “eye-opening”: “I can’t even begin to articulate the number of lessons that I learned while assisting with the litigation surrounding that unfathomable tragedy and counseling the families who suffered unimaginable, sudden loss. It was a privilege to represent our clients and honor all who were lost, but very, very tough.” In the end, the plaintiffs’ committee recovered more than $1.1B for victims and their families from more than 30 settling defendants.
Halsey, meanwhile, recently concluded settlement of the seventh eight-figure resolution achieved in his nine years with the firm. The client went to the hospital with a brain hemorrhage and began to have trouble breathing. While in the MRI machine, he began to aspirate – no air could get to his brain. Ultimately, he suffered a major brain injury and is now mentally and physically incapacitated.
Halsey and Cohen litigated the case for over a year. The hardest part wasn’t the litigation, Halsey says; it was helping guide the clients through post-injury medical treatments and working through handling this new life that she and her severely incapacitated husband, only in their thirties, will now have to navigate. “You learn a lot about human struggle doing this,” says Halsey. “You prepare people for
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Katherine Lubin Benson, Elizabeth J. Cabraser, Lin Y. Chan, Daniel P. Chiplock, Nimish R. Desai, Nicholas Diamand, Eric B. Fastiff, Steven E. Fineman, Rachel Geman, Brendan P. Glackin, Dean M. Harvey, Lexi J. Hazam, Richard M. Heimann, Sharon M. Lee, Bruce W. Leppla, Michael Miarmi, Robert J. Nelson, David Rudolph, Jonathan D. Selbin, Daniel E. Seltz, Michael W. Sobol, David S. Stellings
Plaintiff Employment & Civil Rights Lawyers
Lin Y. Chan, Kelly M. Dermody, Rachel Geman, Dean M. Harvey, Daniel M. Hutchinson, Michelle Lamy, Michael Levin-Gesundheit, Anne B. Shaver, Tiseme Zegeye
For Aimee Ferrer, public service is a core tenant of her work both within the firm and outside of it:
She is first vice-chair of the MiamiDade Commission on Human Rights Board and is also the Board Chair of Engage Miami.
there’s no substitute. Your best evidence is going to come from that extra-effort work,” says Mulligan.
Over the course of the case, Mulligan became extremely close with Gallo and his father as he often does with his clients. “The case broke my heart the entire time, but Andrew was so strong. John, his father, was so strong,” remembers Mulligan. Ultimately, they achieved a settlement for a significant sum on the final day of trial – rocking the Florida tourism industry and setting Gallo up with life-changing care.
Now, Gallo is married to his high school sweetheart and just had a child – and Mulligan was at the wedding. He speaks of Gallo with pride: “He’s going back to school. He has more use of his arms. It’s only possible with the amount of funds it takes to get best-of-theline care that insurance won’t cover.”
what you have seen others in their situation do next.”
“This is a case I will remember for the rest of my career,” he continues. “The clients were put in a terrible situation due to truly awful medical care. To be able to help make sure they will be financially secure for the rest of their lives is beyond fulfilling.”
That kind of connection with clients is a hallmark of GRYC attorneys’ approach; the team is known for their personal availability with an empathy for clients – and for the lengths they go in their advocacy.
Recently Mulligan worked with partner Stuart Grossman on a landmark case against the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in South Beach, Fla. The client, Andrew Gallo, was visiting South Beach from Long Island for his birthday. One day, he went for a swim at the hotel’s private beach. Unaware of shallow water depths, he took a dive and hit his head on a sandbar, shattering his spinal cord and leaving him without use of his arms or legs.
The attorneys alleged that the Ritz-Carlton knew about the sandbar but neglected to post signage. Through a social media deep dive, they discovered that other beach-adjacent Ritz Carlton hotels were posting diving warnings because of similar incidents. They also found out that Miami Beach was providing information to local hotels about the hazards of diving head-first.
“This all came from our own investigation, going down one rabbit hole and into the next. Doing that,
Eye on the Ball: Current Matters and Looking Ahead
THE LATEST CASES RUN THE GAMUT. Several of the lawyers, including Ferrer, Arteaga-Gomez and Yaffa, are now working on a litigation involving defective eye drops. One client, a South Florida woman named Clara Oliva, lost her eye and became legally blind after using drops contaminated with antibiotic-resistant bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Meanwhile, Arteaga-Gomez also continues to spearhead cases surrounding the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. With more than $150M in settlements from the Department of Justice and the school board already, cases against the sheriff’s office and several individuals continue.
As their current cases indicate, over the years the team has built a wide base of expertise in medical malpractice, products liability, personal injury and beyond. One active case is representative of that intersection: Just this past March, Ferrer and other partners filed a case on behalf of Maria Rodriguez, a mother of three who underwent routine surgery in early 2023 to remove her fallopian tubes. The surgery, just two months after her third child was born, was supposed to be an outpatient procedure that would have her back at home the same night.
Instead, during the surgery the trocar – an instrument used in laparoscopic surgery – broke apart, and the pieces were lost inside her body. When a second trocar
of the same brand was employed to find the pieces of the first, that one also broke. Several pieces of trocar continue to float in Ms. Rodriguez’s body; they have never been found. After months in the hospital, Ms. Rodriguez almost lost her life due to infection and had to have three fingers amputated. The tragic case is a mix of medical malpractice and products liability practice; the firm is suing the trocar’s manufacturer, Applied Medical Resources Corporation, as well as Jackson Health System and others.
In addition to their broad base of advocacy in the courtroom, the lawyers’ work extends outside their caseload; for years, the attorneys have been involved in state legislative matters that restrict recoveries for future victims of injury and negligence.
Currently, that fight is centered around a tort reform bill, House Bill 837, which was signed into law last year. The bill makes it more difficult for personal injury claimants to collect damages, which the attorneys say is to the benefit of insurance companies.
Arteaga-Gomez and others have appeared before the house subcommittee to fight the bill. He explains that much of what the attorneys are able to do for their clients is affected by these policies. “Just in the last two years, we have been required to spend a great deal of time and energy educating legislators about the impact that their decisions have on normal, everyday people and their ability to live in safe apartment buildings, get good quality medical care and get their insurance claims paid,” he says.
A Steadfast Team
IT TAKES AN ARMY TO FIGHT those battles in the courtroom and in the Florida legislature. Fortunately, the attorneys view every move as a team approach.
The lawyers work on their cases in tandem with senior leadership. “There is not a case in this office – whether you call it Neal [Roth]’s, Stuart [Grossman]’s, Gary [Cohen]’s or Andy [Yaffa]’s case – that every lawyer in the firm does not at some point touch,” explains Catala. “We work on cases the way that you would collaborate with friends or family members. That’s how I would define the culture: one of collegiality.”
“We all make a commitment to be available to each other so we can keep everything moving forward for our clients,” says Arteaga-Gomez. “That’s really what I enjoy most about it, that it is a collaborative team experience.”
A personal injury attorney from day one of his legal career, Eric Halsey focuses on medical malpractice and is known for rigorous preparation and a detailoriented commitment to the understanding of the medicine and the facts of the case.
Catala agrees, adding that a team spirit and open attitude are vital in this line of work. “This job is about who you are more than it really is about what you do,” he says. “That’s the thing that clients tend to focus on when they’re putting their trust in someone to do something so important for them.” He adds that there isn’t a lawyer in the firm who doesn’t have a story about calming a client down at one o’clock the morning before mediation because the client doesn’t know what’s going to happen to their future. There’s more to this work than learning the facts of medicine and the law, he says; the thing he’s learned most during his time at the firm is that being a medical malpractice attorney is more of a lifestyle than a career.
Yaffa, as the youngest lawyer on the team, says he is mentored by every lawyer at the firm. “We have such a strong young core,” he explains, hitting on the reason the firm has laid such a successful foundation: The firm is not stagnantly hierarchical. Instead, it’s a living vehicle of advocacy in which every member of the firm serves as inspiration for each other.
“It’s an honor to learn and work with the entire core of attorneys and staff that we have at our firm,” says Yaffa. “The ability to carry on this legacy means more than words can express.”
With the firm’s foundation a cohesive unit of likeminded luminaries, the legacy is set to endure.
KNOWING THE PLAYBOOK, CHANGING THE GAME
THERE COMES A POINT WHEN SUCCESS AS DEFINED BY ANY OTHER terms can feel like failure, when your work starts to feel soulless, and people’s important lives become simply numbers on a spreadsheet. When the trial lawyers at Spooner Staggs hit that point, they did something bold – they made a very big change.
Ralph Spooner has long been known as one of Oregon’s top trial lawyers. He and his firm, formerly Spooner & Much, have been famous throughout the Pacific Northwest for 50 years, defending insurance companies in some of the region’s biggest, toughest, most complex insurance litigation.
With offices in Salem and Portland, Spooner and his partners have handled over a thousand injury jury trials, along with countless arbitrations and mediations. They’ve defended some of the top insurance companies in Oregon and nationwide. This is their backyard, their turf, their world.
Ralph Spooner’s depth of understanding in the field, combined with his easy charm, gives him an incredible ability to connect with juries and colleagues. His son, Tom Spooner, grew up in the business alongside friend and colleague, Tyler Staggs. While Tom certainly benefited from his father’s mentorship, he was never coddled. He stuffed envelopes and learned the ropes from every angle, like any other associate. They’re now both celebrated trial attorneys in their own right – and have accrued a deep understanding of the insurance industry along the way. “Growing up with Ralph Spooner as your father, voir dire and trial tactics were daily dinner conversation,” says Tom.
From that vantage, they noticed a gradual shift in the way insurance litigation was playing out – and paying out – one that didn’t sit well with them. The use of AI and algorithms, along with a labor squeeze, was “replacing the human aspect of these cases,” says Staggs. In recent years, they felt that the work had lost its heart, leaving these highly effective litigators to do some soul-searching.
When the younger pair approached Ralph Spooner with the idea to switch teams, as it were, it didn’t take much convincing. “He saw it too,” says Staggs. “He’s been fully on board and supportive of the move.”
Now firmly nestled on “the other side of the V.,” the attorneys at the newly rebranded Spooner Staggs are solely taking on cases for injured victims who are up against the insurance industry they used to protect. In Oregon and elsewhere, they’re using their deep defense knowledge and vast trial experience to ensure justice for people with catastrophic injuries.
In one particularly notable win, they beat back a motion for summary judgement in a landmark case against a large “gig economy” company that offers a delivery service. Because gig economy drivers are structured as independent contractors, this large company claimed that they didn’t have vicarious liability for the driver’s actions. That’s been settled law in cases nationwide. The Spooner Staggs attorneys’ innovative theory was to argue that the driver and the company were “engaged in a joint enterprise pursuant to a common design,” as per Staggs.
“Since the driver couldn’t be doing the delivery
Oregon’s Spooner Staggs has switched sides. The former defense attorneys now help injured individuals take on insurance companies.
BY MEGHAN HEMINGWAY AND ALISON PREECE
TYLER SKAGGS TOM SPOONER
DAVID SMITH RYAN BICKLER
RALPH SPOONER
without the use of the delivery app, the app is the common design piece,” he adds. “So, when it comes to liability, they’re in the same boat and ought to be treated like any other employee with vicarious liability. The driver’s liability is passing through to the gig economy company, without needing proof that they did something independently negligent.”
The attorneys at Spooner Staggs had firmly marked their move to the plaintiff side – and their very real ability to get results.
So, what propelled this shift from defending insurance companies to suing them? According to Ralph Spooner, in “the good old days, [the system had] integrity and heart.” Their insurance company clients asked them to do right by the injured victims, recognizing that these were real people with real injuries. “It felt good, helping them get what they needed to recover. Never to overpay, but certainly to pay out what the plaintiff deserved.” In recent years, they feel that this humanity has gradually been lost, replaced by “cold calculations on a spreadsheet.” And that’s not why these attorneys are in the law.
TRIAL (SKILLS) BY FIRE
When Staggs and Tom Spooner were young associates, their very first trial was actually on the plaintiff side. It’s always been a small part of their practice, quietly taking on meritorious claims for injured individuals against insurance companies they didn’t represent. Besides, Ralph Spooner knew it would be great training ground for building their courtroom skills.
In their first plaintiffs’ case, they represented a driver and passenger, up against a lawyer who had been representing insurance companies for 40 years. And while they got a verdict higher than the pre-trial settlement offer, they still felt the courtroom learning curve.
The defense lawyer “mopped the courtroom with us,” says Staggs. “And that was the best learning experience we could have had. Ralph always told us, ‘The worst thing that can happen to a young lawyer is to win their first case, because then they think they know it all.’”
The young attorneys continued to grow under Ralph Spooner’s mentorship, and had a deep respect for the work he was doing for insurance companies.
“We saw the real honor in being defense attorneys,” says Staggs, “because this is the worst point of
somebody’s life. They’re getting sued, sometimes for millions of dollars, sometimes for more than their insurance coverage.”
They felt they were doing good in helping these companies beat back illegitimate or excessive claims. But then, as they saw it, the insurance companies went through a slow but steady transformation, relying more on data and algorithms and less on the human aspects of the case – including the experts that had been around for so long.
IN RECENT YEARS, THEY FEEL THAT THIS HUMANITY HAS GRADUALLY BEEN LOST, REPLACED BY “COLD CALCULATIONS ON A SPREADSHEET.” AND THAT’S NOT WHY THESE ATTORNEYS ARE IN THE LAW.
“We were providing our decades of real-world lawyer advice on cases and being told we were wrong because their internal data system says so,” says Tom Spooner.
“It turned us from trial lawyers into glorified insurance adjusters and that’s just not why we became lawyers,” adds Staggs.
This wasn’t simply a feeling but a very real structural shift that can be traced to the rise of AI and the reliance on technology over humanity. Backed by algorithms and data points, over the past decade the Goliaths had begun to change the way they evaluated cases, leaving the Davids of the world in the lurch.
“The tide turned when insurance companies stopped paying valid claims,” Staggs says. “It happened by degrees over years. As trial lawyers, we want to accomplish justice and we feel like we can’t do it from the defense side anymore.”
So, after years of watching technology take over the very human business of insurance coverage, the attorneys took the leap to representing seriously injured victims – instead of upholding the systems that are designed to avoid paying them. They decided to give David a slingshot.
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.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, HUMAN CONSEQUENCES
The rise of AI, along with our human response – and responsibility – in the face of it all, has been a hot topic lately, to say the least. The nascent sector is being touted by some as a revolution for productivity and feared by others as a threat to human jobs. Viewed from a wider lens, the insurance industry becomes a microcosm of a national conversation surrounding labor relations and the use of AI.
“It’s really a symptom of the American worker and what they’re being asked to do,” says Staggs. He believes the crisis was exacerbated during Covid-19, but that the building blocks were in place well before the world, as we knew it, shut down. “Local insurance offices were already being closed, highly experienced claims adjusters were being let go, and companies were leaning more heavily on algorithms and technology as well as favoring a work-from-home model,” he says. This was all compounded during pandemic lockdowns.
Spooner lawyer David Smith brings additional insight – before law school he worked as an insurance
adjuster, settling injury cases at a number of different companies. “Back then, we were taught to pay our claims fairly. Today, experienced claims personnel are no longer in charge of valuing their own cases. Instead, the companies are leaning on Big Data,” says Smith. It may seem like a smart cost-saving metric in the short term, but to the attorneys at Spooner Staggs, something essential was being lost.
“Around 10 years ago, insurance companies developed internal algorithms to analyze their own data,” Ralph Spooner says. “Gradually it’s been used to make claim decisions. Now we’re at the crossroads where AI is affecting almost every facet of this very human work.”
Beyond the loss of job security for the skilled individuals who were processing insurance claims, calculating the human cost of harm based on pure data analytics strikes these attorneys as irresponsible.
“Now you’ve got computers valuing people’s cases. It feels like the offers were lower than they should have been and didn’t really reflect the tragedy that befell them or what they’d really need to recover,” Staggs says. “And these lower numbers were preventing the adjusters from resolving these cases in a fair and just way.”
The changes in the industry left the attorneys feeling like
they’re participating in a strange computer game rather than ensuring rightful funds are allocated correctly to human beings who deserve consideration and support.
This is at the heart of why the attorneys at Spooner Staggs chose to switch sides: Because a win defending insurance companies in the modern age, stopped feeling like a win.
BRINGING “INSIDE BASEBALL” TO THE MASSES
The attorneys at Spooner Staggs have an irrefutable unique advantage as they step up to the plate for victims and policy holders against the behemoths they used to represent.
If the game is data points, numbers on a spreadsheet, faceless, soulless information – the Spooner lawyers can play that game. When you’ve seen how the system works, you know how to work the system.
Young Spooner partner Ryan Bickler is a trial lawyer in his own right. A former college football player, Bickler is prone to sports metaphors. He analogizes their situation to a football team’s Offensive Coordinator who gets hired away by their cross-town rival. That coach knows the players’ strengths and weaknesses, how and when they attack or defend, and the best way to capitalize on their gameplan. That’s what Spooner Staggs will be bringing to its plaintiff clients – the advantage of deep insight into how the insurance industry approaches the resolution of their cases.
The attorneys at Spooner Staggs bring to the game a knowledge of the metrics employed by the insurance industry, an understanding of how to work within the existing systems, to get results for their clients. It’s a different way of thinking than many personal injury firms can bring.
“We win because we know how adjusters and defense law firms evaluate cases and approach settlements. And we also know every iota of the case, the facts and the medical records,” says Tom Spooner. “I read every word on every page in every record; I don’t have paralegals summarize the records for me. It’s much more work that way, but it’s the only way to figure out a novel legal theory if one exists. And I’m confident that no one in Oregon knows how to try a case better than we do. I’ll bet Tyler and I have tried more big cases to juries than just about anyone our age. The only way to really learn how to try a case is by doing it dozens and dozens and dozens of times.
We’ve spent years in the trenches.”
Trial skills combined with insider knowledge and a copy of the opponents’ playbook would seem to be enough to ensure success. But there’s something else that cements this firm as warriors in this space – this feels very personal. There is a fire for justice that fuels the attorneys at Spooner Staggs, one that seems inextinguishable.
“Too often we’ve seen victims settle for less than what they are owed, because they are afraid to fight. We know precisely who we’re up against; we know their strengths and weaknesses. We’re quite confident in our ability and are ready for battle,” says Ralph Spooner.
The potentially stark upheaval associated with flipping practice areas has been mitigated by the success that the firm has already had on the plaintiffs’ side.
THE ATTORNEYS AT SPOONER STAGGS BRING TO THE GAME A KNOWLEDGE OF THE METRICS EMPLOYED BY THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY, AN UNDERSTANDING OF HOW TO WORK WITHIN THE EXISTING SYSTEMS, TO GET RESULTS FOR THEIR CLIENTS.
Last year, the partners occasionally – and quietly –represented some seriously injured victims, accruing nearly $14M in settlements, according to Ralph Spooner. That track record is part of the reason the firm can so confidently make this leap.
“We have had our toes in the water for a little while. Maybe we’re in up to our knees,” Staggs says. “But we’re really just getting started and are already seeing extremely strong results. We’ve been getting significant referrals from some of the region’s top lawyers.”
Representing individuals with catastrophic injuries, after years of helping insurance companies avoid going over the bare minimum with payouts, carries a clear satisfaction for these attorneys. “It feels really good to fight for the little guy,” says Staggs. “And of course, it feels even better to win.”
ELEVATING FOR YOUNG LAWYERS
ELEVATING ELEVATING THE GAME
Coston Consulting’s new program is leveling up the next generation of law firm partners.
Twenty years ago, the legal marketing industry was quickly evolving from traditional branding and marketing and embracing a larger focus on business development. During this rise, Michael Coston, Angelica Crisi and Toni Wells were holding key roles in the marketing and business development departments for elite law firms including Chadbourne & Parke, Dechert, and Baker Botts, and at the forefront of providing strategic support vital to law firms’ bottom lines.
BY EMILY JACKOWAY & ALISON PREECE
Now as consultants, the trio got in on the ground floor for a new concept: the idea of building a consulting firm that bridges expertise in business development and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). In 2019, Coston tapped Crisi – who previously worked with Coston at Dechert and Chadbourne & Parke – to set out to create a firm that sits at that intersection: Coston Consulting.
With business development and marketing the center of their focus, the pair knew they wanted to bring on more talent on the DEI side. Their new team members included partner Dr. Laura Quiros, a professor, consultant, and trauma-informed DEI expert and gender and entrepreneurship expert Dr. Natalie Rock, who heads up the firm’s DEI research and analysis arm. Wells joined the firm as an affiliate partner in 2021. In addition to her work at Coston Consulting, she focuses on coaching and strategy support, including working closely with Diversity Lab, the think tank behind the Mansfield Rule.
Collectively, the team’s work ranges from private coaching and workshops to deep-diving, firm-wide overhauls of business development strategy and DEI programs. The latest manifestation of their work is an innovative new eLearning program that brings the team’s legal marketing expertise to a wider audience.
EVOLVING EXPECTATIONS; INNOVATIVE TRAINING
Working with a broad base of legal clients gives the Coston team a keen knowledge of industry trends, and an ability to see gaps in the market. From this vantage point, they noticed that younger partners and associates are often so focused on learning their practice and being the best lawyers they can be, they are sometimes left flat-footed when they make partner and are suddenly expected to bring in business. The team has long been interested in bridging that gap, including through community coaching, one of their favorite services to provide.
“Community coaching allows younger lawyers to learn from more senior lawyers who have been through the ranks. As a facilitator in those settings, you serve as a conduit for that exchange of information and help create deep connections and relationships,” says Coston.
Coston has long directed group coaching for clients, including McKool Smith. A couple of years ago, he and McKool’s managing principal and chairman,
“Community coaching allows younger lawyers to learn from more senior lawyers who have been through the ranks. As a facilitator in those settings, you serve as a conduit for that exchange of information and help create deep connections and relationships.”
MICHAEL COSTON
David Sochia designed a business development coaching program for McKool’s partners to educate lawyers on the fundamentals of business development that are rarely covered in law school. The program, which involved both group sessions and oneon-one coaching with Coston and his partners, took off – every shareholder and all non-equity partners have gone through the program in the years since. “Michael knows the industry as well as anybody in it. He’s one of those rare people who not only has the expertise, but he’s got the common sense to know what works for someone else may not work for me and vice versa,” says Sochia. “He’s able to put that all together into these bespoke programs.”
Theresa DeLoach-Malivert, former Managing Director of Strategic Alumni Engagement and Client Relations at Goodwin and current Head of Business Development at Schulte Roth, shared similar sentiments. She partnered with Coston to develop an innovative community coaching program for Goodwin’s Black lawyers to advance business development skills and deepen connections. The result was a success, as the program is currently in its third iteration. “If what you
6 DECADES OF 7 AND 8 FIGURE RESULTS 6 DECADES OF 7 AND 8 FIGURE RESULTS
Voted the #1 Personal Injury Firm in San Francisco for the third consecutive year in 2022, the Walkup Personal Injury team has exited the Covid-19 court lockdowns with energy, optimism, and newly minted remote litigation skills. Our trial lawyers have resisted widespread surrender to “trial by zoom” and stood by our clients over the last 30 months to achieve fair and just trial, arbitration, and mediation results.
We boast three firm members selected to the Lawdragon 500, as well as the top vote-getter in the Super Lawyers “Top Ten“ ranking for all of Northern California. Our trial team includes five members of The American College of Trial Lawyers, four members of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers, five members of the International Society of Barristers, and five past-Presidents of the San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association.
We teach for USF School of Law, Berkeley Law and Stanford Law School, NITA and ABOTA.
Our skills improve and evolve with every case we prosecute. With seven and eight-figure recoveries in cases involving cerebral palsy, sexual abuse, toxic poisoning, paraplegia, brain damage, thermal burns, wrongful death, bicycle and pedestrian accidents, we are leaders in the tort field. Our lawyers hold leadership positions in the JUUL litigation, Paraquat MDL, PG&E fire litigation, and Pacific Fertility Clinic litigation.
We accept referrals from counsel across the nation. We pay referral fees consistent with State Bar rules. We are prepared and zealous advocates for clients in cases across California and the West.
are looking for is a unique approach to coaching that’s going to really resonate and give lawyers not just tips and tools they can use, but give them practices that they can anchor in and really execute on every day, Michael has a great way of doing that. He very much can connect with the lawyers at any level.”
CREATING A TOOLKIT
There’s a reason young lawyers need personalized business development training: The industry is changing, and quickly. Lawyers who have recently made partner are expected to have developed a network both within their firm and with clients in a way that simply wasn’t expected in years past, the consultants say. Part of the reason: The legal industry has transformed from a seller’s market to a buyer’s market in the last decade and a half. “There are more competitors on the market than ever before, and even big firms are competing against technology,” Wells says.
The interactive training program, The Elevate Curriculum, is a digital marketing and business development course designed to fill knowledge gaps in a shifting industry where a business development skillset is becoming a standard much earlier in lawyers’ careers. The goal is to help partner-track attorneys build their skills in branding, marketing and building a book of business. It walks lawyers through a personal approach to building confidence and encourages a more equitable path to career advancement.
The eLearning program is split into two tracks: the Core program, a fundamental training guide designed for associates in years one through six, and the Advanced curriculum, for senior associates and junior partners. Coston, Crisi and Wells themselves are the instructors throughout seven modules in the Core program and 10 in the Advanced. Designed with a focus on engagement – especially among younger lawyers immersed in bite-sized TikTok culture – the program is a blend of short video modules, as well as quizzes, checklists and clickable activities.
Crisi adds that the program is designed for users to review again and again. “You could do this program as a fourth year and again as a tenth year,” she says. Business development, she adds, “is not a thing that ever stops. You get better at it, it becomes more part of your nature, but it’s not the type of thing that you could ever say, ‘Oh, I’ve learned it all. I’m done there.’”
“You could do The Elevate Curriculum program as a fourth year and again as a tenth year. Business development, is not a thing that ever stops. You get better at it, it becomes more part of your nature, but it’s not the type of thing that you could ever say, ‘Oh, I’ve learned it all. I’m done there.’”
ANGELICA CRISI
ADVICE FOR YOUNG LAWYERS
The consultants are passionate about meeting the moment to help young lawyers develop their marketing core competencies early on. “Our goal was to create a self-study resource for lawyers to develop their marketing muscles earlier in their career, so they’re starting from a place of power,” says Coston.
The team’s primary advice for young lawyers focuses on developing agency – a word Wells says she’s amplifying in her trainings now. She encourages young lawyers to shape their careers actively. “It’s important for associates to know they have agency and can craft the career they want and leverage the opportunities and firm environment they’re in – I think that’s very powerful for people no matter where you are in your career,” she says.
The team at Coston Consulting has been helping firms and lawyers tell their stories for decades. Now, they’re focusing on helping young lawyers create theirs.
Financial Lawyers
A. Rick Atwood, Jr., Aelish Marie Baig, Randall Baron, James Barz, Alexandra Bernay, Erin Boardman, Luke Brooks, Spencer Burkholz, Jennifer Caringal, Desiree Cummings, Stuart Davidson, Mark Dearman, Mike Dowd, Travis Downs III, Daniel Drosman, Jason Forge, Paul Geller, Elise Grace, Tor Gronborg, Robert Henssler, Jr., James Jaconette, J. Marco Janoski Gray, Rachel Jensen, Chad Johnson, Laurie Largent, Noam Mandel, David Mitchell, Danielle Myers, Erika Oliver, Ashley Price, Willow Radcliffe, Darren Robbins, Robert Robbins, Robert Rothman, Samuel Rudman, Joseph Russello, Scott Saham, Juan Carlos Sanchez, Jessica Shinnefield, Mark Solomon, Shawn Williams, and Debra Wyman
Consumer Lawyers
Dory Antullis, Aelish Marie Baig, Desiree Cummings, Stuart Davidson, Mark Dearman, Kathleen Douglas, Paul Geller, and Rachel Jensen
We’re proud to recognize the Lawdragon 500 Leading Plaintiff Financial Lawyers; the Lawdragon 500 Leading Consumer Plaintiff Lawyers; and the Lawdragon 500 Leading Civil Rights & Plaintiff Employment Lawyers.
If the late, great Tina Turner was right that “We don’t need another hero,” it’s possibly because we’ve got them all right here.
Our honorees stand tall taking on opioid peddlers, flavored-cigarette sharks, scheming banks, pirating crypto bros, colluding chicken producers and social media juggernauts whose aim is to steal your face.
They represent those injured or killed in everything from a devastating truck accident or medical misdiagnosis to the tens of thousands of injured in sprawling class actions and multidistrict litigation including opioids, 3M earplugs, Camp Lejeune litigation and so much more.
They also stand up for others who are denied equal treatment, fired, harassed or marginalized in their jobs; shot and killed or subjected to lesser mistreatment by law enforcement or others in position of authority; and sexually abused and violated by those in positions of responsibility.
Though just a small sampling of the 1500 lawyers honored through our three guides, we trust you will find the stories of the lawyers in the pages that follow as uplifting as we do.
LESLEY WEAVER
BLEICHMAR FONTI & AULD LLP (SAN FRANCISCO)
BY MEGHAN HEMINGWAY AND ALISON PREECE
PRIVACY MAY SOON BE A DATED NOTION.
In this tech-driven world, it has been argued that data is quickly becoming the most highly valued currency of our time. It has taken Lesley Weaver many years and a lot of dedication to understand the nuances of this cyber space in order to advocate for our very human rights. Weaver works to protect what little privacy we have left in the most public of arenas, tackling huge cases with the most famous of players –Google, Facebook/Meta, TikTok. You know them, you love them, you agreed to the terms and conditions when you clicked the box.
When Weaver began in the industry, most people thought of cookies as something to be enjoyed with a glass of milk. Today, the public is beginning to understand the complex ways in which seemingly minor incidents of data collection through cookies and other often hidden mechanisms impact us, and that they have potentially catastrophic ramifications. Weaver believes, “It is critical to our society to have the ability to decide what you are sharing and with whom.”
It wasn’t until the Cambridge Analytica case against Facebook that Weaver began to understand the scope of what we’re truly up against when it comes to privacy. In 2019, Facebook paid $5B to the Federal Trade Commission for consumer privacy violations. In late 2022 they agreed to pay $725M to resolve a class action – they’d been accused of sharing users’ private data with third parties, making user data available to entities like Cambridge Analytica, a data analytics firm that worked with the Trump campaign. Huge numbers and significant results, yes. Enough to make a dent in a behemoth like Meta? That’s yet to be seen.
Weaver is the head of Bleichmar, Fonti & Auld’s Antitrust and Consumer Litigation teams. She currently serves as co-lead counsel in the Calhoun v. Google consumer class action nationwide data privacy suit: Google Chrome said they would not collect users’ data if they do not “synch” their accounts – according to Weaver, the research shows they most certainly have. Tracking users’ activity across the internet is worth billions of dollars. “We are being constantly surveilled, watched, controlled
and provoked,” Weaver says. “It’s a pretty big demon that we have out there.”
Weaver is an esteemed member of the 2023 Lawdragon 500 Leading Plaintiff Consumer Lawyers.
Lawdragon: What brought you to the law?
Lesley Weaver: I grew up in Elkhart, Ind., a midwestern industrial town populated by people who owned the factories in town and the people who worked in them. My family’s ethics emphasized education and hard work. I actually considered pursuing a career in the theater, but that did not fully answer my need to make a difference in the world in which I live. Now I have the opportunity to do both, because as lawyers we are putting pieces together and framing stories.
I started out litigating intellectual property matters, but it did not capture my attention. I’m somebody who has to be internally motivated. Then I was invited to interview in a plaintiffs’ firm and I thought, “Oh wow, this is fascinating.”
I began litigating securities cases in 1999. By the early 2000s, many dot-com companies were going under because they were not complying with the most basic business fundamentals. Because the gatekeepers were not doing their job, accounting fraud in particular was widespread.
LD: And what brought you specifically to privacy?
LW: Fifteen years ago, when people were talking to me about cookies, I wondered if this was really an important issue. Even until five years ago, so many people were saying, “I have nothing to hide. I’m not concerned about my privacy.” It was not until I took a case to trial on the issue that I understood the impact myself.
LD: What changed for people?
LW: It became a question of understanding what was happening with the information collected about people and that you could not put the genie back in the bottle once it was out there. The Cambridge Analytica scandal was a watershed moment because people caught a glimpse of what was being collected about them and how it was used.
There is an immense asymmetry of information between the people collecting and using the data, and consumers themselves. This is an industry that grew up very quickly and way ahead of regulators. There are amazing things about technology. There are also issues if there aren’t gatekeepers. There’s
always a tension in any growth period between expanding new ideas and being reckless about the consequences.
LD: What was the first privacy case that you tried?
LW: It was in 2015 against a company called Positive Singles – an STD dating website. The owner of the company had created a dating site for people with certain diseases. However, without telling the people who paid to join the site, he mixed all of the people into one database, with their photos and information, regardless of what group they thought they had joined. There was a domain name called Positive Singles, but there was also a Christian single website, as well as domain names such as womenwithgenitalherpes.com and swingers.com. There were hundreds of them. Our clients had signed up for Positive Singles, but they were all put in the same dating pool with people who entered through these different domains and thus were associated with them. One woman had a 14-year-old daughter whose face had appeared on a website for swingers. The right to privacy on this issue is so compelling. If you have an STD and you’re dating, you have to “have the talk” at some point, to tell them about the STD. People were on these websites trying to find people who would understand what they’ve gone through. It’s a very tender admission. It was not meant to be made available to the general public or to any audience they had not selected themselves.
We had four fabulous and compelling plaintiffs, and the jury and judge were respectful and thoughtful. We recovered 100 percent of economic damages –$1.7M. Then we got $15M in punitive damages, which was about exactly the right number.
LD: How did you approach the case?
LW: We framed the case to say this is not about sex or disease. This case is about a broken promise – the company said it would not reveal people’s identities to anyone who was not also on the same website. Instead, their names and faces were thrown out to thousands of people they had not chosen to identify with and they were labeled with those domain names. It is critical to our society that people have the ability to decide what they are sharing and with whom. It’s critical for self-development and a core fundamental right. I’m a lesbian. If I had been outed before I was ready to accept that identity and any consequences, that could have been a very unhealthy thing for me. Each person needs the right to determine what to
reveal about themselves – health status, financial status, emotions, decisions – and when, how, or if to reveal it at all.
LD: Absolutely.
LW: The Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018 was really the beginning of seeing real-world harm from privacy violations. It revealed how data can be used to manipulate people. Alexander Kogan was an app developer on the Facebook website, and he collected data about people through an online quiz, and unbeknownst to the users, sold it to Cambridge Analytica, which was serving both the Brexit campaign and Donald Trump. Cambridge Analytica used that data to target people in 11 U.S. states –people they called “lazy liberals” – encouraging them to stay home and not vote. Yet people did not know they were being targeted in the first place, let alone what characteristics made them targets.
This is what happens when you don’t know who you’re talking to or what they know about you – you don’t know how to protect yourself or evaluate the information you are receiving. There are entire regulatory regimes focused on disclosing who is speaking to you – for example, in advertising, lawyers and politicians have to identify themselves. If the police are arresting you, you get your Miranda rights. That’s because you need to understand the consequences of what you’re sharing so you can make a decision about what to disclose.
LD: Meanwhile on social media…
LD: On social media, the goal of the company is to get a response from you. People respond when they’re emotional, angry, sad. What they found is that these active emotions tend to keep people on the platforms.
So there are two layers of what is happening. The first is that you are being stimulated so you stay on the platform by invoking strong reactions, primarily negative ones. The second is that they are trying to get you to take an action: to buy things, to vote, or even to engage in a pattern of behavior, for example. But if you are being targeted without understanding why you are the target, or what someone knows about you, you are at an unfair disadvantage. The use of data can also mask discriminatory and predatory practices. It can allow people to be targeted for their vulnerabilities – addiction, financial distress, health challenges – without even telling people they have been put in those categories. Only now
THE USE OF DATA CAN ALSO MASK DISCRIMINATORY AND
PREDATORY PRACTICES. IT CAN ALLOW PEOPLE TO BE TARGETED FOR
THEIR VULNERABILITIES – ADDICTION, FINANCIAL DISTRESS, HEALTH
CHALLENGES – WITHOUT EVEN TELLING PEOPLE THEY HAVE BEEN PUT IN THOSE CATEGORIES.
are regulators and people in general beginning to understand what’s at stake.
LD: So Cambridge Analytica was a real eye-opener.
LW: Yes. Facebook “hoovered up” so much information about people and were paying little attention to what happened to it. They were moving fast and breaking things. And an entire ecosystem developed that was not respectful of individual integrity and choice.
There’s a whole field of study about online disclosures, which describes them as “dark patterns.” Dark patterns are user interfaces that obscure rather than disclose how you are being targeted. For example, if you have spent time with privacy controls, you may have experienced what it’s like to click on one button, but then another appears, and now you have to switch this toggle. You may even end up accepting data collection you meant to turn off. It is often confusing and can be an enormous waste of time. Studies show that most people just click “accept” because they can’t figure it out and can’t be bothered. Especially if your children’s school requires you to be on Facebook to communicate with your teachers, or to use a Google Chromebook, you have to accept the terms of service. But how is that really consent?
LD: Could you tell early on that the Cambridge Analytica matter was going to be a culture-shifting case?
LW: It felt important from the start. I started reading everything I could to try to understand the data flow and its value. There’s a book by Shoshana Zuboff called “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism.” She was one of the first tenured women at Harvard Business School. The book is incredible, and walks through the economic import of data.
In 2018, even though we worked with experts, there
was a lot less known about the data flow itself. Through our work, we have all learned a lot about data collection and how it is used. It was shocking to realize how little is actually disclosed about what is happening. That’s a pretty vulnerable place for people to be. It’s as if you are naked in front of a one-way mirror. The companies know everything about you, but you have no idea who is behind the mirror and who or what is presenting these stimuli to you, or why.
Studies show that living under constant surveillance, and experiencing a correlated loss of control, leads to increased levels of stress, fatigue and anxiety. Now at least people are more aware of the effect this is having on children and the addictive nature of our phones and looking at social media. Right? So, wouldn’t it have been helpful to have had more information 15 years ago before everybody was letting their kid go on social media platforms?
LD: Right.
LW: At its core many of these practices are not disclosed, and so these cases are about misrepresentation and fraud. Courts initially dismissed privacy claims, finding that there was not concrete harm. There are scores of privacy cases out there where the plaintiffs lost at every stage. In Facebook, we framed it instead as a contract claim, and ultimately settled for $725M, the largest privacy class action settlement to date.
LD: It is scary with these mammoth companies. That’s a great result, but is that going to change anything?
LW: I hope so. With our settlement, Meta submitted two sworn declarations identifying what the company is now doing to try to protect user data. And I would say they’re doing a much better job. The main issue in our case was a practice called “Friend Sharing,” and Meta is no longer allowing that.
LD: What is that?
LW: The idea was that if my friend downloaded an app, the app could collect not just the data of the person who downloaded the app, but also all the data that the downloading person’s friends shared with that person. Here is an example: there was an app called Pikinis, which collected photos of people in bikinis. If one of your Facebook friends downloaded that app, and you had shared photos of your family on vacation with the friend, then your photos of your daughters in their bikinis ended up on Pikinis. Of course, you have no idea what apps your friends download, and you had no control over that. And unless you downloaded Pikinis yourself, you would not even know your daughters were on the app.
LD: Wow.
LW: So, in the Cambridge Analytica example, around 270,000 people downloaded the “ThisIsYourDigitalLife” app. However, as many as 87 million people’s data was implicated, because of friend sharing. The ideal, from the company’s viewpoint, was to collect as much data about people as possible, and they did so without regard to the impact on the human beings who were their “users.” The company’s defense was that people consented, because friend sharing was disclosed in the terms of service beginning in 2009. But most people did not understand that at all.
LD: What about your Google cases?
LW: Chrome clearly promises that it will not send your data to Google if you do not synchronize your accounts. The case is very simple: We tested it and you can see the data flow. Contrary to that clear promise, Chrome does send your data to Google even if you are not synching. And when Google takes your data and synchronizes it, you are living in a surveillance state – because Google is all over the internet.
In a similar case, Google runs a real time bidding auction that’s happening billions of times a day, hundreds of billions of times every second. The auction is in response to a bid request that describes you and offers those who wish to target you the opportunity to send a message. You’re holding your phone right now, you’re sitting in this location and you just did X, Y and Z – who wants to send you an ad right now? They run an algorithm, participants bid on it and you get that ad – all in the time that you blink an eye.
These ads are targeted based on data and categories that they put you in. The case claims that many of those categories are highly explicit. If you look at the complaint, it includes highly specific categories, such as extremely sensitive health issues.
What if I’m not really in that category? How did I get in that category? Is my insurance carrier doing something? Shouldn’t I get the right to decide who has that information?
LD: What is the status of the Google Chrome case?
LW: The Court found that users had consented to taking of the data even when users were not synched. This was on summary judgment. So, we’re hopeful that we have a different outcome in front of the 9th Circuit. I really think this should go to a jury.
LD: Yes, and there should be media covering every day of it.
LW: We are just beginning to get our heads around what it means to have an audience all the time for everything. What does it mean to society if you can’t be private? What does it mean for the children?
The whole thing about humanity is holding each other with gentleness and tenderness and allowing each other, and ourselves, the time to understand the world and where we are in it. If instead, we are being constantly surveilled, watched, controlled and provoked, it’s inherently unhealthy. I believe that the first step is we should get to decide who is learning what about us.
LD: What does it mean to you to be part of this fight for privacy rights?
LW: We kicked off both the Facebook case and the Google Chrome case and then the pandemic happened. People on our teams had personal issues, family members were ill, family members died. In times like that you have to ask yourself what really matters. Is this really important? And it still felt very important, especially as the world relied even more on online interaction.
I’m not saying disclosures are the perfect answer, but if people have more information about what is happening with data aggregation, I think they might behave differently. They might lobby for more regulation, or they might choose not to have an entirely virtual life. I think it’s really important that we tell people what’s really happening and let them choose.
TYLER STAGGS
SPOONER STAGGS (PORTLAND)
BY MEGHAN HEMINGWAY
TYLER
STAGGS HAS HAD A BUSY START
to the year. His firm, Spooner Staggs, relaunched in January with a brand-new beat. The firm, formerly famous throughout Oregon and nationally for their work on the insurance defense side (as “Spooner & Much”), is now representing plaintiffs, advocating for rightful compensation for seriously injured accident victims. And the phone is ringing off the hook.
Staggs is a trial lawyer, through and through. He expertly combines legal knowledge and creativity to develop innovative and winning strategies for his clients. Perhaps even more powerful is his capacity for empathy. Staggs works from a place of deep respect for the people around him – clients, colleagues, and court officials alike.
He grew up with an eclectic childhood that makes him as comfortable at a gala as a kegger. His ability to deeply connect with folks from all walks of life makes him a great advocate and adds to his impact in the courtroom.
“You have 12 people sitting there watching every move you make, every gesture. They can smell authenticity,” says Staggs. “It’s no different than real life. If you feel somebody is exaggerating or hiding something, you’re going to distrust whatever they tell you. That’s death to a trial lawyer.”
A recent ruling in the Supreme Court in Moody v. Oregon Community Credit Union offers a seismic shift for injured victims looking for fair compensation. This decision generates tort liability under the Unfair Claim Settlement Practices Act for negligent denial of a claim, essentially leveling the playing field for individuals going up against insurance companies.
Staggs has a deep understanding of the Moody ruling – what it means for injured parties, and how it can be wielded as a powerful tool for plaintiffs facing off against big insurance companies.
“It allows fi rst-party bad faith against insurers in Oregon for negligent claim handling,” says Staggs. “Now, at Spooner Staggs, we’re seeing a huge number of requests to handle those cases because we have a particular knowledge in this space from our years defending the insurance industry.”
The firm’s motto is “See you in court.” It speaks to the well-earned confidence that Staggs and his team exude. The seasoned trial lawyer is highly attuned to the impact he’s able to have for wrongfully injured people, and the change suits him well.
Lawdragon: Congratulations on the launch of the new firm, Spooner Staggs!
Tyler Staggs: Thank you! After years defending insurance companies, we’ve moved to the plaintiffs’ side. We took out some pretty bold ads to broadcast our move to the Oregon legal community, and people are calling it our “manifesto.” It’s been extremely well received, and the phone is ringing off the hook. We’re super busy, which is what we were hoping for. We’re thrilled.
LD: Tell us what it’s been like – switching to the plaintiffs’ side after so long working for the defense.
TS: When we were working for the defense, we really felt that we were on the right side of those cases. The insurance companies had worked the cases effectively, they paid the ones that deserved to be paid, and they sent us the ones that needed to be defended – because they’d determined that the plaintiff was wrong and the defendant was right. Those were the cases that got tried.
Getting sued can be traumatizing. People would come to us in tears believing that they’d done nothing wrong and didn’t deserve to be sued. We’d go to court and help vindicate them; we were getting them justice. And that was a great feeling.
The tide started turning when insurance companies stopped paying just claims. This put us in the awkward position of defending cases where it was getting a little grayer, a little foggier. Sometimes we’d find ourselves being told to defend cases that we felt really should have been settled fairly.
It didn’t happen all at once; it came by degrees over many years. We finally got to the point where we said, “We’ve had it!” As trial lawyers, we want to accomplish justice, and it felt like we couldn’t do it on the defense side anymore. Not under their new rules and policies. Algorithms and artificial intelligence just upended the insurance game.
LD: What has the reaction of some of these insurance companies – your former clients – been as you have made this change?
TS: Well, we’re friends with a lot of the insurance adjusters. We’d developed strong relationships with these hard-working professionals over many cases over many years. We have a lot of empathy for them and what they’re also going through. Candidly, they don’t like it either, the insurance industry has removed them and so much of their expertise from the calculation.
They know things have changed; they see it too, but they’re in a tough spot. It speaks to the broader issue that’s happening to the American worker with the rise of AI and companies’ reliance on technology and algorithms over actual human expertise, nuance, and discernment.
It’s interesting because some terrific trial lawyers who Ralph [Spooner], Tom [Spooner], or I used to wage war against are starting to call us. They either want to bring us in as co-counsel to fight alongside them on their biggest, toughest injuries, or just send us their best cases in exchange for a 30% referral
fee. They’re actually super excited and relieved to have us on their side.
They know our insider’s knowledge of how insurers make decisions can help persuade them to pay what they should. We’ve already had cases where we were able to negotiate for tens of thousands of percent increases over the best offer they’d been able to squeeze out of an insurance company. We’ve been able to turn final four-figure offers into sevenfigure settlements.
We understand that it’s a data-driven system. The adjustors input data points and the system kicks out authorization to pay a certain amount of money. You can’t fight the data points – they’re non-negotiable –so it’s a waste of time to try. Input [X] spits out offer [Y]. Most injury lawyers try to argue why [Y] is inadequate. That’s an argument that’s going to lose every time.
But, if you know what their data points are, then you can work within their system. You have to provide them with the information that recalculates the [X] variable, so it spits out [Y] times 10, or times 100, or times 100,000.
This often requires developing a specific type of additional evidence, but you can’t do it if you don’t have a comprehensive understanding of the how the insurance industry makes these decisions. That’s how we have been able to generate exponentially larger settlement offers. And the adjustors don’t argue much about it because their own system generated that number. We just helped them feed into it the data that recalculated it.
Those variables often include PTSD and other psychological, emotional, or mental health injuries. Accidents and injuries can be emotionally devastating, destroying a person’s peace of mind or ability to function.
Tragically, most plaintiffs’ lawyers don’t adequately value these “invisible” injuries because the insurance industry has historically refused to pay for them. We know how to credibly argue those types of injuries to win some remarkably big numbers that help our clients get the care they need. We recently got an Oregon state record $5.5 million-dollar uninsured motorist award for a client whose primary injury was PTSD.
LD: What can you tell us about your current caseload?
TS: Moody v. Oregon Community Credit Union came down from the Oregon Supreme Court last December.
USUALLY, THE WINNING LAWYER IS THE ONE WHO’S WILLING TO WORK HARDER. IT’S ALMOST A CLICHÉ TO SAY YOU ALSO HAVE TO BE AUTHENTIC, BUT I THINK THAT JUST MEANS BEING HONEST WITH YOURSELF, YOUR CLIENT, AND THE JURY.
Now Oregon lawyers are asking us to handle those cases for them. They know we have unique insight in this area from 50 years as defense lawyers. And our settlement numbers directly bear that out.
In fact, when we were on the defense side, we wrote the insurance industry’s amicus brief, arguing against Moody because Oregon law didn’t allow this claim. Of course, now that the Oregon Supreme Court elected to change the law and permit insurance bad faith actions, we applaud that for Oregon consumers. We’re able to use that tool as a potent weapon to force them to treat our clients with greater fairness and compassion.
LD: Can you give us an example?
TS: Sure. We had a terrific young lawyer bring us a case where his client was wrongfully denied benefits by her own insurance company under pretty egregious circumstances. She’d had to live in pain for an entire year without the surgery that she desperately needed.
We got the case a few weeks before the trial was to start. We immediately asked the judge to let us amend the Complaint to include an allegation of negligent claim handling and increase the prayer for relief by $2 million. This was a considerable amount, as the initial claim had been quite small.
The court acknowledged that it was cognizable under Moody and let us add the new claim. With that persuasive new threat, the case settled promptly (and confidentially). The client was thrilled to have her serious and legitimate injuries acknowledged and compensated.
LD: To go back a bit, what first drew you to the legal profession?
TS: I always wanted to be a lawyer and knew I wanted to be a trial lawyer. Law is a profession that I always aspired to and thought would be a great career for
me. I met Ralph Spooner when I was in college and told him I was planning to go to law school. He said, “Well, then you can come work for us if you want.”
So, I spent summers in Salem clerking at the firm. I licked stamps and envelopes, filed things – I started at the bottom and did all of it. When I was in school, Ralph would send me legal research projects to work on, and I’d send him my memos and analysis. I don’t know if he really needed it or if he was just trying to put a little cash in my pocket to help me pay for law school.
Regardless, when I graduated, Ralph told me if I wanted to work at the firm, there was a place for me. Ralph’s widely considered the best trial lawyer in Oregon; who wouldn’t want to learn how to try cases from the master?
LD: What are some of the qualities that you think make an excellent trial lawyer?
TS: Everything I learned about trials comes straight from Ralph. I’d say the most important things are to be polite and prepared. Usually, the winning lawyer is the one who’s willing to work harder. It’s almost a cliché to say you also have to be authentic, but I think that just means being honest with yourself, your client, and the jury.
LD: It sounds like Ralph was a great mentor to you.
TS: They don’t make them like Ralph anymore. He’s a throwback from a bygone era of absolute gentlemen, with a strong moral compass that points due north – he’s 100% ethical. Ralph is Oregon’s Atticus Finch – the guy everybody reveres and wants advice from. Lawyers from all over Oregon cold call him for advice, and he’s always taken those calls. I’m in the fortunate position to get to ask him questions every day.
I can’t tell you how many people have told me how lucky I am. Ralph’s the consummate professional –absolutely brilliant, but completely down to earth. I can’t possibly say enough good things.
ONE
OF THE LESSONS THAT RALPH TAUGHT ME
IS THE IDEA THAT IT TAKES A LOT OF GUTS TO “DO LESS.” KNOWING WHAT NOT TO DO IS AS IMPORTANT AS KNOWING WHAT TO DO.
You could fill a conference room with people whose legal careers he’s influenced and enhanced. There’s a long list of successful attorneys who have worked at our firm and been mentored by him. When word gets around that Ralph’s trying a case, the area’s top trial lawyers and sitting judges come in to watch and learn. No other lawyer gets that level of respect.
LD: Have you had a chance to be a mentor to younger lawyers yourself?
TS: Yes, I mentor a few of the younger lawyers at the firm – we use that analogy, “the wolf pack.” We attack everything together and we talk every single day. Ralph’s had an individual hand mentoring all of them as well, of course, but they haven’t gotten to spend as much time in the courtroom with him as I have. But they try cases with me. We all believe in paying it forward.
So, I pass along the lessons that Ralph taught me. One of my favorites is the idea that it takes a lot of guts to “do less.” Knowing what not to do is as important as knowing what to do.
Civil attorneys don’t spend as much time in front of juries as criminal defense lawyers do. I’ve heard judges say that they don’t enjoy civil attorneys trying cases in their courtrooms. This is especially true for younger lawyers who tend to “shoot at anything that moves.”
That is, when it comes to objecting, sure you can, but should you? You have to consider that people won’t remember what you say, but they’ll remember how you made them feel.
If there’s something that’s technically objectionable, you always need to ask yourself, “do I want to stop the trial and highlight this issue for the jury?” Because they’ll remember both your objection and the objectionable evidence. So that’s what I mean by “doing less.” Sometimes, you’re helping your case by not objecting and just letting the information slide by. And understandably, young lawyers have a really hard time with that. It comes with hundreds and hundreds of hours of real, hands-on, in-the-trenches
trial experience. And that’s almost impossible for most lawyers to get these days.
Additionally, when you’re taking a defendant’s deposition and you get some great testimony, the young lawyer’s instinct is to excitedly ask 10 more questions about it. But the right thing to do – the “Ralph” thing to do – is to always “have one in the chamber.”
Recognize what you got, don’t react, and quickly ask another question on a different subject area.
Move on, so that that great testimony you elicited is preserved intact, and you’ll be able to use it against them at trial. Don’t give the deponent a chance to realize what they’ve said and fix it or water it down.
LD: Do you think that your style has changed at all since moving over to the plaintiff side?
TS: That’s a good question; I’ve been thinking a lot about this. I still believe in substance over style. We never posed or postured as defense attorneys. We approached our defense practice that way, and now we handle plaintiffs’ cases the same way; we do every ounce of the hard work. It’s not about flash, it’s not about being coy or clever, it’s about putting in the time, being honest and authentic, and having integrity. And of course, telling a compelling story the jury can believe in.
I think that on the defense side I was good at being the chess master, being the strategic and procedural gamesmen. That skill doesn’t always transfer well; in injury cases you don’t win high-value recoveries on technicalities. But what does transfer well is our firm motto – “See you in court.” That’s our ethos. If we can get you into the courtroom, we have the skills to win, that’s what we mean.
I don’t especially like gun metaphors, but in this situation, we see ourselves as the old-west gunslinger who is standing alone on the side of righteousness, ready to protect those who can’t protect themselves. I’ll meet you at high noon. Bring a gun, and it better be loaded.
ANGELA MASON THE COCHRAN FIRM
(DOTHAN, ALA.)
BY EMILY JACKOWAY
ONE DAY IN 1992, ANGELA MASON’S
mother found an ad for a legal assistant job in the newspaper. Mason, who had recently gotten her master’s degree in English and was teaching American Literature at Auburn University, was at a pivotal moment in her life: deciding whether to get her PhD in English or go to law school. A friend suggested that she try working in a law firm to see if she’d find a legal career compelling. So, when Mason’s mother came across the ad for the job at Cherry, Givens, Peters, Lockett & Diaz, she cut it out of the paper and mailed it to her daughter.
That clipping would change Mason’s life.
Her experience as a legal assistant at Cherry Givens inspired Mason to go to law school. Later, that firm would become The Cochran Firm – a firm that Mason rejoined upon graduating. 25 years later, she is the managing partner of the firm’s Dothan, Ala. office and serves on the board of directors for the firm. With 42 locations throughout the U.S., The Cochran Firm’s attorneys have recovered more than $35B for victims of personal injury, vehicular accidents and medical malpractice.
Mason focuses on pursuing justice for victims of personal injury and corporate negligence on a large scale: She is known for her involvement in major mass torts and class actions. In what was the highest consumer verdict in the U.S. in 2007, Mason helped lead efforts against chemical company DuPont over alleged pollution from its zinc-smelting facility. The verdict came to $390M and included efforts for cleanup and prevention – real-world impacts that Mason considers vital to improving her clients’ lives. She has also been involved in the litigations against medical device company DePuy, oral contraceptive brands Yasmin and Yaz and is currently active in the 3M earplugs litigation. In such large litigations, Mason finds the key is focusing on the individual struggle of her clients and fighting for them on a deeply personal level.
Mason is a member of the Lawdragon 500 Leading Plaintiff Consumer Lawyers
LD: After law school, did you intend to return to what is now The Cochran Firm?
AM: Yes. I had other options, but my heart was here.
LD: What told you that?
AM: I liked the people, first of all. I liked my former boss well enough that he would eventually become my law partner. In fact, three of my former bosses became my law partners.
But I was really motivated by the focus on helping make real changes in the lives of people who needed help. I wanted to go to law school because that’s what we were doing at the firm, and I wanted to be able to do more of that. When I decided to come back, I fit right back in doing the kind of work that I wanted to do.
LD: You’ve mentioned that young attorneys – especially women – need to prove themselves indispensable to advance their careers. How did you do that early on?
AM: Within my first year at the firm, I started helping
on an appellate decision in a wrongful death case. I wasn’t assigned to the case, but I offered to help. The next thing you know, I was working all night and helping with the preparation for the Supreme Court case. I would offer to help, and it would build on itself until I had a role in whatever case it was. I tried to know more about the case than everybody else, and that helped, too.
LD: It’s that hard work and complete dedication.
AM: Yes. Know the facts; know the discovery; know the case.
LD: You started out in single-event matters – how did you start building up work in mass torts and other larger litigations?
AM: I think my first real involvement was with the multi-district litigation against the manufacturer of the oral contraceptive Yaz. A firm we had worked with on another case was trial counsel for the bellwether cases. So, they brought us in to work with them on that, and that’s really how I got started in the mass tort arena.
LD: What did you learn from that first involvement?
AM : At the bellwether stage of an MDL, you’re back working with an individual client. Before the bellwethers, it’s general discovery, general causation and so on. You’re not so much working for one single plaintiff, even though you have single plaintiffs involved in the litigation. But once we got involved with a bellwether section, it was almost like a singleevent case. It shifted from reviewing documents to working with the individual plaintiff who had been injured and needed help.
LD: Is that still what you enjoy most about those litigations?
AM: Absolutely.
Right now, we are working on a number of cases in the 3M earplug litigation. Once I started working with one of our clients, it became a lot more personal. It becomes more urgent when you have a specific client that you get to know and you don’t want to let him down. He hired you to work for him and you want to do your best.
LD: What other cases have been formative in your career, or stand out to you personally?
AM : One case I had early on was a car wreck in Atlanta. The car stalled and our client was in the backseat. The passengers in the front got out of the car, but our client did not – then a truck rammed into him on I-85, killing him. That was a case I worked
from the very beginning, from preserving the car to preparing for trial before we ended up settling the case.
Even now, I continue to hear from his widow. I can feel good knowing I know I made a positive change for her and her children and secured those kids’ future when dad wasn’t going to be there anymore to help do that. Then, there was a local case where a truck rammed into my client, who was turning onto the road on a tractor. We thought that he was going to die. But he didn’t – he recovered. It was truly a miracle.
When we got good results, I went to the drugstore where his wife worked to tell her, and she came out from behind the counter to hug me. At that point, I thought, “That’s what I want – to make a difference in people’s lives.” It wasn’t even the most valuable case in terms of settlement money, but I knew that I had taken a burden off these people and improved their lives.
LD: Tell me a bit about the DuPont case. You were able to not only achieve a significant dollar amount, but the case resulted in improving the soil and water quality. Tell me more about those real-world results.
AM : Firstly, there was cleanup. We put a soil remediation program in place, which involved replacing all the soil that the scientists felt had been contaminated. It was really a fresh new start for people who wanted to stay there in their homes.
Similarly, they cleaned out the interior of people’s homes. Before the litigation, you could find layers and layers of contamination of toxic materials in the dust of peoples’ attics that collected over the years. There was also a fund that allowed families to go stay in temporary housing while their old house was being taken care of.
Second, the result provided for medical screenings, which is a big deal in West Virginia. People who don’t necessarily go to the doctor were able to take advantage of annual screening for the different cancers that might develop as a result of exposure to these chemicals.
A lot of times litigation is just money. But this time we were able to get actual remediation, repairs and medical screenings.
LD: What kinds of cases are keeping you busy right now?
AM : The case that’s taking up most of our time right now is the opioid litigation in Nevada, which
is separate from the MDL. We are working with two other firms representing the state of Nevada in their claims for abatement and remediation related to the opioid crisis, and that has a trial date this summer. Then, across offices we’re working on the MDL involving the chemical hair relaxers. We’re getting cases in daily that we’re screening right now to see if they qualify.
LD: Tell me a bit about that litigation.
AM: Last year, the National Institute of Health issued the findings from a study showing that African American women who had used chemical hair straighteners had a higher incidence of uterine cancer. There had been some studies before that, and our firm had been looking at it before that study came out. But when the 2022 study was released, that opened the gates.
The case has tremendous social implications because of the way Black women have basically been forced by social pressures to use hair relaxers since the age of five or six – sometimes sooner than that. And now, it turns out that they’ve been using this cancer-causing product that’s a threat on their lives.
LD: That’s awful.
So, you use the network of The Cochran Firm’s nationwide offices for that litigation. Outside of that network, what else do you enjoy about the firm?
AM: I have some really great friends here. For instance, Karen Evans, one of the main attorneys in the D.C. office, is a great friend and mentor.
It’s changing, but in our particular field, it’s not unusual that there aren’t a whole lot of women. So, this network of people across regional offices was another way for me to get to know other women in the field. Once we get together, we realize that we all have the same concerns and ideas on how to address them.
LD: Tell me about the development of women’s presence in the law throughout your career. How have you seen women lawyers find more of a place in the industry over the years?
AM: The prevalence of women in this particular field has increased. I think for a while, women tended to migrate towards the defense firms. But that definitely has changed over time to the point that it’s not unusual to have more women resumes than male resumes coming in.
LD: What do you think initiated that switch with more women getting into plaintiffs’ law?
AM : It may be that as one woman gets in, she becomes more welcoming to the others. You’re making inroads in so that more people can be included. And it’s just more normalized. When I started, it wasn’t unusual for people to think I was the court reporter.
LD: Wow. So, going forward, what else can be done to help make the profession even more equitable and accessible for women?
AM : A lot of it is work-life balance and trying to make room for that. Another part is, at least in my experience, that women still tend to get pigeonholed into support positions, like writing and organizing. I don’t know that I have answers yet, but it is a common concern that we all have. Even just even being aware of that problem can allow you to try to redirect some of it.
For instance, one of my associates is a woman, and she’s an excellent writer and very organized, but I’m very conscious of the fact that I don’t want her to get pigeonholed simply as doing that. She’s a trial lawyer, too.
LD: That awareness is so important. Then, looking at the plaintiffs’ bar more broadly, what trends are you seeing in your practice area right now?
AM: In the mass tort arena, at least, defendants have become more and more unwilling to engage in a global settlement prior to trials. Firms can no longer have thousands of cases and assume that they’re going to be settled. You really have to have the support structure in place in order to not just work up the cases, but to be able to try them.
LD: What do you find most fulfilling about your practice – and has that changed over time?
AM : It all comes back to being able to improve someone’s life, whether that is on an individual basis or on a mass tort level. That has never changed.
What has changed some is the scope. I started out helping one injured person, and that’s very fulfilling to me.
Now, I do that on a larger scale. You have to be more patient in mass torts, because it’s not always easy to see how this broad effort by dozens of firms is going to trickle down to provide real relief to one person, but eventually it does. And you get to know those people just as well. They’re a part of our lives for years, so it’s always a little bittersweet when you say, “Okay. Here’s the check. Call us if you need us.”
CIVIL RIGHTS & EMPLOYMENT
RYAN SABA
ROSEN SABA (LOS ANGELES)
BY EMILY JACKOWAY
LITIGATOR RYAN SABA HAS ALWAYS CHARTED
his own path. After law school, he knew he wanted to create his own practice – a firm that embodied his unshakable principles and took on a wide range of cases. All he was missing, at the time, was experience.
It was then that Saba first met attorney Jim Rosen, who had recently started a new practice himself. The two struck a deal: Saba would act as Rosen’s associate at the new firm, while Rosen would train him in both being a trial lawyer and running a law firm. The relationship blossomed, and the two stayed together and have been partners at their firm, Rosen Saba, for nearly 25 years.
Just as Saba’s ambition and creativity brought him to a firm leadership position early in his career, his dedication to his principles has seen him take on a caseload dedicated to the clients he cares about, no matter the practice area. He litigates employment, civil rights, personal injury, consumer litigation, professional responsibility, women’s rights cases and more – on both sides of the V.
He’s seen landmark victories on both sides, as well, including a federal jury trial in August 2023 in which he and his Rosen Saba team obtained a verdict of $62M for a breach of confidentiality contract matter. That was not his only significant verdict, he also obtained the largest personal injury jury verdict in California in 2020. That case, on behalf of the family of a teenage boy who was killed at a crosswalk, garnered a $25.6M result. On the defense side, just this year Saba won a defense jury verdict in favor of a landowner who was sued for more than $10M in lost profits.
One common thread between his cases is how often they come to a jury trial: an environment where Saba thrives. A member of the American Board of Trial Advocates, Saba is a fierce believer in the strength of the American legal system and the right to a jury trial. “If you look at the way disputes are resolved in other countries throughout the world, there are places where an individual doesn’t get due process or fair treatment. ABOTA preserves future generations’ right to have access to a fair system,” he says.
Saba’s work has earned him a spot in the Lawdragon 500 Leading Litigators in America and the 2023 and 2022 Lawdragon 500 Leading Plaintiff Consumer Lawyers. His work in employment and civil rights litigation has earned him a place in the Lawdragon 500 Leading Civil Rights & Plaintiff Employment Lawyers list three years running.
Lawdragon: What brought you to a legal career?
Ryan Saba: I attribute my path to a legal career to my parents. Growing up, my dad would constantly challenge me on what was right and wrong and engage us in arguments just to learn how to be a good person and develop as a human being. I’ve been on that path ever since I was in grammar school – knowing I was going to go to law school to specifically be a trial lawyer.
LD: Why specifically a trial lawyer?
RS: I’ve always enjoyed the art of taking complicated facts and law and distilling it down into an easy story that a jury can understand and be persuaded that our client is correct and the other guy’s wrong.
LD: What are some of the ways you go about doing that?
RS: Being direct with juries is always more persuasive than not. Juries tend to have shorter attention spans these days than they had 10 years ago. So, you need to get to the point and not save the best for last. In the old days, it was always great to pull out an ‘Aha’ moment late in trial; these days it needs to come out early because jurors make up their minds faster than they used to.
LD: Did you start out in a particular practice area and then expand or were you always keen to grab from different places?
RS: We really pride ourselves on being lawyers first as opposed to a personal injury lawyer or an employment lawyer or a business litigator. We enjoy the intellectual aspects of different types of cases and the competitive aspects of varying fact patterns. We also enjoy the civility of meeting other lawyers in other areas of practice of law. By handling all types of cases, it allows us to be flexible and travel in different circles, which is a benefit of being a trial lawyer in a large community like California.
There are certainly types of cases that I enjoy more than others. It’s usually the cutting-edge and legally or intellectually challenging cases that I favor. Creating new pathways in the areas of various laws is intriguing.
YOU CAN NEVER CHANGE WHAT HAPPENED IN THE PAST,
BUT YOU CAN CERTAINLY HELP PEOPLE OUT IN THE WAY THAT THEY ARE ACCOMMODATED FOR BY PROVIDING THEM WITH A GREAT RESULT.
LD: Tell me a bit about your professional responsibility practice.
RS: One of the biggest honors you can receive is being referred cases from former opposing counsel, and it’s better yet when former opposing counsel or people that you know in the industry ask you to represent them.
Sometimes, people go through situations where they need ethics counsel, and I feel a great sense of pride when they ask me to help them in that arena for a couple of reasons. One, it means they respect me and believe that I will do a good job for them. Two, I feel it’s important to make sure that California lawyers are held to a high standard.
I’m hopeful that in this era of new State Bar rules, lawyers will be held to that standard of being upstanding, respectable members of the community. Respect has to be earned and practiced on a day-today basis. It’s unfortunate that our system has seen some pretty public failures of that responsibility lately, and it’s incumbent upon all lawyers to try and change that storyline.
LD: Tell me about working on both sides of the V. Do you find knowing each side intimately is helpful when working on the other?
RS: For sure. I play mental chess all the time. I think, “What would I do if I were in their shoes? What can I do to counterbalance that?”
I think handling both sides of the equation makes you stronger on each. Quite frankly, I think more lawyers should do it. It makes you a more well-rounded lawyer, and it allows you to appreciate the other side’s arguments and come to more compromises. It’s also in the client’s best interest if you can appreciate what the other side’s arguments are and then explain them to the client thoroughly and completely so that the client is prepared for a potential opposing argument.
LD: Which cases or clients have stuck with you throughout your career?
RS: Sometimes it’s not about the big victories. It’s about the people that you were able to help.
I remember representing an individual who was about 80 years old. He was being sued for a lot of money after he’d spent his whole life accumulating a nice nest egg. We went to a jury trial, and when we won, he was so happy he literally started crying. He felt vindicated. You know you did your job helping a person like that.
Those kinds of cases can come from both the defense side and the plaintiffs’ side. We once represented an individual who was significantly hurt in an automobile accident, and he needed lawyers who would step up and take the case to trial. While the amount of money that was being offered to him was significant, it wasn’t enough to take care of him for the rest of his life, which he needed due to his injuries. I believe a lot of lawyers out there may have been tempted to take a lower number to avoid a jury trial. But, sometimes, the only way to maximize value for your clients is to have a jury trial.
You can never change what happened in the past, but you can certainly help people out in the way that they are accommodated for by providing them with a great result. So, we try to give the best result we can for every single client. Sometimes those are small results and sometimes those are big results. But if they leave our firm better than they started, regardless of what side they’re on, we’ve done our job.
LD: I know the big verdicts aren’t always the most important ones, but tell me about the case involving a teenager who was tragically hit by a car at a crosswalk.
RS: Nicholas Tusant was a high school kid who was walking across the street at a crosswalk, and he got hit by a car. The driver had a minimum California policy. We looked at this case with our co-counsel, a man named Robert Karwin, and instead of just saying, “Oh, sorry, there’s nothing we could do to help you,” we actually went out in the streets and
I DON’T THINK I’VE EVER TRULY DISAGREED WITH A JURY’S VERDICT. THEY CAREFULLY WEIGH THE FACTS AND DO THEIR BEST TO RENDER A VERDICT THAT THEY THINK IS FAIR.
knocked on neighbors’ doors. We started asking questions like, “Have you seen any other accidents happen at this crosswalk?”
We learned that that’s what was going on: This crosswalk was not in a safe location. We would never have known that without boots on the ground talking to people who live by that area and see it on a dayto-day basis. That kind of investigative work is so impactful. You can’t learn just by looking at papers or reading police reports.
So, once we did our investigation, we felt that there was a case to be made for an improperly designed crosswalk. We prosecuted it as a dangerous condition, and ultimately the jury agreed with us.
LD : What cases have been keeping you busy recently?
RS: I just finished a trade secrets federal trial. It was fascinating because it had all the elements of lying, cheating and stealing that always intrigues a jury. The case surrounded a former employee who took confidential information and started a competing company. The jury agreed with our side and awarded our client $62M. The jury recognized that what this individual did was not just legally wrong, but also ethically wrong.
LD: What else do you find compels a jury?
RS: Human stories compel juries. If someone’s been wronged, juries will step up and rectify that wrong.
I find juries to be very smart. They try really hard to get it right. I don’t think I’ve ever truly disagreed with a jury’s verdict. They carefully weigh the facts and do their best to render a verdict that they think is fair. It’s a very powerful process for an individual to judge another individual or corporation. You are giving this power to a group of people who may only do this once in their life, but they get that power to make a decision of who’s right and who’s wrong. This has been going on since our country was formed, and it’s an amazing process. While nothing’s ever perfect,
it really is the fairest way for two individuals or two companies to resolve a dispute.
LD: Tell me a bit about the firm. What do you feel makes your group unique?
RS: Jim Rosen and I have worked really hard to create an environment of strong lawyers who support each other. We act in unison, and no one lawyer is better than the other lawyer; we are all a team. It’s really enjoyable to watch a young lawyer participate in new or different types of cases for the first time. Or it’s great to watch people who maybe only did one type of law their whole life realize that they like being on the other side of the V or in a different area of law. It injects a new level of passion into their career. I think our attorneys are happier getting to work on cases that they like as opposed to just cases that are assigned to them because a firm services a particular client or type of business. I feel fortunate and blessed to work with everyone at our firm.
LD: What other advice do you find yourself giving to early career lawyers most often?
RS: Try to get as much experience in different areas of law and as much experience inside the courtroom as possible. If you get the opportunity to do so, you should relish every time you get the chance to go to court and watch other lawyers, because the best way to learn is not by reading books but rather doing it yourself or watching people do it.
LD: Looking back from those early days to now, what have you found most fulfilling about your career?
RS: Helping people. The only way people end up contacting us in the first place is if they have a problem, and they’re looking to us to help solve that problem. Ever since the beginning when Jim Rosen and I started together, we always emphasized the clients’ goals over our personal fee, which is the way it should be done. It’s fulfilling to accomplish a client’s personal goal.
GARY COHEN GROSSMAN
ROTH (CORAL GABLES, FLA.)
BY EMILY JACKOWAY
GARY COHEN’S COMMITMENT TO FIGHTING
for victims of medical malpractice is allencompassing. For 43 years, it has been his life’s work. Today, as private corporations put pressure on medical malpractice cases in his home state of Florida, he is only fighting harder.
“I didn’t grow up on the rich side of the tracks,” says Cohen. The attorney spent his early years living in a housing project in Brooklyn; his father was a cook in a restaurant. After moving to Florida at the age of 13, Cohen worked three jobs at a time to put himself through college and law school. “I saw that people who don’t have the advantages of status or wealth have a much harder time in life,” Cohen says. He knew he wanted to help change that – either through the law or medicine. So, he combined the two, focusing almost solely on medical malpractice cases for his entire career.
Following time working with medical malpractice lawyer and doctor Arthur Cohen and malpractice icon Shelley Schlesinger, Cohen came to renowned plaintiffs’ injury firm Grossman Roth Yaffa Cohen in 1995. The firm, which started with an almost exclusively medical malpractice focus, has recently litigated recent major cases in other areas, including the Champlain Towers South collapse in Surfside, Fla. Cohen has garnered landmark wins in his community and beyond. In one series of cases, he litigated multiple cases against former OB/GYN Berto Lopez, under whose care Cohen’s client and fi ve other women died. As a result of the cases, Lopez’s license was permanently revoked. Recently, Cohen favorably settled multiple matters concerning defective spinal cord simulators. The devices, which are made to ease back pain, can cause paralysis when they move where they shouldn’t – which is what happened to Cohen’s clients. One client was paralyzed from the neckdown, with her mind intact, but unable to move except for small movements to a single finger. Cohen, passionate about financing adequate care for his clients – including proper equipment and round-the-clock nursing – settled both recent cases
for an impressive eight figures each. Vitally, in both cases, the clients’ doctors chose to stop using spinal cord simulators on all future patients.
Cohen’s advocacy is wholistic, extending past the important work of taking on individual doctors and medical devices. Cohen is increasingly concerned about private hospital ownership impacting both care and legislation surrounding medical malpractice cases in Florida. “Insurance companies and corporations like HCA, Tenet and others pour God knows how many millions of dollars every year into each state to buy these legislators to put more and more restrictions on injured patients while they get more and more profi t,” he says.
Cohen has his work cut out for him.
That’s good. He thrives on it.
Lawdragon: Tell me about meeting your first boss as a lawyer, Arthur Cohen, and fi nding medical malpractice as a field.
Gary Cohen: One of my jobs was as a stock boy at Burdines – which is now Macy’s – in North Miami Beach. I did that for eight years, starting at 17. My mother got a job there, as well. When I was in law school, my mother’s manager’s son was a lawyer and he got me an interview at his fi rm as a law clerk. While I was there, Arthur Cohen, who was a very good friend of this other lawyer I worked for, asked to borrow me for a medical malpractice case. I absolutely fell in love with medical malpractice immediately. He offered me a job, and I grabbed it.
LD: What did you love about it?
GC : First of all, trying to help a family with a braininjured baby, which was that first case. It was so difficult for them and being able to help that family really grabbed me. And I was very attracted to learning medicine at the same time. I never looked back at any other area of law. There’s nothing I’d rather do.
LD: Did you have any other mentors?
GC : Yes. I had four mentors, the fi rst one being Arthur Cohen. Then, Sheldon Schlesinger, a worldfamous malpractice lawyer in Fort Lauderdale. He hired me as the head of his malpractice division in 1985, and I was there for 10 years. It was not an easy 10 years, but I learned every type of medicine that you can possibly think of. My library is filled with medical books, not legal books. So, that’s when I became a true medical malpractice lawyer. And,
most importantly, I became a trial lawyer.
LD: What do you enjoy about trial work?
GC : It’s the funniest thing. I grew up a very skinny, shy kid all the way into my 30s. I was 128 pounds and I’m six feet tall. But I learned that I could talk in a courtroom and really connect with juries. In other words, connect with people. The first time I ever stood up in a courtroom, all of that other stuff went away. I was now a lawyer. I wasn’t scared or anxious. It was natural to me.
LD: You mentioned four mentors. Who are the last two?
GC : Well, Stuart [Grossman] and Neal [Roth].
LD: Of course.
GC : I learned from them to understand that most of the defense bar is just doing their job. They have families. They’re humans. Shelly’s attitude was, “They’re the enemy. Don’t ever talk to them. Don’t ever give them an inch.” I learned quickly from the professionalism of Stuart and Neal to wipe that out of my system.
LD: What cases from these early years stand out in your memory?
GC: One is the very first case I tried as lead counsel in January, 1986. It was about a year after I joined his firm. It was a complex case where a young man on a motorcycle ran into another car. We contended that the hospital did not consider a neck, back or head injury. They sort of strapped him up and put him in a corner for three hours. At this point, he’s shaking and moving, and it turned out he had a broken neck. When you move like that and you’re not stabilized, you paralyze yourself. And that’s what happened. There was no offer made on the case. It had laid in the office for fi ve years before I even got there. Shelley’s son was a new lawyer, and Shelley said to take him into court. “Get some trial experience. You’re not going to win this, but just do the best you can,” he said.
Well, Scott and I decided to do things a little differently. The hospital’s defense was that he was permanently paralyzed from the moment he hit that car. So, we went investigating on our own. We know that they claimed they worked on him immediately when he got to the hospital, which was at about noon, and realized that he was paralyzed. We went to the hospital and got the original X-rays, and we looked up in the corner of the X-ray, where the
timestamp showed they were done between 3:10 and 3:20. The defense didn’t know about that. So, I waited the entire trial and I put the other witnesses on, including the doctor, who, by the way, had crashed his private ambulance plane and was found to have a couple of thousand pounds of marijuana in it and a cache of guns. So, he was convicted of three felonies and had his license stripped.
LD: Wow.
GC : Then, we did closing statements. The defense lawyer repeatedly said, “Does it make any sense to you that we would wait this long? Does it make any sense to you that we wouldn’t do X-rays immediately?” He was making fun of me, basically. So, I got up quietly, and I walked up to the jury and showed them the clock on the X-rays. Then I said, “He asked, ‘Does it make any sense to you?’ Well, does this not prove it to you?” The first thing the jury did when they went to deliberate was to ask for a device that would allow them to look at the X-rays.
LD: Wow, what a case. Then, looking at more recent matters, you’re passionate about fighting against private hospital ownership. Tell me about that.
GC : I’m currently suing a hospital owned by a multibillion-dollar corporation.
In my extensive experience with hospitals owned by this corporation, the first thing they do when they come in is fire a bunch of people. The second thing they do is see where else they can cut the budget –machinery, operating rooms, MRIs. Whatever they can cut, they cut. That’s because it’s a corporation, not a healthcare provider. They couldn’t care less about what happens to the patient.
In this case, there was a lovely couple in their thirties down here on vacation from Arkansas. They had been married for a few years, and they were now going to move to Florida and plan a family. He had a blood pressure issue, and he developed what’s called a hypertensive bleed. He went to the hospital with a severe headache. A neurosurgeon saw him, and he was fully conscious, alert, oriented, the whole thing. He was fine, but he was transferred to the stroke center.
Almost immediately, his respiratory rate doubled. Now, a normal respiratory rate is somewhere around eight to 16. His went from 16 when he got there to the forties. Overnight, it got worse. It was staying in the 40 to 45 range. Nobody can sustain forty breaths per minute over a long period of
time. His mentation changed dramatically. He was hyperventilating. His doctor testified, “If they told me about 40 breaths per minute, I would’ve been in there at bedside and evaluating.”
An MRI for him was ordered at three o’clock in the afternoon. But over the next few hours, it wasn’t done. And frankly, it shouldn’t have been done because he wasn’t in the shape to lay flat on a bed. Now, it’s a big hospital and it was designated a comprehensive stroke center, meaning you have to have everything in place for any kind of stroke and you have to be able to do it quickly. They designate them that way so that they can get all the stroke patients in and make a huge profit from their care. Turns out they had one MRI machine, which I’ve never heard of before. It’s an 800-bed hospital. It’s the only stroke center in that area. They’re saving money. Simple. Soaking profit by cutting staff, by cutting machinery, by cutting everything they can cut.
So, fi nally, at nine o’clock at night, even though he was having very labored breathing, the nurse brings him to the MRI instead of calling a doctor. They try multiple times to put him in the MRI, but his breathing was so bad that he was moving too much. We know that the MRI attempt finished at 9:28. From 9:28 to 9:45, for 17 minutes, there’s no record. At 9:45, 17 minutes later, there’s a “Code Blue” – respiratory and cardiac arrest.
Then, it takes from 9:45 to 9:52, seven minutes, to get a respiratory therapist there. Not even a doctor, but a respiratory therapist to come in and intubate him. During that entire seven minutes, his brain is being damaged more and more and more because there’s no oxygen going to his brain and other organs. At 9:52, the RT opens his mouth to check the airway before intubating and finds “evidence of aspiration.” (That means vomitus that has been inhaled.)He’s not getting any oxygen, bottom line. Within a minute she has him intubated and his heart rate comes back one minute later. Gives you an idea of what you can do if you do it right.
Unfortunately, he has now suffered what’s called an anoxic encephalopathy, meaning he’s lost complete oxygen to his brain for a period of time that causes severe brain damage. The couple lived in in Arkansas, but the wife couldn’t take care of him herself. So, they had to fly him to New York where her aunt has a basement in her house where they now live. He is conscious, but he doesn’t understand a lot of things. He can’t do anything. And remember,
he was 36 years old, and he will be like that forever. His wife is very dedicated to him. She’s been his sole caretaker because the way our system works in this country. They can’t have a family now. They need a house with a place for nurses and aides to live 24/7. They had plans, and they’re all gone.
LD : What do you see as some of the practical, systemic solutions to reducing cases like this?
GC : Medicare isn’t dropping hospitals with low ratings. This particular hospital is rated as a one out of five for quality on the Medicare website and has been so for years. So, if you want institutional change, that’s one way: You say that through the federal government, Medicare is not funding executives, but healthcare. And if hospitals aren’t living up to the standards, they have 90 days, or they’re automatically cut off.
Obviously, getting rid of bad doctors is probably the number one thing as far as malpractice. I helped get rid of one. And that’s in 40 years. They’ll slap the hand of a couple others. But nobody really oversees the hospital as far as disciplinary measures. The structure isn’t there for it. You want to fix something? That’s the biggest thing you can fix.
LD: What other issues are you seeing in healthcare?
GC: Managed care is becoming the standard. Large profit-based companies are coming into Florida and other states and they’re buying up practices. In other words, ER doctors are owned by a big nationwide ER company. Within the next 10 years, you’ll see almost every hospital and medical practice forced into managed care where they get a salary, and they better meet certain guidelines for the profi t or they’re out. That’s happening to medicine because of profi t and politics. I pity young people in this country that have to grow up on their system like that.
LD : What do you fi nd most fulfi lling about your career?
GC : I’ve been able to help thousands of people live a better life and get a feeling of justice when there are catastrophic damages. You can’t bring the loved one back, but we’ve made a statement. Somebody has to acknowledge what they did. That satisfies the clients more than the money, believe it or not. It makes a difference. And if you ask me about my job, what I feel best about is I think I’ve made a difference.
STEVE MORRISSEY
SUSMAN GODFREY (SEATTLE)
BY MATTHEW HELLER AND ALISON PREECE
IN MARCH 2016, RESIDENTS OF FLINT,
Mich., filed suit against two engineering firms and multiple government entities, alleging they were liable for their roles in exposing the predominantly Black community to toxic levels of lead in its drinking water. Since then, the litigation over the Flint water crisis has swollen to epic proportions, with more than a dozen law firms, and more than two dozen attorneys, representing plaintiffs claiming exposure to the contaminated water. To date, their efforts have yielded a $626M settlement with the State of Michigan, the City of Flint and other government entities – the largest civil settlement in Michigan history.
A class trial of professional negligence claims against one of the engineering firms, Veolia North America, is scheduled for February. According to the plaintiffs, Veolia failed to identify the lack of any corrosion control system and corroding water pipes that caused the contamination, instead making the problem worse by recommending that the City of Flint double the dose of highly corrosive ferric chloride that it added to the water supply. Jurors in August 2022 were unable to reach a verdict over the liability of Veolia and another engineering firm, Lockheed, Andrews & Newman, causing a mistrial in a case brought by individual plaintiffs. LAN reached a settlement of the claims against it earlier this year.
Steve Morrissey, a Seattle, Wash.-based partner with the national litigation firm Susman Godfrey, has been involved in the plaintiffs’ team almost since the beginning of the litigation. As a member of the Executive Committee for Interim Class Counsel and co-chair of the Expert Committee, he has helped shape the legal strategy for challenging the conduct of the engineering firms and government officials and seeking compensation for lead poisoning, property damage and other injuries resulting from the contaminated water.
Morrissey is no stranger to complex litigation. He’s currently serving as co-lead counsel in ongoing class actions for North Carolina residents seeking compensation from Chemours and DuPont for the contamination of the water supply in the Cape
Fear River area with PFAS. He’s also representing members of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Board of Trade, claiming rights in CME’s electronic trading floor. He’s represented Flutter in a multi-billion-dollar arbitration with FOX over FOX’s right to invest in FanDuel, won a jury trial against Beats Electronics involving the design for Beats headphones, and sued Spotify for infringing the rights of music copyright owners.
Morrissey also recently helped win a confidential settlement worth hundreds of millions of dollars for investors in a cryptocurrency and blockchain startup. He has also defended clients in complex litigation matters, including the NASDAQ stock exchange in a fraud action brought by the Jefferies & Co. investment firm.
In terms of toxic tort litigation, though, it doesn’t get much bigger than the Flint water crisis cases. Lawdragon caught up with Morrissey as he prepares for the Veolia trial.
Lawdragon: How did you become involved in bringing legal claims on behalf of Flint residents?
Steve Morrissey : It was kind of convoluted but another lawyer we work with picked up on the role of the engineers [in the Flint water crisis]. We investigated that claim for a number of months and were initially planning to focus on a class case against the engineering firms. But then over time, as the case got organized, we added the claims against the state and city defendants as well, took on a role as part of the lead group for the class plaintiffs, and the team here has managed large aspects of the litigation since, including the governmental claims and the engineering claims. And now we have a certified issue class against the Veolia engineering firm that is set for trial in February.
LD: How did you figure out that the state had a big role here and had liability?
SM: Well, it was clear the state had a big role to play from the beginning. Navigating the qualified immunity issues was difficult and we obtained a good ruling from the appellate court on that several years ago. And that prompted the legislature to push toward a settlement of the claims against the governmental defendants. It took, I think it was 18 months, for the whole settlement process to work itself out. And then once the settlement was approved, there was an appeal process from objections to the settlement that took another couple of years. So it’s been a very drawn out process.
LD: Why was this was such a protracted struggle?
SM: My cases all seem to tend to take a long time. We have a case in North Carolina where I’m colead, involving chemical dissemination of the water supply in the Cape River Basin from a DuPont plant. And that case has been going on since 2017, I think. So it’s not unusual for these environmental cases to take a long time. And the Flint water crisis, when it happened, was front page news nationwide. You had lead at these concentrations affecting children in a concentrated area for a discrete period of time with no real explanation for how anyone could have let it happen. You had levels of incompetence and terrible advice at various levels that led to it happening. And there was the failure to deal with it once it started happening. It all sort of cascaded and led to it being very high profile and obviously a lot of litigation.
LD : What were some of the hurdles that you encountered in the case and how did you overcome them?
SM: There were hurdles in terms of where the case would be litigated – s tate court versus federal court, what kinds of claims would be litigated, state claims versus federal claims. There were various remands and removals and then fights over how it would be organized and structured and which group would end up having it. That all took more than a year, maybe closer to two, for it to sort itself out. Then there were motions to dismiss. There was an appeal from a decision finding that claims against the state officials could proceed notwithstanding their qualified immunity defense. There’s obviously a lot of discovery. There are parallel criminal proceedings in state court that everyone had to pay attention to. As a result, we had witnesses who would show up for depositions and take the Fifth because they were subject to the criminal case. And then Covid happened, so that obviously slows down discovery and everything else. There was the settlement process and figuring out when cases would be tried.
The court ultimately certified a class for portions of the case, but then others were not in a class. So we’re working together with co-liaison counsel who are representing individual personal injury plaintiffs. And we’ve generally worked together well with them, but we haven’t always agreed on how to proceed. Ultimately the judge decided to have a bellwether case with four of the individual plaintiffs and set that as the first case to go to trial. It did ultimately go to trial in 2021. The trial took about six months and then
the jury hung, and that was after the settlement of the case against the governmental defendants. So now the bellwether case is going to be retried after our trial in the Veolia case, which is set for February.
LD: It sounds like the defense side tried to use some procedural feet-dragging tactics. Do you think there an element of waiting it out, hoping people would stop paying so much attention?
SM: I think that’s a part of it. With the governmental defendants, the settlement was really driven by the change in government in Michigan. When [Gov. Gretchen] Whitmer won and the legislature turned over, there was suddenly a real impetus for coming up with a reasonable amount of money to help solve this problem.
As for Veolia, there are really a couple parts to their strategy. One is just delaying things as long as possible and hoping people get tired, move on to other things. Another is pointing the finger at everyone else and saying, “Look, our role is very narrow. The government wouldn’t have listened to us even if we’d given different advice.” There’s also the way tort law is structured in Michigan. There’s something called a non-party at fault statute where a tort defendant can allocate responsibility for damages among other people who were involved in the incident. A big fight we’re having right now is over how this non-party at fault issue will be narrowed down for the trial.
LD: You’re a member of the Executive Committee and you co-chair the Expert Committee. How were you appointed to those roles?
SM: Ted Leopold at Cohen Milstein and I initiated the case together and decided he’d take one of the colead roles, and then the class plaintiffs’ group decided, with the court’s approval, to have two co-leads, the other being Mike Pitt. Pitt’s group had initiated the first case against the governmental defendants. Our group had brought the first engineering case. So it kind of made sense to split it up that way. And then on the Executive Committee, it’s a group of folks. We have a team of lawyers from Susman Godfrey who have been doing various aspects of the case and I think have handled much of the key briefing arguments working with experts. My partner, Sean Raymond, was particularly involved in the settlement negotiations with the state. We’re looking forward to playing a key role at the trial that comes up in February.
LD: How would you describe your leadership role in these cases?
SM: We do a lot of cases where we’re the only firm involved. So it’s different to have to engage in this sort of herding of cats that has to happen in complex litigation like this, where you have a bunch of different lawyers and law firms with different kinds of cases and different thoughts on how the cases should be handled. It requires much more diplomacy between us and other lawyers to smooth over disagreements. Fortunately, part of our firm’s culture is to get along well with everyone, both opposing counsel and cocounsel. And I think that helps a lot in this context. It’s really a model of how teams need to be put together in complex litigation and how you can bring together a diverse group of people for a common end. And here we’ve got a mix of people from all over the country trying to get to a good result for this community at the end of the day.
LD: Was there a race to be the first firm to file a case?
SM: No, it wasn’t really a race. Cases had been filed against governmental defendants and the lawyer I’d worked with had this idea from reviewing the materials that “It doesn’t look like anyone sued this engineering firm. They clearly play a significant role.” And so I followed up on that along with others here and we crafted that theory of the case based on Veolia’s involvement. We were the first ones really to bring a case about Veolia’s conduct. And then it ultimately got consolidated with everything else and litigated in parallel.
LD: Can you give me an overview of your practice these days?
SM: It’s a mix, split fairly evenly between complex commercial litigation, just one plaintiff suing one defendant or any sort of commercial dispute and environmental cases like Flint and the Cape River Basin case. I also have a takings case in the Court of Federal Claims involving Navy Growler aircraft on Whidbey Island [in Washington State] that involves the increased noise and its impact on property values. And the biggest commercial case I’ve had recently is an arbitration between the Flutter online gaming company and Fox’s sports betting business.
LD: Is this the type of practice that you imagined that you were going to have back when you were in law school?
SM: I knew I wanted to do complex litigation but I didn’t really appreciate that I would like trial lawyering as much as I do. I actually like being in court, cross-examining witnesses, making arguments,
and have gotten a chance to do it more often than I thought I would. I initially went to Munger Tolles out of law school and was on the defense side of a lot of antitrust cases. The reason I decided to come to Sussman is it looked like the plaintiff side of cases was a lot more fun and I ended up going to trial more often and had a more entrepreneurial sort of approach to the practice of law.
LD: Has it lived up to what you thought it would be?
SM: Yes, it’s been fantastic. Can’t imagine being anywhere else.
LD: Can you talk about how your past wins are going to be helpful pursuing the Veolia firm in the Flint litigation? Or is it very different?
SM : It’s not really that different. The claim is a professional negligence claim. They had a contract. The contract has provisions that are helpful to us on their scope of duties, there’s a bunch of documents that are helpful. So piecing together the case and our story and how to present it to a jury is the same as any other complex case. And we’ve been figuring out which of their witnesses are going to be the ones we want to call at trial, we’ve been taking depositions in a way that you can use them at trial. We need to tell our story through adverse witnesses, and you often need to develop that case for trial through the depositions rather than at the trial itself. And so we’ve gone through the depositions thinking of them as putting together our case in chief for trial.
LD: The national media conversation about Flint often came back to racism and how this is a majority Black community. Is that something that you use in your legal strategy at all?
SM : It’s definitely an undercurrent. This is a predominantly Black community, a very poor city, under-resourced. We do have that kind of David-andGoliath aspect to this trial. We have a community of people who were harmed by poisoned water that corroded pipes, damaged homes, destroyed their community, and Veolia is a French company that’s worth billions of dollars. They were hired to help the city try to fix the problem, and we claim they gave bad advice that led to this problem and they could have averted it had they given the correct advice.
LD: Do you have any takeaways in terms of getting diverse groups to work together towards a goal?
SM : It’s really about communicating regularly, respecting everyone’s input, and if there’s ever a problem, speaking up earlier rather than later.
BRIAN VINES
MINNER VINES (LEXINGTON, KY.)
BY EMILY JACKOWAY
BRIAN VINES WASN’T ALWAYS A LAWYER.
First, he was an engineer.
As it turns out, the two aren’t so different.
He’s found that true throughout his legal career, but especially when he and partner Matt Minner founded their plaintiffs’ firm, Minner Vines, at the start of 2022. The team’s deep bench of experience in car and truck accident cases, pharmaceutical litigation, products liability, wrongful death and more has yielded impressive results: A year in, the firm has already achieved results including a $14M settlement for the death of a college athlete.
The pair were first together at Hare, Wynn, Newell & Newton, which Vines joined in 2011. There, he concentrated on a range of personal injury matters including nursing home negligence, car accidents and class actions that yielded hundreds of millions of dollars for victims and their families.
But Vines and his partners realized that they had the chance to build something different, and, ever the engineer, Vines had a systematic vision for how to make it happen. And, as a dedicated rock climber, Vines relied on that engineering combined with calculated risk to create a truly new kind of firm. “An opportunity presented itself,” he says. “We all said, ‘Hey, let’s do this.’”
Lawdragon: How did your legal career start? Is it similar or different to the path you’ve taken now?
Brian Vines: I went to law school, clerked for a federal judge, and was going to be a white-shoe firm defense lawyer. That was my vision for my career. I interviewed in San Francisco and New York, but my wife and I decided we didn’t want to do that rat race, so we went back to Birmingham.
There, I began working for Bradley Arant, which is a great firm. I was doing pharmaceutical defense, but I kept getting pulled into these smaller plaintiffs’ commercial disputes because I wanted to get experience. My dad was a DA in San Francisco (at one time under Kamala Harris), and he always told me, “You need to get experience; get on your feet.”
He was right. The big lie they sell you in law school is
that “sophisticated work” is what you want to do, but that generally means there’s so much money at stake that you’re just going to be a little worker bee. You actually learn to be a lawyer by working on small cases where the client is only willing to pay the associate, so you take on a bigger role. The cases I had like that were small commercial disputes where my client was the plaintiff.
So, after doing those kinds of cases for a while, I realized being on the plaintiffs’ side was way more fun. You’re driving the case. You’re picking who to depose. You are driving the strategy of the litigation.
Then, I had a case where we represented an insurance company, and a plaintiff was suing another insurance company. We were the second insurance company. So, if the plaintiff won against the first insurance company, we didn’t have to pay. Hare Wynn represented the plaintiff. So, in the first deposition I ever took, the only other lawyer in the room on my side was Don McKenna of Hare Wynn, and that started a relationship.
After that, I got involved in a plaintiffs’ class action while at Bradley. Then, Don called me one day and said, “Hey, would you be interested working for us?”
So, I went over, and I loved it immediately.
LD: What did you love about it?
BV: Right away, they got me involved in matters like representing the state of Kentucky in the Vioxx drug litigation, up against defense firms like Skadden, Baker Botts, Decker and Goldman Ismail. Working against those lawyers, at the top of the defense bar, taught me so much. Because of the work we did for Kentucky, Alaska and Montana hired us. The litigation was rolling along, but we had some removal issues which slowed it down for a bit, so I started working in single-event cases with Matt in Kentucky. Again, going back to my philosophy of getting experience through the small cases.
More and more, plaintiffs’ cases just sat better with me and my view of the world. Doing some of the big pharmaceutical litigation, I could really see that plaintiffs’ firms do good for society and hold companies accountable. No matter your politics, our market economy only works when you have to pay the full freight of what you do.
So, I was still in Birmingham, but coming up to Lexington a fair amount, and I saw an opportunity in Lexington. This is a great town and Kentucky is a great place to live.
With the office in Lexington, Matt and I had the chance to build something from scratch. Plaintiffs’ firms can
become siloed. You’ve got these great plaintiffs’ lawyers who have their cases, but then can only handle so much on their own. The vision I had centered around the need to get away from the silo – to bring a business approach to the plaintiffs’ practice of law. I call it scaling excellence. So, when I came up here seven years ago, it felt like we had this blank slate to build something different.
LD: And what did you want to do with that blank slate?
BV: My vision for change – and it’s coming to fruition –is handling cases with a team approach. I’m an engineer by training, so I always think systematically. It’s not Matt’s case or Brian’s case. It’s the firm’s case. We all bring our own expertise, and we want to bring that expertise to bear on as many cases as we can. Right now, for example, we represent 800+ coal miners in Eastern Kentucky in a products liability litigation.
I want us to bring a level of sophistication of representation to individuals on a broader scale than we have before, while still staying in touch with the fact that for every plaintiff, this is their most important case. Whether it’s a $50,000 car wreck or a $500,000 nursing home case or a $10M traumatic injury case, it’s the most important case to them.
LD: Right – and you’re creating systems where you can help more people more effectively.
BV: Exactly. In five or 10 years, I hope this firm is helping even more people than it is today. I also hope that it doesn’t need me. I’m not saying I don’t want to be here, but I want to build an organization that has principles and systems so that it’s not dependent on a personality.
LD: So, you’re building something that will last as a business and as a way to help people.
BV: Right. If we build an organization that doesn’t need us, that means we will have built an organization that’s representing people on the highest level. Our business is successful when our clients are successful. So, if we can build a successful business, by definition, we’re helping more people.
LD: How do you and Mr. Minner complement each other in your styles – how are you similar or different?
BV: Matt is very detail-oriented. He asks questions that I hadn’t even thought of. Matt is very intense – if he wants something, it’s going to get done.
I like to think of myself as the operations guy, asking, “Okay, now how are we actually going to do it?” All my cases go up on my whiteboard so I can see how it’s going to happen. I’m a whiteboard guy. I can’t think without one.
LD: That sounds like your engineering background coming into play.
BV: Yes. One thing I particularly enjoy as a lawyer is getting involved in cases where there’s some level of complexity that my engineering background allows me to figure out.
In my first year of law school, I went to my writing professor saying, “I’m scared to death. I’ve never written a term paper. And now I’m in this degree where my grade depends on one paper written over four hours.” She looked at me, and said, “You’ll be fine. Engineers are fine. It’s the history and English people that always have trouble with legal writing because they try to write a novel.” And she’s right. Engineers write systematically.
Engineering also allows you a unique look into the math and science of cases. For the Vioxx litigation it was statistics, and I worked with David Madigan, the head of the math department at Columbia. For another case it was working with a top scientist around sound, and in another case it is understanding the science of respirators. Any big litigation comes down to science or math. And while I may not know the particular subject, my background gives me the ability to figure it out (with the help of brilliant experts…of course).
LD: What are other keys to running a successful firm?
BV: Leveraging talent. Talent is going to end up being the critical path, whether that’s a great assistant or great paralegals or great young lawyers. People want a reason to work, and here we hope young lawyers will say, “I want to work there because I know I’m going to learn a system to be a great lawyer to help people.” That’s outside of any monetary component because you should make money if you’re successfully representing people.
So, the goal is to build a great organization that uses systems properly and in a way that leverages talent. And here in Lexington we’re right near the University of Kentucky, which has a great law school, so talent is right here.
LD: Looking outside your practice – it seems like all three of you have that “go for it” approach to life in your lives out of work. You’re a rock climber, right?
BV: I am. The thing about rock climbing is it doesn’t make me a daredevil. Like my practice, it’s very systematic. It’s calculated risk. So, it’s funny, the older I’ve gotten, the more I realize my personal and professional lives are really just manifestations of who I am.
KELLY HYMAN
THE HYMAN LAW FIRM (WEST PALM BEACH)
BY MEGHAN HEMINGWAY AND EMILY JACKOWAY
KELLY HYMAN’S CAREER CONSISTS OF AN
alchemy of elements and the resulting equation is truly awe-inspiring. Hyman seamlessly utilizes different pieces of her personality and professional prowess to excel in multiple high-level arenas. She is whip-smart, incredibly capable and knows how she wants to show up in the world – and does so brilliantly.
Hyman worked as an actress in the past, is a published author and has future plans for her next book. As for the present – she’s a popular podcast host, a widely respected TV legal analyst and she runs a thriving law firm.
Hyman, founder of The Hyman Law Firm , is a nationally recognized trial attorney who tirelessly
fi ghts for her clients by way of leading complex litigation, class actions and mass torts. Hyman has fought and won against some of the biggest and most notorious players in the game – tobacco, water contamination and medical devices. Hyman’s passion for advocating for her clients is palpable. She’s thoroughly committed to seeking justice for the wounded and deeply driven to help her victimized clients to be “made whole” in the process.
Chances are you’ve seen Hyman on the news. She’s famously adept at improvising her way through tricky topics with grace, dignity, intelligence and wit –and all on live TV. It takes a special talent to be able to bob and weave in real time, to answer questions, dodge curveballs and avoid being baited down convoluted alleyways. She thoughtfully responds, never hotly reacts.
In her hit podcast, “ Once Upon a Crime in Hollywood,” Hyman marries a myriad of her skills, and the result is undeniable. The storyteller, the litigator, the investigator, the Hollywood insider –all facets of Hyman are at work in this compelling quest to unravel the mysterious death of Hollywood
publicist Ronni Chasen. The podcast is a must-listen for any true crime lover.
So how does she do it? Meticulously. There’s nothing haphazard about the way Hyman does anything –she plans for success. “As the saying goes, fortune favors the brave,” Hyman says. “But you must have a plan in place for how you’re going to achieve it all in order to be successful.”
Lawdragon: When did you know that law was something you were interested in?
Kelly Hyman: As a kid growing up, I loved games like Clue. I loved trying to figure stuff out, to investigate things, to always look at the story from a new angle. The law was something that I was always very passionate about.
LD: When you first decided you wanted to go to law school, what kind of practice were you envisioning?
KH: I had some interest in entertainment, because of my background in acting; and also international law. I always knew that I wanted to help people and make a difference. I knew that clerking was something that I wanted to do and it was an amazing experience. I got to learn a lot and work with some really great people. I tried different areas of law, and one of those areas was working on class actions and I really enjoyed doing that. Then I got an opportunity to work at a firm on their mass torts litigation and realized that helping people and having a meaningful impact that ultimately changed people’s lives was what I wanted to focus on.
LD: Was there a case from early on in your career that was significant for you?
KH: Working on the transvaginal mesh cases, representing so many women and having a significant impact on their lives – that was formative for me early in my career. Different manufacturers made different types of transvaginal mesh, which were implanted in women for stress urinary incontinence and prolapse and it caused complications that really harmed a lot of women and had detrimental life effects on them. I represented hundreds of women and spent many years working with them to try and come to a resolution. This started back around 2013, and a lot of them have resolved, but even now many of these cases are still being litigated.
LD: What was the biggest challenge with those cases?
KH: Truly just trying to make sure that our clients were made whole. That’s key for the damage and the harm that they went through, to make them complete. These devices had devastating effects on their health as well as their personal lives.
LD: How awful. Can you tell me a bit about what you’re working on currently?
KH: I’m working on the baby formula NEC litigation. The MDL is in Chicago, and I am on the plaintiffs’ steering committee. That litigation is going through discovery right now. I’m also on the CPAP discovery committee –those devices are used by people that have sleep apnea. Additionally, I work on complex litigation cases, often multi-plaintiff, multi-defendant litigation.
LD: Tell us about starting your own firm just a few years ago. What drove that initiative?
KH: It was the best decision I ever made in my life, because ultimately the success or failure of my firm lies with me. With that comes a tremendous amount of responsibility and obligation, but also a tremendous amount of reward from the standpoint of having a work/life balance. I’m able to follow my passion and get the benefi t of not only doing what I want and helping people, but also enabling me to work on my passion projects, whether it’s the podcast or TV appearances or writing. It allowed me the opportunity to do that, which I am very thankful for.
LD: That’s fantastic. It sounds like the perfect balance.
KH: That’s the goal.
LD: We don’t see enough women going out and starting their own firms. What advice would you give to lawyers, women in particular, in terms of taking that step?
KH: To follow your passion. That if you fear doing it, that’s only normal. As the saying goes, “fortune favors the brave,” but have a plan and a strategy in place of how you’re going to achieve it. Create a business plan. I am very fortunate to have amazing friends that are plaintiffs’ attorneys such as Kim Adams, Jennifer Hoekstra, Wendy Flieshman, Katherine Cornell and Erin Copeland. It is important to have a plan in place in order to be successful.
LD: Having that community is so important.
KH: Yes, it really is. A tribe, as we say, right? You have to have people to talk to, to help you
YOU HAVE TO HAVE PEOPLE AROUND YOU WHO CAN BE SUPPORTIVE AND HELP TURN YOUR GOALS INTO A REALITY. TO HAVE COLLEAGUES AND FRIENDS WHO CAN BRING YOU INTO THE FOLD, TO WORK ON CASES. IT ENABLES YOU TO SUCCEED. I WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN THE SUCCESS THAT I AM TODAY WITHOUT THE SUPPORT OF MY FRIENDS.
orchestrate it. To have people around you who can be supportive and help turn your goals into a reality. To have colleagues and friends who can bring you into the fold, to work on cases. It enables you to succeed. I would not have been the success that I am today without the support of my friends.
LD: I love that. You started the firm and then, pretty quickly, Covid happened. How did that impact your practice?
KH: I’ll never forget when I opened in December of 2019 and I went to get some office space. I was going to get a really small space, and instead I got a bigger space. Then the pandemic hit, and I didn’t go back to the office until later that year. But I was fortunate to have a dear friend, Kim Adams, who was working on the human sex traffi cking cases, and she brought me in to work on those cases. Even though there was Covid, cases were moving their way through the court system. So, I was very fortunate to have that work during that time.
LD: Do you envision expanding the firm or do you enjoy having a solo practice?
KH: My business model is to co-counsel and work with other firms. I work in collaboration with them on cases so that I do not work on any cases solely by myself. I have my Florida office and I just got licensed in North Carolina, and I’ll soon have an office in North Carolina as well. At some point, maybe I’ll get an office in New York. If the need arises.
LD: How would you describe your style as a lawyer?
KH: I’m a zealous advocate for my clients.
LD: That sounds right to me. Last we spoke, your
book, “ Build Back Better: The First 100 Days of the Biden Administration,” had just come out. Do you have plans for another?
KH: I do plan to write another book! It is going to focus on working women and empowerment from the viewpoint of someone who’s been working since they were five years old. It’s a book that will hopefully ignite women and empower them to know that they can achieve anything that they want in life. That has always been important to me and something I’ve always strongly believed in – empowering women. I write for “Entrepreneur Magazine,” and one of the things that I focus on is women that work.
LD: I want to read that book!
KH: Thank you!
LD: Let’s talk a bit about your work as a TV commentator. You’re so good at it; you’ve been doing it for five years now. What drew you to doing that?
KH: I think that it’s important to have discussions, whether they’re political or legal – we can agree to disagree on certain topics, but not be disagreeable. It’s important to understand that distinction. I’m doing a lot more legal topics, and hopefully people take away something from it. Hopefully I’m getting people to think and to hear different political views and see things from a different perspective, or even simply to look at things from a purely legal perspective.
LD: Are you seeing any kind of tonal shifts on these shows as the election approaches?
KH: I find it so interesting that different shows
WE CAN AGREE TO DISAGREE ON CERTAIN TOPICS, BUT NOT BE DISAGREEABLE. HOPEFULLY I’M GETTING PEOPLE TO THINK AND TO HEAR DIFFERENT POLITICAL VIEWS AND SEE THINGS FROM A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE, OR EVEN SIMPLY TO LOOK AT THINGS FROM A PURELY LEGAL PERSPECTIVE.
focus on different things. It’s fascinating, there’ll be certain topics that will be on the front page on one network’s homepage, and then you’ll look at another network and it’s not even discussed. What is covered by one might not be the lead story or even covered by a different network.
LD: That is interesting. And voters’ rights is something that you’re passionate about as well. Can you tell us about that?
KH: It’s definitely an important issue, especially dealing with redistricting and making sure that the people are properly represented and that they have someone in D.C. that’s going to advocate for their interests. And that is why it’s so important for people to check right now, to make sure that they are registered and that they make sure that their voice is heard, and their vote counted. It saddens me when you hear that people don’t vote, or don’t think that their vote matters. In order to bring about change, we have to be able to vote. Voters’ rights has always been a passion of mine.
LD: Tell me a bit about your podcast, “Once Upon a Crime in Hollywood.”
KH: It’s a great podcast for true crime lovers. I host the podcast, and we explore the mysterious homicide of Ronni Chasen. I was very fortunate to have the podcast come together. I get to work with amazing people and have iHeart and all the other streamers carry it on their platforms, it’s great. I’m currently working on another six limited episodes as well, which I’m very excited about. I really enjoy doing it.
LD: What drew you to Ronni Chasen’s story?
KH: This case was always of interest to me, growing up in the entertainment industry. Ronni Chasen was
someone who was highly regarded in Hollywood as a PR person, well-respected in the community, and she was coming from a star-studded event and was allegedly killed due to a robbery gone wrong.
LD: And what inspired you to turn it into a podcast?
KH: I was on Nancy Grace’s podcast and really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed working with her. Before I went to law school, I was a professional actress for many years, and I also did a lot of voiceover work. I was one of the Kit Kat singer voices on one of the Kit Kat ads. I always enjoyed doing it. I thought this would be a really interesting and compelling story, and I thought maybe I could have a meaningful impact.
LD: That’s great. Tell me a bit about what you do for fun outside of work.
KH: Travel. I’m going to Malta and Sicily in September. Hopefully everything’s okay with the wildfires. We’re going there for my husband’s birthday. And then in December, for the holidays, we are going to Uganda and Kenya.
LD: That sounds incredible. Are you big nature lovers?
KH: Yes! We were in Sedona this year and went hiking and it was absolutely breathtaking.
LD: Do you have a favorite place you’ve ever been?
KH: There’s so many amazing places, but I am half Australian, so I’d be remiss if I didn’t say Australia –whether it’s going into the outback or snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef or climbing up the bridge by the Opera House! It is a truly wonderful experience. Just being there – having my Pavlova or my Lamingtons – is such an exceptional experience. But I’ve enjoyed every place that I’ve been to and love traveling.
JOSHUA SILVERMAN POMERANTZ LLP
BY MATTHEW HELLER
WHEN PLAINTIFFS’ COUNSEL SOUGHT
class certification in a lawsuit against Irelandbased pharmaceutical giant Perrigo, they faced a major obstacle. That was the landmark 2010 ruling in Morrison v. National Australia Bank, Ltd., in which the U.S. Supreme Court found that Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 – the primary antifraud weapon for plaintiffs’ securities lawyers – does not apply to non-U.S. investors who use a foreign stock exchange to purchase shares of a foreign company. The complaint in the Perrigo case alleged that, to induce shareholders to reject a hostile takeover offer by Mylan NV, the company failed to disclose problems with its largest acquisition, Omega Pharma, and its anticompetitive pricing practices in its generic prescription drug business. The putative plaintiffs included Israeli institutional investors that purchased Perrigo stock
on both the New York (NYSE) and Tel Aviv (TASE) exchanges after Mylan made its offer in November 2015. But a legal team led by Joshua B. Silverman, a partner in the Chicago office of Pomerantz and Jeremy A. Lieberman, Managing Partner of the firm, developed a novel legal strategy to circumvent the obstacles imposed by Morrison. They argued that, in addition to certifying a class of U.S. investors, the court should exercise “supplemental jurisdiction” to certify a class of TASE investors asserting claims from purchases of Perrigo on the TASE. U.S. District Court Judge Madeline Cox Arleo accepted Pomerantz’s argument and certified parallel classes of investors in November 2019. This marked the very first time since Morrison that a U.S. court independently analyzed the market of a security traded on a non-U.S. exchange and found that it met the standards of market efficiency necessary to allow for class certification – an important precedent for global investors.
Last April, the parties reached a $97M settlement that is now awaiting preliminary court approval.
For Silverman, the case is another milestone in a securities litigation career that has taken him from
defense work at McGuireWoods to the plaintiffs’ side at Pomerantz, which he joined in 2006. “At least in the context of dual-listing cases where the facts support it, we’ve opened the door” to extraterritorial claims, he says. Silverman is a member of Lawdragon’s 500 Leading Plaintiff Financial Lawyers
Lawdragon: When did the Perrigo case first come across your desk and how did you know that it was something worth pursuing?
Joshua Silverman: Well, the firm is always very active in covering potential frauds, especially at companies where our clients have significant holdings. This was a company that clearly had a lot of red flags, and we initially pursued it. We took a more expansive role after our clients were appointed lead plaintiff. That happened a few months into it, and that’s when I became involved.
Our clients in the matter are major Israeli institutions. It was important to them and important to us to protect the purchasers of Perrigo stock, whether they were in Israel or in the United States. Historically, that had been very difficult to do. The Supreme Court decision in Morrison closed the door on a large category of claims. It said that a foreign purchaser couldn’t bring claims under Section 10(b). But there was a path here because Israel has a securities law that says if a stock is dual-listed, then the issuer of that stock can choose whether to be regulated under Israeli securities law or under the securities law of its country of primary listing.
We couldn’t bring a claim directly under Section 10(b) because that would be a violation of what the Supreme Court ordered in Morrison. But Perrigo’s primary listing was in the U.S., so we brought a claim under the Israel Securities Law of 1968, arguing they violated that statute and because Israel applies the same standards as U.S. law, it could all be adjudicated here. It makes sense. It was fairer to institutional investors who may have purchased in one venue and sold in another or vice versa. In our view, it’s a more efficient use of judicial resources.
When we had the class certified, it was the very first time that a foreign purchaser class had been certified since Morrison. We think it was a big deal for international investors, and we’re very pleased to have achieved that.
LD: Is this particular to Israel or could the same argument lay the groundwork for other countries?
JS: Israel is not the only country that has dual-listed companies, so the case laid the foundation for
much broader application. The argument that we brought in Perrigo was tailored to the circumstances that involved Israel. If you brought a claim for a class of, let›s say, French purchasers of a stock that wasn›t dual-listed, it might have a different outcome. Perrigo stands for the proposition that a court can entertain claims on behalf of a class of foreign purchasers if the foreign law applies the same standards as U.S. law.
LD : Just to put things in context, what did the Morrison decision mean for your clients and investors around the world?
JS: Prior to Morrison, courts looked at a variety of contacts to determine whether there was a sufficient nexus with the United States to allow adjudication of claims here. Morrison made very clear that Section 10(b), our main securities statute, did not have extraterritorial application, at least as to private causes of action. That was very limiting for many securities cases. At least in the context of dual-listing cases where the facts support it, we›ve opened the door.
LD: Can you talk a bit more about what arguments you used to persuade the court?
JS: For class certification under 10(b), one of the big issues is always market efficiency. So here we had to show the court that not only was the U.S. market efficient, but also that trading of Perrigo stock on the Tel Aviv exchange was similarly effi cient. We had a very good econometric expert who drew comparisons between the two. He talked quite extensively about intraday price movements, both at times when both markets were open and at times when only one of the markets was open. We used that information as well as a more traditional analysis to show that the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange was also an efficient market for the trading of Perrigo shares. At all times, the market information was impounded into the stock price, and that’s really the paradigm for applying the fraud-on-the-market presumption.
LD: After the class was certified, what happened next in the case? What other hurdles and challenges did you face?
JS: One challenge was discovery. There were basically two large groups of claims that survived the motion to dismiss. One concerned Perrigo’s acquisition of a European company called Omega, and the other addressed anti-competitive practices in the generic drug portion of Perrigo. With the generic drug discovery, we faced a lot of hurdles. For example, a
key witness at Perrigo who allegedly conspired with competitors killed himself before we were permitted to begin discovery, so we could not take his deposition. That allowed Perrigo to characterize him as a rogue employee rather than having him expose a more widespread corporate practice.
Another obstacle was that the U.S. government asked us not to take many depositions and to delay others. Eventually, we were permitted to take most of the depositions we wanted, but the Department of Justice did intervene with our case and ask for several stays. This wasn’t unusual – they often intervene to stop discovery they think will impede a criminal investigation –but it did make discovery considerably more difficult.
LD: How did the case progress after class certification?
JS : After class certification, the defendants immediately sought interlocutory review. Their main argument was that the Israeli market was not efficient and that the district court should not have determined that our expert had established efficiency. We fought that and won. The 3rd Circuit rejected defendants’ petition, which was a big step forward.
The summary judgment phase of the case spanned three judges in New Jersey federal court. Eventually, the chief judge of the district, Renée Marie Bumb, took the case over and issued a split decision. We won on most of the Omega-related claims, but the court made clear it was likely to toss the generic drug-related claims. I did not believe that there was evidence of scienter as to the individual defendants, something we feel we could have proved had our access to witnesses not been limited. There were several subsequent negotiations, and the parties pretty much understood which claims would survive to trial and which would not.
LD: Can you talk a little bit about your style when it comes to negotiating these types of cases?
JS: It’s generally to be as aggressive as possible. In this case, there were very extensive negotiations, which were led by our managing partner Jeremy Lieberman. First, we negotiated with a mediator in 2018, and then there were five subsequent settlement conferences with the magistrate judge. We view our task as pretty simple – it’s to maximize the return for shareholders.
LD: And $97M isn’t a bad result.
JS: Definitely not. It’s an above-average recovery relative to what’s widely reported to be the median in these kinds of actions, even cases of this magnitude. Given the circumstances of this case, we think this is a highly favorable recovery for shareholders.
LD: Is there anything else about the case you’d like to spotlight?
JS: I’ve told you about the few stones that we couldn’t turn over, but we did get to depose almost everybody we wanted involving the generic drug issue. And we ultimately took or participated in 40 depositions. We had a big team working on that. Prior to our amended complaint, we also conducted a very broad private investigation involving investigators here, investigators in Europe, and some investigation into former employees in Australia. So we really left few stones unturned, both before the amended complaint and then once we were permitted to engage in discovery. I think that had we gone to trial, we would have had a very strong shot on the Omega claim.
LD: Can you tell me about some of the other cases that you’re working on right now?
JS: I manage our Chicago office, which has at any given time between 25 and 30 active cases. I have some role in each of them. I just settled a case involving a SPAC [special purpose acquisition company] called Ginkgo. We’ve been very aggressive in SPAC cases to try to expand the claims. When this sort of litigation started, other firms were bringing claims just under Section 10(b). We expanded to claims under Section 14 of the Exchange Act and under Section 11, which is really advantageous because it has a lower burden for showing scienter. We’ve been very successful in expanding claims. In the Ginkgo case, we›ve achieved a very lucrative settlement relative to damages, which has been preliminarily approved. I›m working on another SPAC case involving Grab Holdings, which is basically the Uber of Southeast Asia. I›m also working on a case involving the alleged manipulation of Bed Bath & Beyond stock, just prior to its demise.
LD: How would you describe your leadership style?
JS: My role is to put together the best team we can and give them the opportunities, support and guidance to excel up to their personal abilities. As part of that effort, it’s important for me to give younger attorneys a level of responsibility they might not find elsewhere. In the Grab case, my colleague Brian O’Connell took on one of the leading senior partners at Skadden in oral argument on a motion to dismiss, and won. I don’t think there are a lot of firms that would have a younger attorney take on an argument of that magnitude, but that’s how you build a team of exceptionally capable lawyers who are ready to lead cases themselves.
WILLIAM MULLIGAN
GROSSMAN ROTH (CORAL GABLES, FL)
BY EMILY JACKOWAY
WILLIAM MULLIGAN
HAS KNOWN WHAT
he wanted his career to look like since law school. Now a plaintiffs’ personal injury attorney with renowned Florida trial firm Grossman Roth Yaffa Cohen, back at Boston College Law School, Mulligan provided free legal services for clients navigating Social Security. “Seeing how these individuals were just repeatedly taken advantage of one after the next was the final experience that I needed to know this was the right area of law,” he says.
That empathy for his clients shines through in Mulligan’s current work. His practice runs the gamut, with landmark victories in plaintiffs’ medical malpractice, trucking and automobile crashes, defective products cases and more. He has been involved in three major shallow water spinal cord injury cases; in the first, he was a key part of the team that attained a $10.75M settlement from a Key West resort on behalf of a man who unknowingly dove into shallow water and was left paralyzed. In the second, he and partner Stuart Grossman achieved a confidential settlement for a young man who was rendered a quadriplegic after he dove into a sandbar outside a RitzCarlton property. A few years ago, the plaintiff, Andrew Gallo, married his high school sweetheart – and Mulligan was there to celebrate with him. In the third, Mulligan and Grossman similarly achieved a confidential settlement for another young man who unknowingly dove into water that was dangerously shallow.
Mulligan was also part of the historic Champlain Towers South litigation, in which the firm helped achieve a momentous $1B settlement on behalf of victims of a 2021 condominium collapse that resulted in the deaths of 98 people. The tragedy has spurred Florida lawmakers to take a hard look at building inspection codes and compliance. “Tragically, it took hundreds of lives to potentially save thousands and thousands more in the future. It shouldn’t be that way, but that’s why we do what we do,” says Mulligan.
Described as “unequivocally dedicated” by his colleagues, Mulligan’s empathy for his clients is matched only by his persistent pursuit of every detail that could make his case and bring his clients justice and security. His relentless, incisive commitment is just one reason Mulligan is a member of the Lawdragon 500 Leading Plaintiff Consumer Lawyers.
Lawdragon: What drew you to a career in the law?
William Mulligan: It really came down to a couple of courses that I took at the University of Florida in undergrad. I was a finance major, and during my junior year one class completely changed my professional path. That course was Trial Practice. Getting up on my feet and giving opening statements, closing arguments, directing and crossing witnesses, was exhilarating to me. It reminded me a lot of tennis in that I had to depend solely on myself in a competitive setting.
LD: That’s great. And you worked in insurance defense for the first couple years of your career?
WM: Yes. My cousin worked at a boutique personal injury firm doing the insurance side and he wanted me to come in and learn from him. I was there for about a year and a half, but he knew going in that at some point my goal was to move over to the plaintiffs’ side.
LD: What eventually brought you to make that switch?
WM: I felt it inside. The time had come. I was nearing my two-year mark as an attorney, and an opportunity arose at GRYC – which was a firm I admired as a young boy due to stories and discussions I overheard from my parents. The stars aligned and I heard Grossman Roth was looking to hire. Safe to say, I went all-in for the position.
LD: And what have you enjoyed about working with the team at GRYC?
WM: Everything. I feel extremely fortunate every day to be part of GRYC. The senior partners, Stuart, Neal, Andy and Gary are not only the best attorneys I’ve seen, but they are incredible individuals. They care about everything they do, and they do it extremely well. Most importantly, they care deeply about the clients. We’re passionate no matter the assignment or event, everything is done with care, effort and professionalism. It makes a significant impact when all team members at a firm are on the same page.
And while we’re all competitive, we’re not competitive with each other. Many times it’s all hands on deck with cases at the firm. The way GRYC functions was not by accident. The structure of the firm was established by the founding partners, and it was created in this manner to benefi t the client. We’re all rowing in the same direction. I don’t believe most people realize how much the dynamics of a firm will significantly impact the result of a case.
LD: Looking back on your career, which cases stand out in your mind?
WM: The Ritz-Carlton case is one. We litigated that case for about two years. We went to trial, and it resolved just before closing argument.
I learned a lot of things from that case. One is that
cases evolve and change. When this case first came in, we knew liability was extremely difficult due to the controlling Florida law at the time. Recent results were against us. But we believed in the case, and we thought that the law was just wrong.
LD: Can you give me the nuts and bolts of the case?
WM: A young man named Andrew Gallo traveled to Miami Beach with his friends for his birthday. He was from New York, and he was unfamiliar with the beaches and their unusual and unpredictable ocean floor topography. His first time in the water, Andrew dove into a sandbar that was the equivalent of going headfirst into a brick wall. As a result, he broke his neck, suffering a drowning spell, and was eventually rendered quadriplegic. He survived, but he deserved to be warned about the unusual and hazardous condition of those waters. He was an innocent tourist staying on Miami Beach for the first time, and there were no warnings provided to him at the hotel or beach regarding the hidden sandbars and deceptive water depths.
LD: And what were some of the challenges you faced?
WM: In working on the case, we didn’t get any of the real, beneficial information through discovery. We had to dig up all this information on our own. We flew around visiting other Ritz-Carltons to see what their practices were. We went through social media and found that there were quite a few of these Ritz-Carltons on the beach that did warn about diving into waves and spinal cord injury risks. Then we later learned through our own investigation that Miami Beach was providing information to the hotels in the area about the hazards involved in diving head-first into the water.
None of that was provided to us through formal discovery. We had to dig it all up through hundreds of hours of internal investigation. There is no substitute for going that extra mile. In many cases your best evidence will come from this type of extra effort. A lawyer needs to become an investigator and get out there in the world visiting sites and speaking to witnesses. Always think strategically. That’s what success requires –especially in these types of cases.
LD: That’s great. And what was it like working with Mr. Gallo and his family on the case?
WM: I developed a great relationship with Andrew and his father. Fast-forward to present day, Andrew is married to his high school sweetheart, and they just had a child. I went to his wedding. He’s going back to school. He’s still quadriplegic and in a wheelchair, but with the care and treatment that he’s receiving now because of the outcome of the case, he’s making significant improvements. He’s not walking, but he has more use of his arms. It’s only
possible with the funds that it takes to get the best-of-theline care that insurance typically won’t cover.
LD: Touching on those tragedies that you can’t change, tell me about working on the Champlain Towers case.
WM: It takes a tragedy like that for the city and the county to start taking billing codes and 40-year certifications and things like that more seriously. Now every condo, every apartment, every high-rise is under strict scrutiny in terms of the structural integrity of the building. Things that should have been done always, but over time people get a little more relaxed. They don’t think the worst-case scenario can happen. So, tragically, it took hundreds of lives to potentially save thousands and thousands more in the future. It shouldn’t be that way, but that’s why we do what we do. When one product hurts someone or a group of individuals, you need us to be able to affect change. We take so much pride in our job, and then when you see a professional in another field dropping the ball on an issue that could have a significant impact on the health, safety and life of someone else, that frustrates us more than anything.
LD: Looking ahead, are there any developments you’re seeing on the horizon for the firm or the legal industry?
WM: Things are rapidly changing in the legal world due to artificial intelligence and other disruptive technologies. It’s indeed a very interesting time for the legal profession. I know this has caused a fair amount of anxiety and uncertainty for many attorneys and firms, but these developments excite us at GRYC. We understand the technology and more importantly, understand how to effectively utilize it to our client’s advantage.
Indeed, AI and other technologies are converging in a manner that are already and will continue to disrupt certain practice areas – especially those that focus solely on the analysis of documents and writing. But trial attorneys will always be vital. Putting aside the speculative robot attorney that is still decades from becoming a reality (assuming no regulatory setbacks), AI or ChatGPT cannot investigate an accident scene, meet and build a rapport with witnesses and clients, effectively take a deposition and craft questioning based on the expressions and reactions of a witness, and it cannot argue to a judge or a jury in a court of law.
So, there’s a lot of noise out there about AI disrupting the legal world, and I agree it has and will continue to do so, but I strongly feel that these technological advances are only going to benefit our firm and practice. In fact, at GRYC we view AI as just adding more ammo to the stockpile that we already have for our cases. We are locked and loaded and will continue to stay in front of the trends.
LAUREN ORMSBEE
LABATON (NEW YORK)
BY MEGHAN HEMINGWAY
CULTURALLY WE’VE BEEN CAUTIONED,
we’ve been warned – we’ve maybe even consented to the notion that for women in the workforce there’s ultimately a choice to be made between family and career. “You can’t have it all,” they like to remind us. Especially if you are working in the hugely competitive, breakneck world of litigation, right?
According to Lauren Ormsbee, that is simply not true. Not only isn’t she buying it, Ormsbee herself is living proof that it’s a myth. The powerhouse attorney begins her new role as Litigation Team Leader at Labaton this month, she has a thriving and celebrated securities litigation practice and is the proud mother of two.
Ormsbee, now a leading woman in the plaintiffs’ bar, started out in Big Law defense. She always had a gift for litigation and a passion for law, but she quickly
realized she’d be more at home on the plaintiffs’ side.
“I realized I really want to represent the people whose investments were hurt by alleged fraud and wrongdoing by big corporate entities,” says Ormsbee. So, when an opportunity arose for Ormsbee to move to the other side of the V., she was quick to take it. And that was where Ormsbee truly hit her stride – she was in the right place, fighting for people she felt connected to. “I’m proud of the work and I’m excited by it because every case is its own challenge,” says Ormsbee. “I think whatever small part we can play in keeping the system honest is a good part to play.”
Securities defense hasn’t traditionally been a place where you find women in leadership roles.
“I think a lot of the reason you might not see as many female securities litigators at the top of their game is some people think you can’t do both,” says Ormsbee. “They think they have to go in-house or maybe to the government if they want to have a family. It’s just not true, you don’t have to choose.”
Ormsbee believes that without balance – without
PHOTO BY: MICHAEL PARRAS
I LIKE TO GET EVERYONE EXCITED AND INVESTED. I WANT THEM
TO FEEL LIKE THEY HAVE REAL OWNERSHIP IN THE CASE. NO ONE’S WORKING FOR ME, WE’RE WORKING TOGETHER FOR OUR CLIENTS TO SUCCEED. THEY’RE WORKING TO SHINE, TO TAKE A PIECE OF IT AND RUN WITH IT. I AM HERE TO HELP EVERYONE SUCCEED.
the homelife to offset the oftentimes grueling career – one can easily run out of fuel or lose sight of the reasons why we work so hard. With Ormsbee joining the leadership team at Labaton, she is also achieving a balance within the organization – now half of the litigation leadership are women.
By numbers alone, Ormsbee’s already laying the groundwork for what is sure to be an impactful example set for those who come after her. One that speaks to work-life balance; one that shows just how possible it is to be a great parent and an incredible lawyer; and one that inspires others to know that with hard work and dedication, there’s space for it all.
Ormsbee is honored as one of The 2024 Lawdragon 500 Leading Plaintiff Financial Lawyers.
Lawdragon: Congratulations on the move to Labaton as litigation team leader.
Lauren Ormsbee: Thank you! I’ll be joining Carol Villegas, Mike Canty and Al Fatale as a litigation team leader. The four of us, under our trusted advisor Jonathan Gardner, will have our own roster of securities litigation cases. I›ll start out probably with six or seven on my roster and I›m sure it›ll grow to a dozen or more cases that I’ll be leading. I’ll be making strategic decisions and staffing decisions. I’ll determine which arguments will be argued by me and which will be argued by people on the team. I’ll make the call on depositions, writing assignments and really all of the countless strategic decisions that go into the litigation. I’m excited to have a team of great attorneys to work with, and help to develop and mentor them and get us all success with a great synergy. This is
an elevated leadership position for me, and the opportunity here is just really thrilling.
LD: Tell us a bit about your leadership style.
LO: My leadership style is always evolving because I’m always learning. I like to really talk through everything with the team, I like to get a sense of what everyone’s strengths are and where they need work. I like to mentor closely and then really give my team the chance to shine. Good leadership is about teaching and trusting. There are times when my 20 plus years of experience can be extremely illuminating for people that are more junior and lacking experience, and I can offer advice – in this deposition you have to be nice, or in this deposition you have to ask only the most basic and direct questions. It’s valuable for people to learn that way, but ultimately I think that letting people be scared and do the next thing that they haven’t done yet, is the best way to mentor. It’s the only way to grow your people and get them to the next level in their career, to help them become a partner.
I’ll be getting to know the attorneys on my team very well. I’ve heard great things, and I trust that they’re going to be amazing. The cases I’ll be overseeing are going to be in all different stages of litigation so I’m going to need to lean on people. I like to get everyone excited and invested. I want them to feel like they have real ownership in the case. No one’s working for me, we’re working together for our clients to succeed. They’re working to shine, to take a piece of it and run with it. I am here to help everyone succeed.
LD: When did you first decide you wanted to do securities litigation?
LO: My parents are retired schoolteachers. I have a lot of teachers and professors in my family, a carpenter, a chef, but no lawyers. I’m the first lawyer in my family – I broke the mold there. Becoming a lawyer was very organic for me. I always liked to write and to advocate. Law school was a chance I took, and it worked out great. I loved everything about U Penn Law.
When I started at Paul Weiss, I happened into securities litigation. Some of my biggest cases, especially after my clerkship with Judge McMahon, were in the securities litigation fi eld because it was 2002 and there was WorldCom and there was Global Crossing and all of those huge telecom cases, and I was staffed on them. I really took a shine to the practice of litigation but in the back of my mind I knew I wanted to be on the other side.
Almost every single person in my family is in some kind of union. And the bulk of the clients that Labaton represents are pension funds and union funds. In one of my largest cases at Paul Weiss when I was first starting out, the plaintiff was the New York State Common Retirement System – they represented the teachers of New York State, and that’s my parents.
I realized I really want to represent the people whose investments were hurt by the alleged fraud and wrongdoing by these big corporate entities. I always found myself leaning that way, even though I was zealously advocating on the other side. That’s when I switched over to the plaintiffs’ side and started at Bernstein Litowitz. That was 17 years ago and I didn’t regret it for one day. I love the work I do. I love our clients and I sleep easy every night. I know that keeping investments safe and ensuring that the markets are as honest as they can be, is good work. I’m proud of the work and I’m still excited by it because every case is different. Every case involves a different industry or a different type of wrongdoing or a different legal challenge. Every case is its own challenge, but I think whatever small part we can play in keeping the system honest is a good part to play.
LD: Tell us about a win from early on in your career that was particularly memorable or meaningful?
LO: Fortunately, there’s been a lot of good wins. One that’s particularly memorable was the fi rst case that I litigated as a partner. The fi rst case I got assigned to soup-to-nuts was actually a case I
litigated at Bernstein with Labaton. We were co-lead counsel and that was a case against SCANA Energy. This was a company that was contracted by South Carolina to construct a huge new nuclear energy facility and it was a disaster, it went belly up. There were many investigations. In fact, after our case was resolved and settled, the leaders of the company were criminally convicted.
It was a challenging case. It was exciting because it was my first case as a partner, so it was mine to run with. It was one of those behemoth complaints and I’m very proud of that case. It was a very indepth investigation and a long complaint, but we got resoundingly over a motion to dismiss and we were able to settle. It was a large number – over $200M – and a great success for the fi rm. It was my first case that I was in, sink or swim, which was scary. But I feel like I led a good team and it was a great experience. It was also a great introduction to working with Labaton and partially why I was someone they thought of when they needed to fill this leadership position.
LD: Is there another case that comes to mind when you think of career highlights?
LO: Another great case, one that played a large role in me making partner at Bernstein Litowitz, was a bank fraud case against Wilmington Trust, a bank in Delaware. They had failed miserably by misrepresenting their underwriting criteria at the tail end of the big market mortgage-backed security meltdown. They put a lot of investors’ money in serious jeopardy. That was another case that led to criminal convictions after it was resolved. That was a great all-female team at Bernstein Litowitz, which was really exciting. It was Hannah Ross, Katie Sinderson, and myself. The case had such a lifespan that I think we collectively birthed six children during it.
It was a really intensive case working collaboratively with the government on stays and witnesses and taking lots of depositions – very hard fought on all sides. It was one of the first cases that I really was able to shine, from motion through to summary judgment. It also resulted in a very significant settlement for our clients. It was very challenging. Ironically, with all of the criminal investigations and prosecutions going on, although it obviously corroborates the allegations in our civil complaint, it can sometimes make it difficult to navigate. You have to be sensitive to the criminal prosecution, which
I WANT TO SHOW BY EXAMPLE THAT YOU CAN BE INVESTED IN YOUR CASES AND THINK ABOUT THEM ALL THE TIME AT ODD HOURS OF THE NIGHT OR ANYTIME, BUT YOU CAN ALSO MAKE
THAT TIME TO HAVE BALANCE IN YOUR LIFE, BECAUSE WITHOUT THAT BALANCE, YOU WON’T LOVE THE WORK YOU DO.
sometimes takes priority over the civil litigation. We were able to work collaboratively when necessary with the government and with the SEC, and we eventually got a good result. That was one of the first cases where I was able to take it through all the way and do some great arguments as well as discovery and depositions.
LD: How cool to have an all-female team for a big securities case. Stepping into a leadership role, what does it mean to you to nurture female talent?
LO: Mentoring and developing women litigators has always been a focus of mine. I think mentoring and developing all litigators to be their best is important – male or female. Labaton now has half of the litigation leadership as women and I think that does a lot for women just in showing female litigators in the prime of our careers who are also mothers, leading at one of the best law firms in the practice for the securities bar. Hopefully that alone shows younger female and male attorneys that it’s all doable, you can do it and find that balance. People are able to find that balance where you can have a very successful family life and a very successful career. It’s not easy, but it’s achievable. I really do think that’s an inspiration – hopefully to men and women. I hope it’s not gender specifi c because that’s how you get gender parity is by men and women both taking the family side as seriously as the work side and then that evens that distribution among everyone.
LD: Who were your mentors, coming up?
LO: I’ve had strong female and male mentors, but my first mentor in my career was the judge Colleen McMahon at the Southern District [of New York]. She was a trailblazer. She was the first female litigation
partner at Paul Weiss. She has three wonderful kids and a family. She’s a federal judge and she suffers no fools. She was a great mentor because she is very direct, incredibly smart, and also did all that; had a family, made it work. That’s the kind of mentor I want to be.
LD: How do you approach mentoring now?
LO: I want to show by example that you can be invested in your cases and think about them all the time at odd hours of the night or anytime, but you can also make that time to have balance in your life, because without that balance, you won’t love the work you do. If the work becomes all consuming, you’re definitely missing out on the other part of life and you’re not going to have that joy for the work. That’s the best thing I could try to impart to the team. I genuinely love what I do, I get excited about my cases, I love to win. But I also have to turn that part of my brain off a part of every day and go home and love that part of my life. My family always comes first.
I hope to be a mentor to both women and men. I think it’s exciting to have more and more female leaders in the securities litigation practice. It’s a really exciting time. I hope that other female attorneys that might be in Big Law and looking to come over to the plaintiffs’ practice can see this as an exciting path. You can be working at the top of your game, and you don’t have to choose between a family or the work. When I was starting, I think a lot of the reason you might not see as many female securities litigators at the top of their game is some people think you can’t do both. They think they have to go in-house or maybe to the government if they want to have a family. It’s just not true, you don’t have to choose.
TAREK SAAD
REID COLLINS (NEW YORK)
BY MEGHAN HEMINGWAY
TAREK SAAD IS HAVING A FULL-CIRCLE
moment. The acclaimed and accomplished commercial trial lawyer is known in the industry for rising to meet challenges and raising the bar when he does. He has deftly navigated his career path, consciously considering how to evolve himself and enrich the company he keeps. So now, as he begins a new chapter with an old friend, it’s no surprise that the firm, Reid Collins, already feels like home.
Saad has built a multifaceted practice, one that has crossed borders and defied traditional limitations. From Big Law to boutique, from Denver to Qatar, Saad attributes a certain amount of his success to being in the right place at the right time – but it’s his talent that is unmissable by everyone he works with.
Saad and Bill Reid, the founding partner of Reid Collins, met as “baby lawyers,” as Saad puts it, in their very first private practice jobs in Dallas. Their paths have dovetailed over the years and only now, decades later, are they joining forces at Reid Collins.
Reid speaks highly of the firm’s new addition. “Tarek is a true trial lawyer – he’s quick on his feet and can break down an argument in real time,” said Reid in a press release about Saad joining the firm. “His addition to our team will not only bolster our New York office, but also add to our Firm’s breadth of international work through his strong experience in the Middle East.”
Saad believes strongly in teamwork, in part because he played competitive soccer, and in part because of his love playing and watching ice hockey. “Both sports require a large amount of sacrifice for your teammates – and trust in your teammates – and many times passing and receiving the ball and puck is more valuable to scoring a goal than the final shot,» Saad says. “That’s how Bill Reid has created the business model at Reid Collins. You need to have everybody›s backs and know they›ll have yours.”
Lawdragon: Tell us how you got your start in law.
Tarek Saad: I’m originally from Detroit, and I went to the University of Michigan for undergrad. I went to law school at University of Texas in Austin, which was a big leap for me. I had never been to Texas,
and I didn’t know anybody, but I soon liked it a lot. When I started at my first job at Hughes & Luce in Dallas, I took advantage of a great opportunity to get on a plaintiff’s financial fraud case with the head of litigation that went to trial within 15 months of me joining. I guess I’d impressed him enough during pre-trial preparation because I was the only lawyer he took into the courtroom with him. We thought it would be a one-week trial, but it lasted five weeks, and the jury ended up giving us three times what we asked for. It was very hard work, but very rewarding, and after that, I was hooked!
LD: A strong start, right from the gate. How long were you there?
TS: After three years, I was definitely loving the firm, but I did not see myself spending my future in the city of Dallas. I am the product of a multi-cultural family and adventurous parents, and at the time
Dallas felt more insular than I wanted it to be. I’m a kid from Detroit, right? I didn’t see myself in that environment. It’s not really for me. I had reached the critical three- or four-year mark, and I knew if I went on partnership track it was a commitment to the city. So, I got out the atlas and I said, “Where do I want to live?”
I traveled to several cities by myself and picked Denver – it had the mountains and the weather and it’s just a wonderful place to be active. So I worked all day and went to the SMU library at night to grab a table and study for the Colorado bar exam. Once I passed, I just flooded the market with resumes, and Morrison & Forrester ended up being the place. I joined and moved to Denver in ‘95.
LD: And pretty soon after, you found yourself in the courtroom again, right?
TS: Yes, I was lucky many chips fell my way. I mean, my trial experience helped me get assigned to the case. But my path to being an active courtroom advocate, including handling oral arguments on motions in limine to start the whole three-week jury trial, and then presenting our lead witness and an important expert, was almost too crazy to be true. It was a class action involving defective basement floors in this huge development called Highlands Ranch, south of Denver. A big developer from southern California built thousands of houses on expansive soils, and used concrete foundations and floors directly on that soil. Many houses suffered from walls and floors that were heaving and cracking and causing all kinds of damage.
There were engineering reports that recommended other methods, including structural wood floors –where you have a buffer of space to accommodate the possibility the soils will expand. But of course that was going to be much more expensive and affect market pricing. So all these floors start heaving and cracking in all these pricey new homes, and this fancy new development was becoming a nightmare for many families.
LD: What a mess!
TS: So Jim Brosnahan at the firm was hired to try the case. He’s in our San Francisco office and he’s bigtime. He was famous for being the lead prosecutor in U.S. v. Caspar Weinberger, related to the IranContra affair; successfully defending Oakland in a long jury trial with the Oakland Raiders; and obtaining dismissal terrorism charges against the “American Taliban,” John Walker Lindh. Between Jim
and me as a fourth-year associate were two midlevel Denver partners, and a seventh-year associate. That was the team as I entered. I start in the usual way, handling all kinds of document review and discovery motions, and after the class gets certified, I start to get more and more responsibility as things ramp up towards trial. And then the seventh-year gets pregnant. So based on the trial date and her upcoming maternity leave, she’s out.
They decide to add her workload to mine, and remove me from my other cases. We’re all working as a Denver team, and Jim starts traveling more frequently from San Francisco, and I start to work more with him, including directly on some things. The case is not settling, and we need to start preparing for the possibility of going to trial. Two weeks before trial, the client moved the entire Denver team down to the Inverness Hotel to be closer to the courtroom.
During preparation, Jim determines we need someone at the hotel during the trial to handle all of the research and writing during the trial day. I assume that is going to be me, but Jim assigns that to one of the partners instead. Then Jim gives me motion in limine, which at the time seemed to everyone to be relatively unimportant to our strategy. But I’m excited because it means I’m in the courtroom, at least at the start. Then the other partner starts to develop a medical condition, and now Jim is giving me even more. The week before trial Jim calls me in for a oneon-one and says, “Are you ready?” And I’m like, “I’m ready.” He gives me two fact witnesses and an expert and tells me he wants me in the courtroom for the entire trial. Now, I’m working 19 hours a day and I’m just not sleeping –I’m going to trial with Jim Brosnahan.
I played an active role in the three-week jury trial, and ultimately, the jury gave the plaintiff class what we had offered in settlement. But what I’ll never forget, is my favorite moment that last day while we are waiting for the jury verdict. I’m just exhausted and Jim sits down next to me and he’s like, “I’ll go to trial with you any day.” It was just one of those moments. Gives me chills even now.
LD: Absolute trial by fire.
TS: Exactly. They gave me a week off and when I got back, my managing partner in Denver called me in and said, “I hope you know, you just made partner.” I’m like, “What?!” He said, “Well no, not now, but you’ll
SAAD BELIEVES
STRONGLY IN TEAMWORK, IN PART BECAUSE HE PLAYED COMPETITIVE SOCCER, AND IN PART BECAUSE OF HIS LOVE PLAYING AND WATCHING ICE HOCKEY. “BOTH
SPORTS REQUIRE A LARGE AMOUNT OF SACRIFICE FOR YOUR TEAMMATES – AND TRUST IN YOUR TEAMMATES – AND MANY TIMES PASSING AND RECEIVING THE BALL AND PUCK IS MORE VALUABLE TO SCORING A GOAL THAN THE FINAL SHOT. ”
be up for it early.” He says, “Just don’t fuck it up!”
LD: Ha!
TS: And yeah, I made partner in 2000.
LD: When did you set out on your own?
TS : In June 2009, I started my firm with Andy Schauer and Laurel Jin. Laurel did corporate, Andy did securities and entertainment law, and I was the courtroom and disputes guy. I ended up getting some interesting work through some Middle Eastern connections that I had representing Middle Eastern investors who lost money in investments in the U.S. Meanwhile, Andy’s wife is close with Mark Burnett, who’s the producer of “Survivor” and other film and TV projects. Then she starts working on a new show, called “The Apprentice.”
We ended up getting hired to be counsel for the show. So we’re going up to New York and drafting talent contracts and appearance releases, doing pre-publication review and making sure we blur out people that don’t have releases, all these sorts of things. We are super excited to have a credit on the show, and we are building our brand and hiring associates and staff. Then in 2012 – the record stops. Andy is not feeling well. It turns out he has a rare form of kidney cancer. We did all kinds of traditional treatments in the U.S. Then we flew him around the world for alternative treatments. He fought it for a year and passed in the summer of 2013.
LD: I’m so sorry.
TS: It was devastating. You know, we had the cool
office, we had the pool table and the bar, we›re overlooking the mountains – but then it truly was like the air just came out of the room. It was unbelievable. It was tough to let go, but Laurel and I decided to go our separate ways. I figured, I’ll either start my own thing or find a different home. I ended up going to Patton Boggs. They had four Middle Eastern offices, and I had a friend there who was supremely interested in what I was doing. And she said, “Look, you›re going through a tough time. We›re a nice soft spot for you to land. We can take care of you with your clients.” I ended up joining them.
I transported all my cases from my firm over there. My biggest one was a Lebanese investor who was the exclusive dealer for Kawasaki products in the Middle East. He had made a lot of money with Kawasaki, and he was such a kind and good person. He felt bad about all the pollution that his products contributed to the environment – especially old tires that end up in landfills. He wanted to do something to remedy that.
So he found this investment called Carbon Green, which was allegedly a tire recycling plant in Cyprus. Before he met me, he did a fair amount of due diligence, saw the paperwork and flew to Cyprus where he saw what appeared to be a tire recycling plant. And he invested $13M in this thing. And it all went kaput because the front man was a guy from Slovakia who lived in Vancouver. He had a Canadian lawyer and a Canadian accountant as accomplices to add authenticity to the deal. He literally paid to rent space in a manufacturing plant in Cyprus and
SOME OF MY FAVORITE
EXPERIENCES
OVER MY CAREER HAVE BEEN THE TYPE OF WORK THAT REID COLLINS DOES, ON THE PLAINTIFF SIDE – COMPLEX FINANCIAL ISSUES. THAT’S MY WHEELHOUSE.
hired people just for the day, to be there for my client’s visit.
LD: And it was all just a front?
TS: A whole elaborate scheme. It took some time for my associates and I to discover it, because it wasn’t obvious from documents we had – this guy and his cohorts were high-quality shysters. But we went hard and ended up flipping the lawyer and accountant to be witnesses for us. Because I knew that going after the lawyers and accountants first usually is the best way to start – they do not want a lawsuit on their record, and they certainly do not want to go to trial. We flipped them to testify against the boss, and relentlessly chased the chief bad guy around. Finally took him to trial, won $23M. It was quite the experience; very exhilarating.
LD: What made you take the leap to Reid Collins?
TS: I am passionate about the type of work that Reid Collins is doing. Some of my favorite experiences over my career have been the type of work that Reid Collins does, on the plaintiff side – complex financial issues. That’s my wheelhouse.
LD: How did you and Bill first meet?
TS: We actually met in our very first private practice law jobs. I went straight from law school to a firm called Hughes & Luce in Dallas. It was about 150 lawyers, which back then was a big deal. We had a big litigation department and a very highly respected litigation and trial team there. It’s the reason I joined and probably why Bill joined too, but we met literally learning how to be lawyers.
So last year when my wife decided we’re moving to New York – and believe me, I did not put up a fight –I reached out to Bill. Within an hour, we were kind of looking at each other like, “We should probably work together, huh?” Yeah. So here we are – off to the races.
LD : It’s such a strong fi rm with an extraordinary cohort of lawyers. How’s your experience been thus far?
TS : Everyone is fantastic. Very collegial, and the environment is quick-witted and intellectual, including the humor. When I went to Austin to meet most of the team, I hung out in the lunchroom and enjoyed the flow and the people I met. I sat in on a pitch that Bill was doing just to get a feel for how he approaches things. I stayed for another day and had meals and activities with a variety of my new colleagues. By the end of it, I was already very comfortable and it felt like a home.
LD: That’s how you know it’s a great fi t.
TS: In the first few weeks, I’ve already seen how selectively we hire. And a large majority of people have been here a long time, most of the firm’s 14-year existence. I think that can be attributed to a business model that genuinely and brilliantly incents both entrepreneurship and teamwork at the same time, which is not easy for law firms to pull off. My two favorite sports to play and watch – soccer and ice hockey – are very similar to that approach. Scoring a goal in those sports is not easy nor is frequent, and the best teams have players who can create passes to each other that result in the shots that are most likely to hit the back of the net. These are sports that reward players sacrificing themselves for their teammates, and at the same time trusting in their teammates to have their backs. I get that feel here.
LD: The teamwork connects you to the work in a meaningful way.
TS: Exactly. And of course, the clients benefi t from that just as much as the rest of us. It’s a smarter structure than what you see at Big Law firms.
I’ve just started, and I can already see and feel how hard people work and how committed they are to the firm’s success, even without an emphasis on billable hours – or maybe because of the lack of emphasis on the billable hour! I am routinely rising early in the morning and right away thinking about how I can support the team. It’s good. It’s a powerful way to live.
JAMES GUSTAFSON CAMERON KENNEDY CARTER SCOTT
SEARCE DENNEY (TALLAHASSEE, FLA.)
BY EMILY JACKOWAY
WHEN JAMES GUSTAFSON WAS BROUGHT
on board to start Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley ’s Tallahassee, Fla. office in 2002, it was something of an experiment. The well-known plaintiffs’ firm had been operating out of its West Palm Beach location for more than 20 years at that point, and Tallahassee – the political and legal center of the state – seemed a natural next step. Most importantly, “we came here to be good neighbors,” Gustafson says. “We came here to work on important matters that other people might not want to risk money on – complex work that’s expensive to manage.”
Twenty-two years and many high-profile victories later, it’s safe to say the experiment has been a success.
Today, the Tallahassee team consists of three attorneys: Gustafson, along with partners Cameron
Kennedy and Carter Scott. The trio work seamlessly with the West Palm Beach office, forming a firm that spans the whole of Florida. Kennedy joined the team in 2011, coming from his own practice. He had seen Gustafson’s successes and reached out to him when he needed help on a case. The two became friends, and Kennedy was brought on board. Scott, the newest member, has been with the firm since law school at Florida State University, when he emailed the firm as a 1L and snagged an internship. He was named a shareholder in 2022. Though the three joined at different times, they create a tight-knit group with complementary styles – a team that describes themselves more as family than as coworkers.
The office’s practice mix is similar to Searcy Denney’s other office – standout personal injury, products liability, medical malpractice and wrongful death work. Gustafson has developed a particular niche in tobacco cases, which have been his primary focus for years. He is known for his work on the Engle progeny litigation, where he has tried many of these tobacco cases with an impressive list of verdicts over $10M. Kennedy and Scott have also returned multimillion-dollar results, including resent cases involving a $10.5M settlement on the eve of trial for the negligent care of a senior citizen at an assisted living center; $9.4M for negligent design and construction of pedestrian boardwalk that caused their client to suffer a spinal cord injury; $10M
for the family of a victim of an interstate truck crash; and $16.5M for a child who suffered paralysis caused by a defective car seat during an auto collision. Scott is also a member of the Georgia bar, and the team handles cases around the country.
Outside of cases, the trio have impressive resumes in the industry: Gustafson is a member of the elite International Academy of Trial Lawyers, the American Board of Trial Advocates, and is a past president of the Florida Justice Association. Both Kennedy and Scott are Eagle members of the FJA and serve on the Board of Directors.
We sat down with the trio to discuss memorable cases, emerging trends, and the synergy that makes the Tallahassee office thrive.
Lawdragon: Which cases have been standouts in each of your careers at Searcy Denney?
Cameron Kennedy: When I first joined the firm, one of the cases that I handled was a complicated case involving a brain-injured baby. I think there were 20 defendants in the case. I spent two years flying around the country taking the depositions of the world’s foremost experts in pediatric medicine, neurology, obstetrics, neonatology and pulmonology. It was like getting a PhD-level education. I remember coming into Jimmy’s [Gustafson’s] office at one point and saying, “If they’re all like this, I’m not sure I can do this.” But every step of the way, Jimmy just gave me confidence. Ultimately, the case went to trial. Our senior partner, Chris Searcy, was set to try the case with me, but his wonderful wife was very sick with cancer. The weekend before the trial started, Priscilla suffered complications and Chris did the absolute right thing and went home to be with her.
LD: Oh, no.
CK : I was there with 20 or 30 defense lawyers and before the day ended, one of my law partners from West Palm Beach dropped what he was doing and came to my rescue. When we got through the first week of trial, all of the defendants in that case settled. The settlement was a profoundly good thing for our clients, who I became very close with. I still get birthday invitations from the family to come celebrate our client’s birthday, who now, gosh, is 19 or 20 years old. It was a baptism by fire in terms of how difficult the case was. But it was also the first experience I had of feeling that, when the chips were down, there our firm had the resources for our clients, no matter what, to secure the justice they deserve. I felt like I could
take on anything because the firm was going to be behind me every step of the way.
LD: That’s beautiful. Mr. Gustafson, how about you?
James Gustafson: Cam just told you the story about somebody that had to go home because of a family emergency and then a bunch of people step up and help when you really need them in a time crunch. It’s a lot to ask of someone who doesn’t know the case; you’re asking them to cram, to be fluent in the language of that case, understand the issues and, in a short period of time, get in front of people and be persuasive. That’s a big ask.
LD: Huge.
JG: Our firm is full of people who are willing to do that. So, I’m thinking about my first real tobacco trial. I was going to go to trial with my old law partner, Bill Norton. A couple of months before trial, Bill’s dad died. Then, the Wednesday before trial, Bill’s mom went into the hospital. She was very sick. Bill was worried about his mom. He’s worried about the trial, but he knew where he needed to be. I said, “Bill, you only get one mom.”
So, then I knew I had to get a continuance of the trial. But I’ll never forget – the judge talked to another judge that I tried a malpractice case in front of and that judge told my tobacco judge, “Oh, Jimmy can do it on his own.” So, the judge comes back the next day and says, “We’re going be starting trial on Monday.”
LD: Oh, wow.
JG: Now I’m picking up all these witnesses that I didn’t have before. And just like what happened with Cam, my law partner David Sales showed up on Sunday and we started picking the jury on Monday morning.
LD: Wow. What stands out to you about the trial itself?
JG: A lot of people don’t know the story of what the tobacco industry did. The companies knew, of course, because it was their business model to lie about what they knew about the dangers of their product. They documented everything, and they wrote beautifully. But I was largely unfamiliar with a lot of those internal company documents before that trial, because I was handling the medicine and the fact witnesses, not the witnesses who would tell the story of what the industry did. In one industry document presented to the jury, the author writes, if we do this, “all we will need is a bigger bag to carry the money to the bank.” It was shocking. I hadn’t seen that document before it was presented in the trial, so I was seeing it
THOUGH THE THREE JOINED AT DIFFERENT TIMES, THEY CREATE A TIGHT-KNIT GROUP WITH COMPLEMENTARY STYLES –A TEAM THAT DESCRIBES THEMSELVES MORE AS FAMILY THAN AS COWORKERS.
like the jury was seeing it. The eventual foreperson was sitting about six feet from me, and I think we both had the same look on our faces, jaw agape, like, “I can’t believe this.” I remember she turned her head and looked right in my eyes with that look on her face.
The jury was out about an hour and 15 minutes, and then they knocked and had a verdict. When they knocked that soon I remember telling David, “We lost.” And he goes, “Oh no, we didn’t.” We went back in there and the jury had awarded twice what we asked for. We went right into the punitive damages phase, and they awarded another $72M that afternoon. And that was my first tobacco trial.
LD: That’s amazing. What inspired you to do that work?
JG : My father died from lung cancer caused by smoking cigarettes. He had been a long-time smoker who died years after he was finally able to quit, and he was just like these people. I remember thinking, “I can’t make this personal. It’ll be too emotional for me to make it personal.” But that first one was personal. It was a great, great feeling to win.
LD: What do you find most fulfilling about the tobacco cases?
JG: It’s well-documented what these companies did in their effort to continue to sell cigarettes – knowing that a lot of people were going to die as a result of what they were doing – and they celebrated how much money they made doing it. No one should get away with that. That’s what those cases are about: accountability. Those companies live forever. They were in existence when our grandparents were children and they’re going to be in existence long after you and I are dead. And if they aren’t held accountable, they’re just going to keep doing the same thing over and over.
LD: Absolutely. And Mr. Scott, what cases stand out to you?
Carter Scott: One case that really sticks with me is
one of my first trucking wrongful death cases in federal court. It was a tough one, with some complex legal issues. We had to dig deep into the books to find a unique ‘exception to the exception’ in the law, which was key to our case. It wasn’t just the legal challenge that made it memorable. It was the young child involved – his grandparents, who were raising him, died in the terrible crash. He was in the vehicle too and witnessed all of it. Afterward, his aunt and uncle took him in. I still hear from them a couple of times a year, which is always nice. The child was just a little guy when I first represented him, and now he’s around 12 or 13, and he’s doing amazingly well. It’s cases like this, where you end up with a connection that sticks with you, that remind you why you do what you do.
Recently, we had a products liability case that really got to me personally. It involved this incredible little girl who ended up paralyzed, and we were taking on the child car seat manufacturer. As a parent of three little ones myself, all still in car seats, it was tough. The courage of this girl was just amazing, facing life with such a tough challenge. It’s one of those situations that really makes you think and sticks with you.
LD: How old was she?
CS: She was six when she was injured and now she’s fourteen. About a month before the trial was about to start, her mom died of a heart attack right in front of her.
LD: Oh, my gosh.
JG: Yeah, that little girl had been through a ton.
CS: She’s got an awesome grandmother who rallied the troops. She’s just a tough, tough lady, who has made numerous sacrifices to step back in as a full-time parent for her grandchildren.
LD: Looking more recently, are you seeing any trends in your practices right now?
JG: Gun violence is really prevalent. And I’m a gun owner and a hunter. We’re working on a shooting
THE FOUNDERS REALIZED THAT THERE HAS TO BE SOMEPLACE
WHERE BEING RIGHT IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN BEING POWERFUL AND WEALTHY, A PLACE WHERE FAIRNESS TRUMPS STRENGTH. IN OUR NATION, THAT PLACE IS SUPPOSED TO BE THE COURTROOM.
case right now where somebody wandered around a resort property with a pistol, waving it and threatening people for nearly an hour before anything was done. He shot at 14 people and killed our client’s son, who was just trying to leave after his shift was over and got shot while he was driving.
LD: That’s awful. Mr. Kennedy, any trends that you’re seeing?
CK : I would say the trends that I have seen in law mirror the challenges that we see in our nation right now. In some respects, we are as divided now as we ever were. What has separated the United States of America from all other nations is the rule of law, entrusted to a fair and impartial judicial system, presided over by nonpartisan objective judges not swayed by political ambition. The two hundred-plusyear experiment of this great republic will not survive if we allow special interests and money to infiltrate our judiciary and the judicial branch of government. The founders realized that there has to be someplace where being right is more important than being powerful and wealthy, a place where fairness trumps strength. In our nation, that place is supposed to be the courtroom. A place where it doesn’t matter how powerful or wealthy you are – the same rules apply to everyone. The deck is not supposed to be stacked. The question for the next generation of lawyers is going to be whether justice is for sale.
LD: What do the three of you enjoy most about working together?
JG: I’d be friends with them if we weren’t law partners. They’re those kind of people. It’s nice working with people that you know can do the job. And that gives me a lot of confidence that I don’t have to worry about micromanaging things and because I have equally, if not more, capable partners that are working on it with me. I think that’s been a big part of our success – the fact that we work together and work well together.
CK : I’ll give you a perfect example of how we are
law partners as much as we are brothers. Jimmy and I were in court in Jacksonville and my wife and two young sons were in a car accident. I couldn’t have my phone on in court. The first call she made was to Carter. Carter met her at the hospital, and he helped figure out how to get one kid to grandparents and get the other one checked out. By the time I got word of it, everything had been handled. My family was safe. Not very many people can say that about the people they work with.
LD: Would you say that you all have complementary styles as lawyers and strengths as lawyers?
CK: Oh, yeah. We are yin and yang. I would say Jimmy’s the textbook field general, marshaling the troops to battle, no matter the odds and no matter the risk, never give up, never give in. I’m the guy, when you’re in the scariest environment imaginable, that can find the silver lining of something funny and make you laugh. Although, they did nickname me the “big bear,” which I guess means I’m easy to get along with until I’m not. And Carter is the absolute definition of tactician. He is the guy that rolls his sleeves up, says, “I don’t care what the issue is,” and the next time you see him, he could teach a PhD-level course on that issue.
CS: They’ve been huge mentors to me. Jimmy’s tried every kind of case you can try. He’s handled every issue you can handle. I can ask him about anything, and he’s got that kind of mind where he remembers it all. He’ll say, “I came upon this issue in a case back in 2006, go look at that, it’s in the archives.” Or I’ll be banging my head against the wall on a technical issue and go to Cam. He has a great way of making things that are very complex, very simple. It’s an incredible blessing to work with them. I consider Jimmy and Cam family. There’s no other way to put that. If you don’t have folks like these guys in your foxhole every day, it’s hard to find success in our profession. When you work with people you love, it really makes all the difference.
MAURA KOLB
THE LANIER LAW FIRM (HOUSTON)
BY MEGHAN HEMINGWAY
MAURA KOLB CAME TO THE LANIER LAW
Firm in 2003 after previously working with the firm on complex business and personal injury litigation matters. That work included helping to reach a sizeable settlement for syringe manufacturer Retractable Technologies in an antitrust lawsuit against Becton Dickinson and other defendants, serving as part of the trial team that secured a $258M verdict in the nation’s fi rst trial over the painkiller Vioxx, as well as in two additional Vioxx trials that led to a significant MDL settlement. She subsequently coordinated BP Gulf Oil Spill settlements, pro bono, for hundreds of firm clients.
In 2011, Kolb was promoted to the management of the bankruptcy claims department for the asbestos section of the firm, later expanding that role to include management of the historical asbestos docket. Collecting millions of dollars for clients every year, Kolb serves on numerous national asbestos trust advisory committees and is currently counsel for client representatives on various asbestos creditor committees.
Kolb has called Houston home for more than 30 years after earning her law degree from The University of Houston Law Center, and her undergraduate degree cum laude from Northeast Missouri State University.
Lawdragon : So give us an overview of your responsibilities at the firm.
Maura Kolb: I am the Managing Attorney for the Asbestos Resolution Team. We work on the firm’s post-trial book of asbestos cases. That work includes, among many other things, poring over exposure information with an eye toward maximizing client compensation. Much of that work involves bankruptcy trust claims. Companies that made, distributed and/or used asbestos products historically at times get to a point where their liabilities outweigh assets. The result is often a trust created through the Federal Bankruptcy Code Section 524(g). I represent the firm in an advisory role to a number of these trusts.
Additionally, my duties involve representation of
clients who serve on asbestos creditor committees in various bankruptcy courts. A relatively recent development within my world is companies’ attempts to use the bankruptcy system to shed asbestos liabilities while still solvent. This maneuver was dubbed the “Texas Two-Step,” originating with the very wealthy company, Georgia-Pacific. More recently the maneuver has gained worldwide attention when attempted by Johnson & Johnson.
LD: But as a litigator, wouldn’t you prefer to resolve these claims in court in front of a jury?
MK : Of course. Protection of the constitutional right to a jury trial is incredibly important and that right is under attack. Companies that injure people perhaps fear a courtroom more than anything. When companies injure large numbers of people, the cases are most often consolidated into state or federal multi-district litigations. This MDL process has a
solid record of efficiently resolving large numbers of cases. At the heart of the Two-Step maneuver is the desire to force a settlement of all the liability at once, the idea being driving down the liability and of course receiving a release from any asbestos liability in the present and future. This maneuver has been argued to bankruptcy courts as one that is in the best interests of clients. That argument is outrageous, especially when coming for attorneys who represent the companies trying to shed their liability.
LD: So how did you come to join the Lanier firm?
MK: I met Mark Lanier not long after I was licensed, as he became trial counsel on a few cases at the firm where I worked. In 1997 my work involved an antitrust case for Retractable Technologies, Inc., a safety needle manufacturer. That case eventually became my sole focus in a joint venture with the Lanier firm. As an aside, the movie “Puncture,” with Chris Evans, was based on this case. I was hired by the Lanier firm when that case concluded.
LD: And at that point did you jump into another big case?
MK: Not long afterward I became involved in the Vioxx litigation. The firm had individual cases and was involved in individually filed state cases, as well as the N.J. state and the federal MDLs created to handle the large numbers of cases. Merck failed to warn about the risks of the painkiller, Vioxx, which substantially increased the risk of heart attacks and strokes for patients. I was involved in the first Vioxx trial in Texas in 2005 and then again in 2006 and 2007 bellwether Vioxx trials, in Atlantic City, N.J. Those plaintiff verdicts led the way to a $4.85B nationwide settlement with Merck. I then moved to coordination of settlement packages for our firm.
LD: What did that involve?
MK: The settlements in this MDL were based on a matrix created to determine the value for each claim. It was a points-based system that looked not only at medical records that included the injuries, but also the totality of a person›s health. I spearheaded this process, and put to use a different skillset than I had previously used in my career. Shortly after this ended, I took on the management for resolving asbestos bankruptcy claims. That remains a key focus for not only my team, but also for the firm.
LD: You mention skillset. What is that skillset, what makes you good at what you do and what do you
try to instill in the younger attorneys who work on your team?
MK
: The main skillset necessary here at Lanier is, in one sense, very simple and it is something that I talk about more than you might think. If you work hard and have the drive and the smarts to do the work, you will do well. That›s the big picture.
As a young lawyer, I spent more than a decade with my head in the details of big cases or litigations. The responsibilities I have taken on since that time helped me develop a much greater ability to look at the big picture and gave me the opportunity to develop and manage a team of people. For me it is a skillset that I have worked to develop and continue to develop. I see that as the big part of the reason for the success my team has had here. It can be a challenge to see the big picture when you are working in the weeds, but that skillset would serve any lawyer very well. The work we do is incredibly rewarding. I would hope that I lead by example.
LD: On that topic, how many attorneys are a part of your team?
MK: There are three lawyers here at the firm that are a part of the team. As I mentioned, we work on large numbers of asbestos cases, post-litigation. The attorneys on my team have distinct roles within, but of course there is always some overlap. As a team, the attorneys also interact with the asbestos litigation teams at the firm. My hope is that these roles give our team the opportunity to lead within those roles. The work is challenging, but we work hard to do all we can for our clients, mostly through work with asbestos bankruptcy trusts.
LD : Talk a bit more about these Asbestos Bankruptcy Trusts?
MK : Part of the challenge we face is keeping up with asbestos bankruptcy trusts, both old and new, of which there are many. Although we all continue to work with clients to help them get as much compensation as possible, it has been historically and remains unfortunate that it can take so long for people to get compensation, particularly once a bankruptcy becomes part of the process. In the bankruptcy trust payment context, payments are made mostly in small percentages of the total liability.
Sometimes years after a trust opens, there may be a decision that there is money enough to send a supplemental payment to claimants. In that way, the
final resolution is often a long time coming. It is an ongoing challenge keeping contact with families over long periods of time. Clients as well as close family members of clients often pass. For the clients and their families, of course we want to maximize recovery, but we also want to give those families final resolution.
LD: So in helping these families, who may be the children or grandchildren of the original client, you still find that fulfilling?
MK: I do. I talk with my team regularly about how very important our work is so that we keep our focus. Every single phone call, every single dollar we provide to a client is so important. We must be able to take the satisfaction that comes from helping people in order to continue to do what we do.
I like the managing role very much. That’s an important part of what I do because as a team we must make every effort to work in the most efficient way that we can. It takes a particular type of person to do this work, and I do my best to see that folks stay motivated.
LD: And do you interact with attorneys from other firms in handling these cases?
MK : Yes, of course. Over the years as we have become more involved in the bankruptcy court aspect of things, engaging with my counterparts at other firms has helped me grow as a lawyer, as a manager, and even as a person. Working with other firms across the country opens new opportunities for us and is an important aspect of our goals. My counterparts and I have served our clients who sit on various asbestos bankruptcy committees, as well as our firms sitting on Trust Advisory Committees. That work provides an even broader view of the asbestos bankruptcy world. It helps inform certain choices for sure and as a plus, I enjoy working more closely with clients and with lawyers from other firms.
LD: You’re also very involved in supporting the Houston Food Bank. How did that become a passion project for you?
MK : It started about a month after I moved to asbestos bankruptcy work, in the summer of 2011. As a firm, we were in the middle of the firm’s “Year of Gifts” theme competition. The asbestos bankruptcy team theme was “Year of Gifts,» the idea being to share gifts of time and talent.
LD: And that was the Food Bank?
MK : As a group we brainstormed and decided one of the volunteer projects would be the HFB. We worked at the Houston Food Bank’s Keegan’s Kitchen, and it was, for me, a truly fantastic experience. Not only does HFB make the experience easy to implement with groups, but it is also a way for the team to spend time together. For me, it was and still is a place where I can connect on a more personal level with folks in the group, where we can connect with each other in a different setting.
In 2017, we started participation in the HFB “Food from the Bar” month-long competition for Houston’s legal community. With fi rm leadership support, we took this challenge to heart and reached out to involve others. The support has been amazing. We donate our time as well as fundraise and of course take donations through a firm webpage for the HFB. The firm’s entire leadership is incredibly important to our efforts. Mark matches every dollar we can collect for this important cause. This year we begin our eighth year in this competition, where we consistently finish at or near the top of the pack, even as we now compete as a small firm within the large firm category.
LD: So what do you do for fun, any hobbies?
MK: Although I am not sure I would call it a hobby, the first thing that pops into my mind is exercise. That is something it seems I am either doing or planning to do. I very much like to tinker with things, particularly tech-related things. During Covid, I spent time converting my house to be “smarter” by replacing all the light and fan switches both indoors and outdoors. I also like movies and can be a binge TV watcher sometimes, lots of British TV and true crime. I don’t know if you would call being a “foodie” a hobby but if so, then that also describes me. My wife is quite a chef, and the Houston restaurant scene is fantastic, so I get to experience that often.
LD: Anything you’d like to add?
MK : Be kind to each other. Kindness has a permanent place here at LLF and that is not a small thing. It is a part of our foundation that is rarely discussed in articles like this, but it is one of the things that make this place what it is. I am fortunate to do the work I do, where I do it. I wake up grateful and proceed to help people who have been wronged, receive some justice. I like to think my work makes the world a better place, in big and in small ways. With that as a daily motivator and challenge in my life, I count myself blessed.
RALPH SPOONER
SPOONER STAGGS (PORTLAND)
BY MEGHAN HEMINGWAY
RALPH SPOONER IS KNOWN TO MANY AS
“the best trial lawyer in Oregon.” He has been holding court in the Pacific Northwest legal community for fi ve decades. So this year, when his fi rst-rate insurance defense fi rm Spooner & Much flipped to the plaintiffs’ side and reinvented itself as Spooner Staggs Trial Lawyers, it shocked many friends, clients, and competitors.
Spooner has a history of huge wins on the defense side. Within his fi rm and community he’s seen as an inspirational mentor, a visionary, a leader. Spooner is revered for being kindhearted, fatherly and personable. In the courtroom however, he’s an unrelenting juggernaut.
“I’m very courteous and respectful to the witnesses. But as a trial lawyer, although you play by the rules, your job is to win the case for your client. And if that means taking someone down on the witness stand, you do it. And I’m always really friendly, so they never see it coming,” says Spooner, smiling.
Spooner has tried 1000 jury trials over his 50 years in the game. One major insurer has fl own him all over the country to try cases. Juries can detect his authenticity and care, and opposing counsel are rocked by his confidence and expertise. He’s the King. And earlier this year Spooner decided he was defending the wrong castle.
Spooner Staggs is shedding some light on cracks that have been forming in the insurance industry for over a decade but are only now starting to show. According to Spooner, the system has been devolving, slowly but surely, due to an everlooming force – the use of algorithms and artificial intelligence.
“Gradually, insurance companies have started to use information from internally developed algorithms to make claims decisions,” Spooner explains. “Predictable outcomes based upon analytical determinations by a computer, not human beings.”
Justice achieved purely by analyzing computerized
data didn’t feel right to Spooner because it stopped being about people and their pain; it was just data. Now he’s right at home on the left side of the V. And the highly decorated and seasoned trial lawyer is freshly energized for the next chapter in the epic saga of his career.
Lawdragon: How did you first decide to become a lawyer? What brought you to the field?
Ralph Spooner: One of the defi ning things in my lifetime is that my dad died when I was a sophomore in high school. I was adrift without the guidance of my father, I lacked an adult mentor. I was attending an all-boys high school, a Catholic school in the suburbs of Chicago. So there was structure there – those schools at that time were pretty strict. They made you show up on time, do your work on time, and be a moral human being.
When I was in college, I met with a career counselor. I hadn’t really thought about what I wanted to do. And I remember he said to me, “You’re pretty verbal. You’d probably be a good lawyer.” That was it. It wasn’t a lifelong dream. I didn’t have a family member ahead of me that I was trying to imitate. At the time it was just a desire to further my education, and I developed an interest in the law.
LD: How did you get your start once you were out of law school?
RS: My first job was with Bruce Williams – a larger than life, big-time trial attorney who tried lots of major cases. He had fully succeeded at everything in life. He was a World War II decorated Navy fi ghter ace. He bred thoroughbred racehorses. He was president of local and national legal organizations. He and his law partner, Otto Skopil, represented a former governor of the State of Oregon. He was like a father fi gure to me as a brand-new baby lawyer. He never had a son, so he took me under his wing and was a big infl uence in my life professionally. His idea of training was to not give you too much information, but just kind of throw you into the pool and say, “Hey, you better swim or you’re going to drown.” He was a great mentor.
LD: Did he practice defending insurance companies?
RS: He and his longtime partner Skopil did, yes. A major insurance company opened up a regional offi ce in Salem [Oregon] and employed several
SPOONER STAGGS IS SHEDDING SOME LIGHT ON CRACKS THAT
HAVE BEEN FORMING IN THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY FOR OVER A DECADE. ACCORDING TO SPOONER, THE SYSTEM HAS BEEN DEVOLVING, DUE TO AN EVER-LOOMING FORCE – THE USE OF ALGORITHMS AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.
thousand people – that was one of their main clients when I joined them. But Bruce didn’t just do insurance defense. He defended a bunch of high-profi le murder cases and he did personal injury work on the plaintiffs’ side and product liability work. So when I fi rst became a lawyer, it was important to me to focus my attention primarily on insurance defense work to get trial experience.
LD: Why insurance defense specifically?
RS: There was a steady supply of cases doing insurance defense work. That was something I was interested in – the art of trying a case. At that time in the court system, historically we didn’t have what we have today. There were no mediations or arbitrations, there were no court settlement conferences, what we call ADR – alternative dispute resolution. Back then, on the morning of the trial, the judge would say, “Is this case going to settle or not?” That would be the total effort the court would put into potentially settling a case. We didn’t have the mechanisms that exist today to resolve disputes that are fi led in court using something other than a trial. As a result, I got to try a lot of cases. Younger lawyers today don’t get that kind of trial experience.
LD: Can you share some of what that wealth of experience has taught you?
RS: When we were born, the creator gave us all a little antenna that goes up automatically. What I›ve learned as a trial lawyer is that if you try a case in court, jurors instantly start doing this. Information›s coming at them – whether it comes out of your mouth or your client›s mouth or the witness’s, or whether it’s in documentary evidence – and they’re assessing and collecting this information rapidly. Then they make a decision using their judgment in accordance with how the judge instructs them as
to the law. I have my doubts about whether jurors really follow the law. They’re supposed to, but I think a lot of decisions are based upon their own moral sense of what’s right and wrong or fair or unfair. Because I’ve tried cases that I couldn’t lose, but I did. And I’ve also tried cases that couldn’t be won, but I did.
LD: Interesting. So how does that inform you as a trial lawyer?
RS: It’s kind of like being a movie director. Can you tell a believable story? Can it become so believable that the audience cries, or laughs. And not laughs because they’re supposed to laugh – but a real belly laugh. Can you create that human experience where people react in a very visceral way? The number one thing that sells in a courtroom is authenticity. And you can’t fake that whether you’re the lawyer or the client. Because if a jury doesn’t think you’re authentic, you lose. It’s as simple as that.
Lawyers are advocates for people and their important legal problems. Oftentimes people aren’t able to tell their own stories effectively by themselves. They lack perspective and obviously are not skilled in the law. That’s your job as the lawyer – you’re their voice. The art of doing that takes a long time to learn.
If you’re hiring an attorney, you want someone with experience. There’s no substitute for experience. Some would say that knowledge only comes from experience; it isn’t something you can learn from reading a book. And experience only comes with time, exposure and practice. It’s a very dynamic process, being a trial lawyer.
LD: Your firm, now Spooner & Staggs, transitioned recently to the plaintiffs’ side, after decades defending insurance companies. What drove that change?
CAN YOU CREATE THAT HUMAN EXPERIENCE WHERE PEOPLE
REACT IN A VERY VISCERAL WAY? THE NUMBER ONE THING THAT SELLS IN A COURTROOM IS AUTHENTICITY. AND YOU CAN’T FAKE
THAT WHETHER YOU’RE THE LAWYER OR THE CLIENT. BECAUSE IF A JURY DOESN’T THINK YOU’RE AUTHENTIC, YOU LOSE.
RS: I’ve primarily done defense work my whole life. But in every single year of my practice, I’ve always done a few plaintiff cases – bringing an action on behalf of someone who was injured, or had a family member die in a situation where someone else was at fault or negligent. There’s a big demarcation in the law practice on the civil side for lawyers who are doing trial work. What side are you on? If you’re on the defense side, then the plaintiffs’ lawyers would be the dark side. If you’re on the plaintiffs’ side, then the insurance industry would be the dark side. Rarely is someone on both sides at the same time. That’s just a phenomenon.
LD: So what compelled you to break the mold?
RS: My whole life I did what I did because in the United States there is something I refer to as a tort tax. In other words, if you’re in business, there isn’t anything you can do in this world without insurance. Even if you’re just born, you’re going to end up having to get health insurance. If you get a job, they’ll pay unemployment insurance, or workers’ comp insurance. If you drive a car, you have to have auto insurance. If you own a home with a mortgage, you have to have homeowner’s insurance. And the reason you have insurance is in case something goes wrong, you have something to help with a potentially devastating financial situation. Insurance should provide peace of mind. Most people don’t have independent wealth that would cover them if they mess up and run through a red light and kill someone. Most people don’t have the resources to compensate the family who lost a loved one.
LD: Hence, we have insurance.
RS: Right. And if you have a pot of money out there that is for deserving people, there are always some people who are not deserving who want to take money out of that pot. There are people
that view an ordinary car accident as an economic opportunity. Unfortunately, that exists in our society. I could always identify with the insurance company when there was somebody who was trying to cheat the system.
Now we are in 2024 and there’s been very little reform in the system and the insurance industry has the upper hand – there’s a real imbalance. About 10 years ago, insurance companies developed their own algorithms internally to analyze their huge amount of data. Gradually, companies have started to use information from internally developed algorithms to help make claim decisions. Their goal is to save money and sometimes that means not paying claims that should be paid. They prefer predictable outcomes based upon analytical determinations by a computer, not human beings.
A very experienced trial lawyer can provide more judgment and predictability when it comes to outcomes than a computer will ever be able to do – because of that human factor.
For example, they input all of the settlement and verdict amounts for claims involving cervical strains that were paid in the U.S. into the computer, and then it analyzes age groups, length of treatment and dollar cost of treatment. And then the computer says – your sore neck is worth $7,323. As opposed to hiring an attorney to gather information, get medical records, take depositions, meet the people, fi nd out who they are, what’s going on in their lives, and then provide a subjective human assessment.
So as the industry moves towards AI, they no longer value the professional judgment of trial attorneys. The lawyer’s role is going to be diminished to the point that when the computer says this is a case that needs to be tried, the lawyer is going
THE FACT THAT WE ALLOW MEMBERS OF OUR SOCIETY TO DECIDE IMPORTANT MATTERS FOR INDIVIDUALS, LIKE DO YOU GET COMPENSATED FOR INJURIES CAUSED BY ANOTHER AND
HOW MUCH IS FAIR COMPENSATION? [THE JURY SYSTEM] IS A GOOD SYSTEM AND LAWYERS PLAY A CRITICAL ROLE.
to be put in positions they don’t want to be put in. Trying cases where the lawyer’s judgment is that we shouldn’t try this case, this case should be settled. But the computer says no – the statistics indicate if you try this case, you’re going to win it. At that point, it doesn’t matter what you’re paying me. If I don’t feel I’m doing an honest day’s work, why would I do it?
One thing that separates the U.S. from the rest of the world is this tort system. In other countries, they don’t have a civil justice system that compensates people when someone else causes harm. We have a fault-based system here in the U.S. that regulates society. The jury system separates the U.S. from a lot of other countries in the world. The fact that we allow members of our society to decide important matters for individuals, like do you get compensated for injuries caused by another and how much is fair compensation? It’s a good system and lawyers play a critical role.
LD: Recently you settled a big case against a “gig economy” delivery company. I know we can’t get into specifics, but is there anything you’d be willing to share about what you learned in that case?
RS: What we advanced in that case is that we pled a theory of joint tort liability. It goes to the very heart of what’s going on in the gig economy at large, not just the particular delivery company involved in the case I was handling. It could be any of them using this same model – a software company thinks up a great idea and then doesn’t really build a proper company to carry out the idea, they just create a platform where other people can do the work. These software companies can make billions in a quarter but when something goes wrong, they want to disassociate themselves completely from the activity that was being carried
out by the gig worker, who can come and go at will.
So the theory of joint tort liability was to hold these companies accountable. We reframed it to say –actually the company does control the manner in which that person carries out the delivery, or picks up the customer, if you›re a rideshare driver. The company controls all of that through their software, and the gig worker can›t do the job without the company software. So, we felt that if the driver is jointly carrying out the company’s activity with the company’s software, and something goes wrong – the company should be held accountable. And the judge agreed.
LD: This could be a huge precedent.
RS: They are fi ghting the concept nationwide. It’s something I analyzed and we spent the time researching it and advancing the theory. The risk for the delivery company was if we tried the case and won it for a big number, other trial attorneys would hear about the result and use the same legal theory to advance their clients’ cases. The only potential remedy for the delivery company would be to appeal the trial court’s ruling upholding the joint tort liability theory. Or if we tried the case and lost, we would appeal it. And they knew that. If the case went up on appeal and the joint tort liability theory was upheld, then the appellate ruling would have widespread effect on how the gig companies conduct their businesses. So, when I look at the whole situation, I know the company will make changes in how they’re doing business because they can’t risk exposing themselves to these problems in the future. That’s something you can do as a plaintiffs’ lawyer. If you recognize there is a wrong in society, the law affords a remedy. We just need trial lawyers who are willing to fi ght the good fi ght!
MICHAEL WERNKE POMERANTZ (NEW YORK)
BY MATTHEW HELLER
OVER THE PAST YEAR, POMERANTZ PARTNER
Michael Wernke has been a lead litigator in three of the firm’s high-profile securities fraud cases – each case showcasing the firm’s tenacity and creativity in pursuing recoveries for investors.
In a case against Teva Pharmaceuticals, the firm represented Israeli institutional investors who alleged losses related to an alleged price-fi xing scheme as well as Teva’s role in the U.S. opioid crisis. Building on novel legal strategies that Pomerantz developed in a case there led against the Perrigo drug company, the firm defeated defendants’ attempts to dismiss the claims and ultimately reached highly favorable settlements for each plaintiff. The firm also recently netted a nearly $20M settlement with Y-mAbs Therapeutics over allegedly misleading statements about the
FDA approval process for a cancer drug. In a case against Nikola Corp., involving the electric vehicle maker’s false representations about its business, the firm has survived two rounds of motion-to-dismiss briefings and continues the litigation.
Wernke, a partner in the fi rm’s New York offi ce, joined Pomerantz in 2014 after nine years focusing on securities defense at Cahill Gordon & Reindel.
Lawdragon: What was the issue in the Teva case and why did you think it was a good case to take on?
Michael Wernke: Teva is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of generic drugs and, during the relevant period between 2013 to 2016, they were attributing their success to their business acumen instead of the fact they were simply increasing their prices. But that was false and misleading. They were increasing their prices significantly and doing so in collusion with other manufacturers. All of this culminated in 2019 when about 47 states brought antitrust complaints against Teva for their collusive activity. Obviously, the stock price declined as a result.
Teva lists its securities on both the New York and
MICHAEL WERNKE HAS BEEN A LEAD LITIGATOR IN THREE OF THE FIRM’S HIGH-PROFILE SECURITIES FRAUD CASES – EACH CASE SHOWCASING THE FIRM’S TENACITY AND CREATIVITY IN PURSUING RECOVERIES FOR INVESTORS.
Tel Aviv stock exchanges. We brought claims on behalf of a number of major Israeli pension funds and other organizations that had invested in Teva, but we didn’t participate in the class action. Instead, we brought an opt-out, a direct action. The primary reason was that the class action didn’t bring claims for shares that were purchased on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and wouldn’t have given our clients an adequate recovery for all of their losses. For the Teva action, we further refined the theory of supplemental jurisdiction that we had developed in our case against Perrigo, which also dual-lists its securities on the NYSE and TASE, so that the judge agreed to adjudicate our clients – and the class’s –Israeli claims in a U.S. court.
We also brought securities fraud claims based on Teva’s role in the opioid crisis that had swept across the United States. A number of Teva’s products, including Actiq and Fentora, were opioids only approved by the FDA for breakthrough cancer pain, meaning a patient had tried other types of pain relief. But what Teva was doing, along with others in the industry, was encouraging doctors to prescribe these opioids for off-label purposes. They were saying the drugs weren’t addictive and were perfectly fine for things like lower back pain or headaches. It was a novel case. No one else, as far as I know, had chosen to bring a securities fraud claim against Teva for their involvement in the opioid crisis.
LD: How did the Teva litigation progress?
MW : The court sided with us on the issue of supplemental jurisdiction over the Israeli claims and it also sustained our opioid claims on a motion to dismiss. So our clients were able to get a recovery based on the opioid claims in addition to the other claims.
LD : In a similar case involving the Perrigo drug company, your colleague Josh Silverman successfully argued that Israeli investors who used
the Tel Aviv stock exchange to purchase Perrigo shares could sue the company in the U.S. How were you able to build on that case?
MW: We used experts and went through the history to show that this really isn’t an open question. The federal court in Connecticut ruled in our favor and said, “There’s no daylight between the law you would apply for the Israeli shares and the law you’d apply for the U.S. shares.” U.S. District Judge Stefan Underhill, in our Teva case, really provided a roadmap, which will be great for all investors going forward. Instead of needing to have experts come in with a 100-, 200-page report on the history of Israeli securities laws and translate from Hebrew and so on, we now have a decision where all of that has been, in a sense, codified by a judge who goes into depth and explains all of this clearly and also correctly. I think that will be a huge benefi t in future cases.
LD : The Nikola class action sounds like an interesting one, too.
MW : Yes. Essentially what happened is the defendants here, primarily Trevor Milton, the founder and chairman, allegedly lied about many aspects of Nikola. I guess the headline-grabbing one is the truck. They claimed they had developed a fully operational, zero-emissions tractor trailer powered by hydrogen fuel cell technology, the Nikola One, which would be able to be run cheaper than diesel. They had a conference where they unveiled it to investors and it looked fully operational. And then they released a video online that said, behold the Nikola One in motion – it even said, “in motion.” In fairness, it was in motion, but it was in motion because they took the empty shell of this truck to the top of a hill and filmed it rolling downhill. Another alleged lie they told was on the first day of the class period. Trevor Milton said – and this was really one of the keys to the company – that they had found a way to develop hydrogen to fuel these
THEY WERE SAYING THE DRUGS WEREN’T ADDICTIVE AND WERE PERFECTLY FINE FOR THINGS LIKE LOWER BACK PAIN OR HEADACHES. IT WAS A NOVEL CASE. NO ONE ELSE, AS FAR AS I KNOW, HAD CHOSEN TO BRING A SECURITIES FRAUD CLAIM AGAINST TEVA FOR THEIR INVOLVEMENT IN THE OPIOID CRISIS.
vehicles at a fraction of what the industry experts had previously thought. They had said that before hydrogen would be produced at something like $16 per kilogram. And what Trevor Milton said was that they now were able to develop it at $4 a kilogram. That’s amazing. It’s also a lie. Not only had they not figured out how to produce hydrogen at a quarter of the price, they had never produced any hydrogen, none, absolutely none.
Also at issue was that the company’s SEC filings touted 14,000 binding purchase orders representing billions and billions in revenue. But they didn’t disclose that almost all of those purchase orders, one, weren’t binding, and two, were for the Nikola One, which the company had abandoned. By the time the company went public, they had just given up on the Nikola One and were moving on to other vehicles. It was like everything that came out of their mouth was a lie.
LD: What challenges have you faced in the case?
MW: The challenge with this case wasn’t necessarily Milton, it was showing “scheme liability” against everybody else involved – the officers and directors, the CEO, the CFO. Somewhere between the first motion to dismiss, which the court granted as to the other individuals, saying we hadn’t shown an intent to defraud, and us filing an amended complaint, we gained a lot of information from Milton’s criminal trial about what other officers and directors knew and what they were doing. Not only were they aware of Milton’s false statements, but company employees brought it to their attention, saying, “Hey, Milton’s out there just making false statements about the hydrogen, about various things, and that’s wrong.” The officers and directors told the employees, “Oh, we’ll fix that. We’ll take care of it.” But they never did.
Our theory was that they were perfectly happy letting Milton say whatever he wanted and then reaping the benefits. The stock price shoots way up, they’re all going to be billionaires. After the second briefing of the motion to dismiss, that’s where we were able to get enough evidence and allegations for the court to say that for these other officers and directors, we’ve done enough for scheme liability. It was a pretty novel theory because scheme liability cases that are completely independent of false statements usually have to do with a pump and dump scheme, where someone’s bribing or going through back channels to have analysts write good things about the company that they know are false, so they can get the stock price up and then dump their shares. This case really walks the line between aiding and abetting and scheme liability. That’s what makes it unique.
LD : How about the Y-mAbs Therapeutics case? Where is the litigation at, and what are the allegations?
MW: We just settled it for $19.6M. It didn’t take long after we got through the motion to dismiss to mediate and resolve the case. As far as the allegations, Y-mAbs is a clinical biopharmaceutical company with an antibody-based drug called omburtamab for treating a very rare, unique form of childhood cancer. To get FDA approval for it, they had to go through a specific kind of approval called a Biologics License Application. They announced to investors that they had gotten a refusal to file letter from the FDA, basically indicating that there was some deficiency in their application they would need to fix before the FDA could consider whether or not to approve it. They assured investors that the deficiencies were just technical problems and that they were confident they’d resolve them in short order. Basically, they’re
THE CHALLENGE WITH [THE MILTON] CASE WASN’T NECESSARILY MILTON, IT WAS SHOWING “SCHEME LIABILITY” AGAINST EVERYBODY ELSE INVOLVED – THE OFFICERS AND DIRECTORS, THE CEO, THE CFO.
telling people, “Hey, don’t worry about it. It’s just a technical glitch. We’re going to fix it.”
But in truth, the FDA had repeatedly told the company that there was a problem with their data, specifically with the comparison of their study of the drug with the control group, which came from a German registry of children with this disease that had been followed over 25 years. In that 25-year period, the survival rate improved dramatically, even without omburtamab. The FDA was basically saying, “Look, the results that you’re seeing might be a result of, for example, cranial radiation rather than your treatment.” So there were potentially serious flaws with using this registry as a comparator.
Y-mAbs originally assured investors that they were confident they would get the matter resolved in a couple of months. Well, a year and a half later, they still hadn’t refiled their BLA to try to get approval. During that entire time, they kept giving investors positive updates that they expected getting a “green light” soon. In reality, the FDA kept telling them, “Look, you’re not fixing these fundamental problems with the comparator.” They never got on the same page with the FDA.
LD: How did things come to a head?
MW: At the end of October 2022, the FDA, in advance of the Advisory Committee meeting, put out a briefing document that said, “We’ve told them over and over that this is not a good comparator. We’ve got serious concerns.” And then, of course, two days later, the Advisory Committee votes 16 to zero to not approve. And analysts are shocked, saying, “This is completely not what we expected. We thought this was going to sail right through.”
LD: What made the case challenging?
MW: The challenge of this case was that a lot of the statements that the company was making were soft statements, statements of opinion. They were
saying, “We’re confident we can address that.” The defendants’ primary argument in attempting to dismiss the claims was: It might be unrealistic, but you’re still allowed to be confident. And the court broke the statements into a couple of buckets and ruled in favor of the defendants on some of them, saying they were allowed to be confident on some statements on issues with which they were engaged with the FDA.
But in their public statements, Y-mAbs also said things like, “We just had a meeting with the FDA, and they provided a clear path toward approval.” And what the judge said was, “You can be as confident as you want about your ability to meet certain standards, but you can’t be confident about what actually happened with the FDA. In that sense, you’re misleading people as to what actually happened.” What actually happened was the FDA was not in agreement. So for those types of statements, the court sided with us.
This is an important issue because it comes up over and over again, especially in FDA cases where companies know they can’t guarantee approval, but they want to make people feel like approval is going to come. The distinction is, you get a lot of leeway on being confident about that, but you’re not allowed to have rose-tinted glasses about facts, about what actually happened with the FDA and what the FDA actually said.
LD: What could this mean for future litigation in similar cases?
MW: I think it will be important in helping plaintiffs to get a foothold in a case, to get into discovery. Then hopefully you can get the emails that potentially show they’re saying, “We’re having serious problems. That meeting with the FDA didn’t go well at all.” If we had that email, I’m confident the judge would say, “OK, that’s enough to show that what they said to the market was false and misleading.”
LAURA POSNER
COHEN MILSTEIN (NEW YORK)
LAURA POSNER TAKES ON MARKET GIANTS.
Having just helped settle the historic $1B class action settlement against Wells Fargo for alleged securities fraud, she’s engaged in a high-profile spoofing lawsuit against Citadel, one of the world’s largest market makers.
Posner, a securities litigation partner at plaintiffs’ firm Cohen Milstein, is the former Bureau Chief for New Jersey’s Bureau of Securities – the top Securities Regulator in New Jersey. In that capacity, she was responsible for administrating and enforcing the New Jersey Blue Sky law and regulations and expanding the office’s enforcement prosecutions.
At just 44 years old, she is one of the most accomplished securities class action lawyers in the country. At the vanguard of spoofing and other market manipulation cases, she’s just getting started.
Lawdragon: You’ve had quite a career so far. What inspired you to pursue plaintiffs’ litigation?
Laura Posner: I went to law school planning to work for the government – specifically for the Department of Justice as a civil rights lawyer. I believe that working for the government is an important way to serve your country, and my motivation for entering the law was always to help others in need. But I temporarily shelved that idea to do plaintiff-side litigation after one of my professors at Harvard Law School clued me into the far-reaching social and economic impact of plaintiff-side class action work.
So, after summering at a plaintiffs’ class action firm, I was hooked and became a plaintiffs’ securities litigator.
LD: Why securities litigation?
LP: I strongly believe that fair and open financial markets lead to a more just society that can transform people’s economic lives. The ability of Americans to become upwardly mobile, save for a home and college, survive health scares, and ultimately retire securely is largely dependent on
being able to participate in a fair market. So, it’s incredibly gratifying to me to help ensure markets are fair, honest and safe – and hopefully open to more investors.
LD: Tell us about your role as New Jersey’s top securities regulator.
LP: For me, it was an opportunity to fulfill my lifelong desire to work for the government. When a former colleague suggested I meet with the New Jersey Attorney General about the recently vacated state Securities Regulator role, I jumped at the opportunity. I’m glad I did. It was a transformative experience.
The Bureau of Securities does everything that the Securities Exchange Commission does, only on a statewide scale – which, particularly in the case of New Jersey, isn’t so small, including examinations, registration, investor education, enforcement, legislation and policy work. On the enforcement side, I had a lot of latitude and was able to push the office to take on more and bigger cases, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in recoveries for New Jersey residents and more than 20 criminal convictions during my time in office.
I also was able to do a lot of policy and legislative work through my roles with the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA), which represents state and provincial regulators in the United States, Canada and Mexico. As a result, I helped New Jersey become a leader in securities policy and regulation and take on large-scale enforcement work in collaboration with other states.
LD: What are some take-aways from your regulatory experience?
LP: State regulators really have their finger on the pulse of the issues and often see real-world securities issues, frauds and impacts long before the feds do. This is especially important now as investors are faced with a barrage of economic and investment inflection points, from unregulated cryptocurrencies to highfrequency trading market manipulation schemes to less market choice generally in the financial industry.
Enforcement action is a key component of what state regulators take on to ensure the health of global financial markets and that investors are safe. However, it became clear to me while in office that as big a role as regulators have in securities enforcement, the impact of private securities litigation, particularly class actions and shareholder derivative litigation, is absolutely critical for a whole host of reasons – but,
most of all, because recouped losses always go back directly into the pockets of investors.
LD: Speaking of impact, tell us about your recent victory against Wells Fargo.
LP: I had the distinct honor of representing two state retirement systems as court-appointed co-lead counsel in a massive securities fraud class action against Wells Fargo. This past May, the court granted preliminary approval of a historic $1B settlement.
Our clients alleged that Wells Fargo and its senior officers lied to investors, the public and even Congress about its compliance with consent orders that the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau had imposed on the bank after the 2016 scandal involving the bank opening unauthorized customer accounts, as well its attempts to lift an asset cap, which regulators set to limited the bank’s growth due to poor customer care.
LD: What’s the impact on Wells Fargo and the banking sector?
LP: Well, for starters, Wells Fargo owes their investors $1B. Not an insignificant amount of money. Also, Wells Fargo is currently still beholden to fulfilling the federal consent orders and abiding by the asset cap to limit their growth, which formed the basis of our case.
The case also highlights the need for banks to follow their regulatory obligations to ensure they have the proper apparatus, controls and leadership in place, so that these problems don’t happen again, and for Congress to ensure that the proper regulatory scheme is in place to prevent these scandals from occurring in the first place. Even before the recent bank failures, there’s been a steady consolidation of the industry, which means less market choice for customers and less oversight by executives and boards running banks. As a result, regulation is critical to ensuring proper compliance, and both governmental enforcement actions and private litigation will likely be necessary if and when banks fall short of their obligations.
Most critically, hopefully this settlement, as big as it is, serves as a deterrent and warning shot to other banks and companies that might engage in similar conduct and encourages them to be honest and forthright with their investors going forward.
LD: What’s the impact for your clients?
LP: This is a huge victory for our public pension fund
THERE
IS A GREAT DEAL OF RESEARCH THAT CONFIRMS THAT WHEN
LARGE, SOPHISTICATED INSTITUTIONAL
INVESTORS SERVE
AS LEAD PLAINTIFFS IN SECURITIES CLASS ACTIONS, THE RESULTS ARE SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER. YOU GET HIGHER SETTLEMENT VALUE AND A HIGHER PERCENTAGE OF RECOVERABLE DAMAGES.
clients who incurred significant losses. If the court grants final approval, this $1B settlement will help compensate hundreds of thousands of investors –state employees, nurses, teachers, police, firefighters and others – whose retirement savings were impacted by Wells Fargo’s fraudulent business practices.
LD: Do you think this case will embolden investors to pursue litigation?
LP: I hope so. I hope that public pension funds and other institutional investors will see the kind of results their involvement can bring about. There is a great deal of research that confirms that when large, sophisticated institutional investors serve as lead plaintiffs in securities class actions, the results are significantly better. You get higher settlement value and a higher percentage of recoverable damages. The numbers alone should be a big incentive, especially for public pension funds and unions which are fiduciaries responsible for overseeing the retirement savings of their hardworking pensioners.
LD: Tell us about the other cases you’re working on.
LP: I’m involved in a spoofing case we’ve brought on behalf of Northwest Biotherapeutics, a clinical stage biotech company developing lifesaving cancer vaccines, against a number of institutions, including Citadel, one of the world’s largest market makers.
The case is still in its early stages, but for context it’s a classic good guy vs. bad guy story.
Our client alleges that Citadel and the other defendants engaged in spoofing and manipulated the price of its shares, inducing other market participants to buy or sell at artificial prices. By repeatedly and brazenly manipulating the market through spoofi ng, Citadel and the other defendants directly impacted the price of Northwest Biotherapeutics’ shares, causing the
company signifi cant losses as it sold 49 million shares at artificially depressed prices.
Because of the defendants’ alleged spoofing, Northwest Bio, which has a proven, groundbreaking cancer vaccine awaiting FDA approval, has been unable to raise money at prices that should refl ect its true value. Instead, its stock price has been gravely affected and the company has often struggled to survive, let alone bring its life extending drugs to market.
LD: Why is this case important?
LP: The facts that underpin the Northwest Biotherapeutics case are not limited to just one company or even one industry or one market. It’s much broader in scope and has a significant impact on market confidence more generally. It’s about markets not reflecting true supply and demand and what stock prices should be. It’s about highfrequency trading and algorithmic trading programs being used to manipulate markets in milliseconds.
LD: It sounds like this could be trailblazing case?
LP: Yes, high-frequency trading and algorithms are rapidly evolving and becoming more sophisticated, making manipulation easier, putting investors at greater risk and garnering the attention of law enforcement. Further, unlike most traditional securities class actions involving misstatements and omissions, these claims are brought under 10b-5(a) and (c), a relatively uncharted area of the law.
LD: Are you handling any other 10b-5(a) and (c) cases?
LP: Yes. We are representing a now partially certified class of investors against Credit Suisse in Chahal v. Credit Suisse for knowingly defrauding investors and causing hundreds of millions in losses through a manipulation scheme involving the XIV
I
WENT INTO LAW WITH AN INTEREST IN CIVIL RIGHTS WORK,
AND I THINK MY WORK IN SECURITIES CLASS ACTIONS AND SHAREHOLDER DERIVATIVE LITIGATION TRACKS CLOSELY
TO MY INITIAL GOAL. MY TEAM AND I ARE FIGHTING FOR THE UNDERDOG.
Exchange Traded Note market.
Our complaint was originally dismissed. We appealed to the 2nd Circuit, which issued a precedential and important decision in 2021 about what is required to prove market manipulation and whether the manipulation has to be secret. This is an incredibly important and groundbreaking decision for the future of litigating market manipulation suits.
We also have a market manipulation case on appeal to the 10th Circuit regarding an admitted short squeeze scheme orchestrated by former Overstock CEO – and “Stop the Steal” proponent – Patrick Byrne, which similarly addresses the question of whether open market manipulation is actionable under the federal securities laws.
LD: Congratulations on such an exceptional victory in XIV.
LP: Thank you. Yes. It’s a big victory for investors.
It’s interesting, coming full circle, because the claims in Chahal v. Credit Suisse are based, in part, on an amicus brief I wrote as counsel to NASAA, in support of the SEC in Lorenzo v. SEC, which was before the Supreme Court in 2019.
SCOTUS handed investors – and the SEC – an incredible decision in Lorenzo that not only described the difference between market manipulation claims under 10b5(a) and (c) and misstatement and omission claims under 10b5(b), holding that there was no requirement under 10b5(a) or (c) for there to be a false statement, but made clear that the securities laws are broad, noting that the securities laws were designed by Congress “to root out all manner of fraud in the securities industry” and that “it gave to the Commission the tools to accomplish that job.”
LD: It sounds like you’re working on big impact litigation. Anything else you’d like to share?
LP: The firm also does really critical work in the shareholder derivative space, where litigation helps transform companies from the inside out to ensure boards of directors live up to their fiduciary obligations. For instance, I was involved in a number of cases involving allegations of systemic sexual misconduct and/or race discrimination against the boards of Wynn Resorts, L Brands/Victoria’s Secret, and Pinterest, where we achieved sweeping corporate governance reforms and millions of dollars to fund various DEI initiatives to end sexual harassment and discrimination at these companies. In the end, these companies have become exemplars for their industries. So, it’s important and incredibly gratifying work.
LD: What’s professionally satisfying about your work?
LP: At the end of the day, for me it’s still about wanting to help those in need. My shareholder derivative cases have helped investors transform companies into safer environments for their employees. My securities fraud class action cases have helped investors – teachers, fireman, police, union workers and other state employees – recover the essential retirement money they lost due to a company’s fraud.
I went into law with an interest in civil rights work, and I think my work in securities class actions and shareholder derivative litigation tracks closely to my initial goal. My team and I are fighting for the underdog. We are helping people protect their investments and helping keep the marketplace fair.
I get to help public employees and unions – the critical backbone of this country – who are dependent on their pensions and return money back to their pockets so that they can have a secure retirement.
As the wife of an educator, the significance of my work hits close to home too. It’s incredibly gratifying to do what I do.
MATTHEW MINNER
MINNER VINES INJURY LAWYERS (LEXINGTON)
BY EMILY JACKOWAY
IF YOU ATTENDED A MIDDAY SCREENING OF
“Top Gun: Maverick” in a downtown Lexington movie theater last year, through the thick aroma of popcorn and throngs of action fans, you may have noticed an odd sight: an entire law firm seated together, eager to watch Tom Cruise’s next mission.
That firm is Minner Vines Injury Lawyers, a plaintiffs’ personal injury firm that exploded onto the scene in January 2022. Helmed by celebrated attorneys Matthew Minner and Brian Vines, the firm’s attorneys have won substantial victories in areas including complex products liability, tragic hazing-related deaths, car and truck accidents, nursing home abuse and more. Recently, on the heels of the firm
achieving a multimillion-dollar verdict on behalf of a client whose unborn child was killed in a car crash, the firm received a $7M settlement in a separate complex and difficult single vehicle collision case. Minner was the instigator of the “Top Gun” viewing. In a meeting analyzing how winning teams interact, he read a quote from the original “Top Gun” movie. In an initial gathering of the Top Gun candidates, the question is raised: “Who’s going to be the best of the best?”
“I genuinely believe our team is the best of the best,” says Minner. “So, we ended that meeting, put down our laptops and I took the entire office down the road to see ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ in the middle of the day.”
That emphasis on team bonding and culture was at the forefront of Minner’s vision for a new firm. Prior to 2022, he spent 22 years with historic Kentucky firm Hare, Wynn, Newell & Newton. Over the years, he has taken on opponents including Big Pharma,
with significant results including a $25M settlement in a national case regarding pharmaceutical company Merck’s marketing of its drug Vioxx. His opposition over the years reads like a who’s who of national defendants, including battles against the likes of Ford, Penske, Firestone, Cooper Tire, CBS, Microsoft, John Deere, Teledyne, Volkswagen, 3M and Merck. In a recent matter, Minner appeared on “Good Morning America” to discuss his work representing victims of alcohol and hazing-related deaths on college campuses.
At this point in his career, Minner’s work extends well beyond victories in the courtroom. After resolving that hazing case, he assisted his clients in having the law in Kentucky changed to making hazing a felony. “Our work is intended to produce lasting and meaningful results,” Minner says.
As managing partner of the fi rm, Minner also spearheads Minner Vines’ charitable endeavors. He and his wife co-founded CureKYKids, a non-profi t organization devoted to fundraising for research on childhood cancer and support systems for child patients.
Lawdragon: What inspired you in this new phase of your career – starting your own firm?
Matthew Minner : This is something we’ve been working on for a while, and it was time. We had a vision of what the future of a law practice would look like. We wanted to head in a different direction, and it’s been a blessing. The practice of law has changed in so many ways, and what people expect is different than it once was.
Having said that, my previous firm had partners who were dynamic and successful and that will always be a huge part of who I am as a lawyer. Iron sharpens iron. Everybody there made each other better and it was a wonderful place for me for 20-plus years.
LD : What did you consider in building this fi rm that’s different from how things would have been in the past?
MM : I love the quote, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Culture is huge for us here. That’s one of the cornerstones of what I’ve tried to develop: a winning culture, an uplifting culture – a culture that’s all for one and one for all. That’s from the senior partners down to our law clerks, and we are very detailed about that. That kind of culture is something you have to work hard to create and keep, and we’ve been able to do so.
When I say I’m detailed about it, if you walk through our office, every single person has a window office. It makes for a happier, healthier work environment for everybody. It’s those kinds of details that are important to me. I want people to be happy in serving the clients that we’re privileged to be able to serve.
We had this unique opportunity to create a new firm person by person, lawyer by lawyer and paralegal by paralegal. The high level of practice combined with our culture has allowed us to bring on some of the best team members and lawyers in our area. Top lawyers that have been very successful at other firms have joined us and I expect that to continue. Of course, our clients are the real beneficiary. One of the things we preach in our mission is getting the top results for our clients. Every person on our teams is committed to doing that.
Recently, one of our younger lawyers led a case that I was involved in, and they got a fantastic result for a seriously injured gentleman who had fallen into an open elevator shaft. The client and his wife came in and put on a luncheon party for the entire office to show their appreciation for the work that was done. How special is that? We all loaded into the conference room and broke bread together. We shared stories and they got to tell everyone what their plans were now and how this result has changed their lives. And it’s because everybody is involved and we interact with our clients, from top to bottom. They become family. Everybody is a part of the success that we are fortunate enough to have here, and I want everybody to feel that because they really are. We are truly blessed to have what we have created here.
LD: Tell me a bit about working with Brian Vines.
MM: Well, I’ve got to brag on him a bit.
Brian Vines is very bright. He’s an engineer by background, and he worked at Chevron for several years before coming to the practice of law. He adds great systems and perspective in our complex cases. He has a great legal mind in our single-event cases. Years ago the Federal Appeals Court judge that Brian used to clerk for told me that Brian was the type of lawyer that could be considered for a United States Supreme Court clerkship. That’s the highperformance type of person and lawyer he is. The combination of skills created in our partnership has been really good. Every one of us, although we
I LOVE THE QUOTE, “CULTURE EATS STRATEGY FOR BREAKFAST.” CULTURE IS HUGE FOR US HERE. THAT’S ONE OF THE CORNERSTONES OF WHAT I’VE TRIED TO DEVELOP: A WINNING CULTURE, AN UPLIFTING CULTURE – A CULTURE THAT’S ALL FOR ONE AND ONE FOR ALL.
have different backgrounds, have this in common: We attack hard things.
I’ve done the Boston Marathon and numerous other athletic competitions. I’m currently training to ascend 29,029 feet in an “Eversting” (aka Mt. Everest) challenge next summer. Brian Vines is an avid rock climber. He fell years ago, maybe a hundred feet, snapped his spine and broke his back. That fall would have stopped most climbers; not Brian. He went through a lot of recovery, bounced back and he’s training right now to climb the Teton mountains. Another partner is mastering the martial art of jiu-jitsu.
But that’s what I mean that no challenge is too big. Challenges are what bring us together, in the courtroom or outside of it. We live that way, and we work the way we live. Hard things make you get better. You build character. You find out how far you can go and the heights you can reach. That is the cornerstone of our firm.
LD : So, you all had similar personalities and recognized a similar approach to life and practice in each other.
MM: Yes. I knew that they would dive headfirst into the culture that I was talking about earlier, and that was really important to me because if you don’t have a great team – and we do, top to bottom – the practice is a lot harder. It’s not nearly as much fun and you can’t have nearly as much success.
LD: How did you come to the decision to start your own firm?
MM: It was never my vision as a young lawyer to start my own firm. Some people may set out with that as their goal. I just enjoyed the practice. I enjoy helping my clients and the timing was right. There are some star law firms around for sure, and I
probably could have had a lot of fun practicing there, but being able to cast my own vision and create a future for those that are at the firm with me was too much to pass up.
LD: And now you are the guy in the chair, managing everything from payroll to trials, which is an overwhelming amount of responsibility. But for the goal of creating a type of law practice that you and your partners believe in it must be worth it.
MM: Absolutely it’s worth it. The business of law has changed dramatically in that so many law fi rms just practice law and maybe don’t handle the business in an entrepreneurial way. Well, that’s what we do. Every case, to a certain extent, is an entrepreneurial endeavor. You need to make wise business decisions. We track every data point and analyze everything within our firm to be sure that everyone is operating at the highest and most efficient level for our clients. We have integral team members in multiple parts of the country and work with top-notch consultants in multiple areas. We operate like a high-powered machine.
I have wonderful help with all the things we have discussed, and without that we wouldn’t be able to achieve what we’ve been able to achieve, but we’ve had tremendous success. In less than two years since our launch, the firm has had significant eight-figure results of $26M, $14M and $12M, over 10 settlements in excess of a million dollars and a record verdict exceeding $3M.
We are involved both locally and on the national scene. We have the ability and the experience and the expertise to handle both types of cases. Our local cases help our young lawyers really hone their skills; the supervision of really seasoned and experienced older warriors working there with them in the national cases is what really drives me today.
EVERY CASE, TO A CERTAIN EXTENT,
IS AN ENTREPRENEURIAL
ENDEAVOR. YOU NEED TO MAKE WISE BUSINESS DECISIONS.
WE TRACK EVERY DATA POINT AND ANALYZE EVERYTHING
WITHIN OUR FIRM TO BE SURE THAT EVERYONE IS OPERATING AT THE HIGHEST AND MOST EFFICIENT LEVEL FOR OUR CLIENTS.
LD: Are there any types of cases you’re seeing most frequently now?
MM: I’ve taken a particular interest over the years in the cases that can make the most signifi cant impact on the largest number of people. You can trace that back to my products liability days when I was handling tread separation cases, when tire treads were separating and many people were dying across the country as a result. I spent a decade handling those cases nationally in the early 2000s. We’ve done a lot of consumer protection and pharmaceutical litigation, usually on behalf of states, and those cases impact the largest number of people. I’ve also taken a real interest in fraternity and college campus alcohol and hazing-related death cases. Those can really impact a large number of people at college campuses. It’s a dangerous and interesting age as young men and women leave their homes at 18. There are a lot of good influences, but also some bad ones, and there are tragedies happening all over our country right now.
LD: And they’re completely preventable, right?
MM : Yes. They should absolutely be prevented. We know so much more than we once did and we can do so much more to prevent these tragedies, and that’s something that we’re working hard on right now.
We are also currently involved in a national litigation that happens to be centered in Eastern Kentucky, where we’re representing hundreds of coal miners regarding defective products that have led to devastating lung injuries. So, we’ll see what’s next. We have our eye on a few other things in the next chapter, but those are the types of matters that are impacting a lot of people now.
LD: Tell me a bit more about that pharmaceutical work. Having that background and connections you have is huge in creating the amazing success you’ve had right out of the gate with this firm.
MM: We’ve been working on that for some time. It’s like how around here, you can look at a country music artist and say, “Man, they came on the scene really fast,” and you don’t realize they’ve actually been playing little honky-tonks for the last 12 years, trying to get anybody to listen to them that would. There’s no such thing as an overnight success. It’s been a lot of hard work and it’s certainly been a team effort. The success that we see today is the result of work that started decades ago. We just feel blessed to have the team we have and the ability to help so many people. We have created a great platform for our young lawyers, and I can’t wait to see the fruits of what the next generation in our firm does.
LD: Absolutely. And what an opportunity to start your own practice with that vision.
MM: I’ve always believed that we’re going to be presented with opportunities. When the opportunity is there, go for it. Do hard things. The greatest rewards come from doing hard things and taking those chances.
You have to have confidence in yourself. You have to be willing to take that risk on yourself. A lot of the lawyers we hire here oftentimes come from defense firms where they would have had a very secure practice. A lot of them could work just about anywhere they want. They are bright. They have a great pedigree. But they want to take a risk on themselves. They’re willing to do that. I know they’re going to fi t in if they’re hungry and if they have that genuine desire and ability to take a risk.
CIVIL RIGHTS &
ELIZABETH BRADLEY
ROSEN SABA (LOS ANGELES)
BY EMILY JACKOWAY AND MEGHAN HEMINGWAY
SHE FOUGHT AGAINST IT WITH EVERY FIBER
of her being. She said yes to every opportunity she thought would lead her away from the law; even began a career in the arts. But there was no escaping it. She had to find her own way there, but Elizabeth L. Bradley is a litigator – and a masterful one at that.
Bradley comes by it honestly. Her mother had the passion and the drive to become a lawyer when Bradley was a young girl. Back then, she looked at the law as a rival, competing for her mother’s attention. Now, she sees it as a pathway to a brighter future, an avenue for change and an opportunity to serve her community.
In 2005, the rivalry was put to rest when Bradley and her mother started a law firm together. A passion for justice was no longer something that separated the mother and daughter duo, but rather served to further bond them in an impactful way.
Her mother’s work ethic, drive and commitment to giving back inspired a young Bradley. “I do a lot of volunteer work now,” Bradley says, “and I really can attribute that to working with my mom growing up.”
Now a partner at Rosen Saba, the seasoned career litigator and trial attorney primarily focuses on professional malpractice and discrimination in the workplace. She won a seminal age-discrimination case for a group of minimum-wage waitresses at a diner, who were awarded $1M each in punitive damages. Bradley has leaned into the art of storytelling, both through the written word and oral arguments in court.
Following in her mother’s footsteps, Bradley is driven by a deep passion for activism. She is VP of Diversity and Inclusion for the LA County Bar Association, is a trustee of the Mexican American Bar Association (MABA), was recently elected Chair of Judicial Endorsements for the newly formed Los Angeles County Unity Bar whose mission is to diversify the judiciary, and volunteers for countless other organizations. Her advocacy is not without an agenda – Bradley believes wholeheartedly in empowering underrepresented folks to dream big
so that we may begin to see equality reflected back to us from the faces of those starting to inhabit seats at top-level tables.
Despite her initial apprehension, Bradley has etched out her own space in the law, dovetailing it with her innate and artistic sense of story. The quest to forge her own path has served to solidify Bradley as a fearless trailblazer, ever reaching behind to lend a hand to those that come after her. Her accomplishments have landed her a spot amongst the Lawdragon 500 Leading Civil Rights & Plaintiff Employment Lawyers from 2021 to 2024.
Lawdragon: Tell me about what brought you to the law.
Elizabeth Bradley: I came to a legal career kicking and screaming. I had a great role model in my mother. She came to law by accident. She went to
I
HAD A GREAT ROLE MODEL IN MY MOTHER. SHE CAME TO LAW
BY ACCIDENT. SHE WENT
TO APPLY
TO COURT REPORTING SCHOOL
AND FOUND OUT THAT GOING TO UC HASTINGS WOULD BE LESS EXPENSIVE – IT WAS ANOTHER WORLD IN THE ‘70S.
apply to court reporting school and found out that going to UC Hastings would be less expensive – it was another world in the ‘70s. When I was in grade school, she started law school. I associated being a lawyer with not having my mom around.
LD: That makes sense.
EB: I’d like to say I always had a burning passion to be a lawyer, but I really didn’t. I had started working at the firm in high school. I took a couple of years off after college to explore what I might want to do, and in the meantime, I was working at the firm and was really fortunate to learn a lot about the legal field, the practice of law and business in general.
LD: Wow, that’s quite a jump.
EB: My mother offered to send me to law school. I wasn’t sure about it and I turned down her gracious offer, which I later regretted. But I really didn’t want to succumb to the pressure. If I made the decision, I wanted it to be my decision. Of course, ultimately, years later I decided that I did want to pursue a career in the law.
I wasn’t really planning on getting into litigation, but during law school, I clerked at the court of appeal for Justice Don Work. I was never one that was dying to be on stage or the center of attention, but I really loved the intellectual process of telling the client’s story. My court of appeal experience persuaded me that practicing law was something that would really interest me. I sometimes say I missed my calling as an appellate lawyer, but I put the skills I learned at the court to good use in my litigation practice and have done as much appellate work as I can over the years. My favorite part of my career really is writing, even though I’m an oral advocate and I go to trial a lot – so much of what we do is decided on the papers.
LD: In terms of legal writing, what do you think is most important for people to understand?
EB: A lot of lawyers get so caught up in the technicality and the legalese that they forget that at the end of the day, it’s persuasion – it’s storytelling. It’s tempting to try to appear to be the smartest person in the room but that’s not always the most effective approach. It’s most important to be getting across your client’s story and weaving that story into the facts and the law to make the most persuasive presentation possible.
LD: What was it like working with your mother early in your career?
EB: My mother was an incredible mentor and role model for me, even when I wasn’t sure that I wanted to be a lawyer. Seeing her work ethic was powerful. She was a homemaker for so many years, but she found her passion in the law and had undying energy for her work. She volunteered for a million committees, and she was known for being a mentor to many. We’re Latina, and she always had a mission to give back to the community and to help those who were coming after her. She always gave incredible opportunities to women and minority attorneys to become employed with the firm.
I was blessed to work with a lot of women who were coming up at different stages in their careers. In the early ‘90s, it was not as common to have many women in the profession, but in my little bubble, I had no reason to think that I couldn’t accomplish or achieve what I set out to achieve. All of those women were role models to me. I saw their work and really learned the value of service. I do a lot of volunteer work now and I really can attribute that to working with my mom growing up.
LD: What other mentors did you have when you were starting out?
EB: Judge Yvette Palazuelos has been an important role model for me. She recently retired from the Los Angeles Superior Court. She’s also Latina, and I had three jury trials with her, two with my mom.
REALLY TAUGHT ME TO NOT JUST SIT AROUND AND WAIT FOR
SOMEONE TO
ASK ME FOR HELP, BUT INSTEAD TO LOOK FOR OPPORTUNITIES WHERE I CAN BE OF SERVICE TO SOMEONE.
Not only was she a fantastic judge to appear before, but she is another person who has done so much to give back to her community. She has always been very encouraging of me and generously taken initiative proactively to mentor me. Mentors aren’t only for new lawyers; we all need them throughout our careers. Justice Helen Zukin is another role model who tirelessly lifts up others, including me, and really revolutionized and institutionalized statewide efforts to diversify California’s judiciary. Experiencing others voluntarily offering mentorship really taught me to not just sit around and wait for someone to ask me for help, but instead to look for opportunities where I can be of service to someone.
LD: What advice do you have for female lawyers coming up now?
EB: I think the most important thing is to seek out mentors, and it doesn’t have to be just one. You might have one mentor for business development, and another mentor for community involvement or leadership. A lot of people are shy and hesitant to ask for help, and my advice is to do it anyway. Don’t let fear stop you from picking up the phone or approaching someone and asking for 10 minutes of their time.
LD: Are there any cases that stand out as particularly memorable for you?
EB: It was 10 years ago now and it’s still my favorite case. We represented six minimum-wage, older waitresses at a family-diner-type restaurant who were all let go because the owner claimed that business was slow. However, while the waitresses were still working there, the owner’s son was posting ads for new waitresses and holding interviews in the restaurant with lovely young ladies lined up, with photos in hand, because the ad said to bring a photograph to help expedite the process. Meanwhile, our clients – aged 50-70 – are seeing this parade of young, inexperienced waitresses being interviewed, hired and replacing them. So,
we brought an age discrimination claim and we got a unanimous jury verdict of $5.7M, including $4M in punitive damages. It really was incredibly satisfying.
LD: Wow.
EB: I think the jury was really shocked at the brazenness of the restaurant owner. These women were of such high character, that the win itself was extremely valuable to them. It sent a message to this defendant and to the community, that they’re not expendable. The legal system did them right.
LD: What an incredible case. Can you tell us what you’re working on now?
EB: Just today a settlement was finalized in a case I’ve been preparing for trial where my client, who is in her 80s, unfortunately lost her husband to dementia a few years back. Shortly before he died, they entrusted all of the proceeds of the sale of their primary residence to a group of defendants, including lawyers, who said they would be investing those monies and that this was an opportunity for them to defer taxes. We brought elder abuse, fiduciary duty and legal malpractice claims against these defendants who had a multitude of undisclosed self-interests and conflicts of interest. They structured the transaction so that the clients lost control of their money and were at the whim of the defendants’ investment strategies, while bearing all risk to their retirement funds. When we attempted to demand their money back, they initially refused, and then complied in part but later contended that they did not owe the clients duties under the law. I was very eager to go to trial in that matter, but am pleased that the case resolved to my client’s satisfaction and that she has closure What really brings me professional satisfaction is serving people who have been wronged and representing the underdog.
LD: How did you discover your love of working on the plaintiffs’ side?
IF WE DON’T GET KIDS INTO SCHOOL WITH AN IDEA OF GOING TO LAW SCHOOL, WE WON’T HAVE MINORITY LAWYERS. IF WE DON’T GET THEM PRACTICING, WE WON’T HAVE A PIPELINE TO THE BENCH.
EB: In most of my early career, I did business litigation, which I enjoyed. It’s very intellectually satisfying, but I just wasn’t feeling that kind of soul satisfaction that I wanted in my work.
My mom and I went into partnership together probably midway through my career and we had some great cases together, but when she retired I joined Rosen Saba, and Jim Rosen had some interesting legal malpractice and employment cases that I hadn’t been exposed to in the past. I started working in both of those areas and immediately felt it was a great fi t for me. I’ve since become certified as a specialist in legal malpractice by the State Bar of California. In my legal malpractice cases, most clients have lost faith in lawyers and the legal system. I take personal responsibility for restoring their faith in the system, win or lose.
LD: You’re midway through your work as VP of Diversity and Inclusion at the LA County Bar Association, right?
EB: Correct. I’ve served for many years as a member of the Diversity Section and I’ve been on the executive committee for a few years now. LACBA is one of a few bar associations that has a diversity offi cer on the executive committee. It has been rewarding taking on this role and discovering new and creative ways I can contribute. I’m also very active in the Mexican American Bar Association (MABA) as a trustee. I’m on many committees, and I think diversity in the legal profession is so critical, so that our communities feel represented. When they see people on the bench that reflect their own family and their own communities, they feel heard and seen and respected.
It’s challenging because we have very low numbers in most of the traditionally underrepresented groups. It takes great effort by so many in the community to encourage people in traditionally underrepresented communities to pursue a career in law, let alone as a judicial offi cer. If we don’t get kids into school
with an idea of going to law school, we won’t have minority lawyers. If we don’t get them practicing, we won’t have a pipeline to the bench. It’s really critical, so I’m doing my bit to try to help expand that pipeline.
With MABA, we recently created a new program and a standing committee called The Judicial Pipeline Program. The purpose is to encourage not only lawyers who have thought about becoming a judge, but lawyers who have never thought for a moment that they might be a viable candidate for a judgeship, to seek appointment. We have put on several programs to encourage diverse lawyers to seek appointment or election to the bench, and to help guide them through that process.
LD: That’s great.
EB: We need a diversity of backgrounds, ages, et cetera, to really have a judiciary that’s representative of our very diverse California population. I am currently one of MABA’s representatives on the Los Angeles County Unity Bar, which is a loose association of nine diverse member bar associations and growing. LACUB is one of a number of Unity Bars formed across California whose mission is to diversify the judiciary and the legal profession. I am honored to be LACUB’s Chair of Judicial Endorsements, and in that role it is my mission to encourage folks from all traditionally underrepresented communities to seek appointment and to seek LACUB’s endorsement.
LD: What do you do for fun outside your practice?
EB: I love to travel. I spend as much time as I can with my significant other in Wine Country, in Healdsburg in Sonoma County and in Italy. I’d love to retire to either or both one day. I lost my Pomeranian Shakira earlier this year, after bringing her to work with me for the past 11 years. She was our firm mascot, and known to opposing counsel, clients and court reporters alike. One day soon I’ll be ready for a new dog.
ANDREA LEWIS
SEARCY DENNEY (WEST PALM BEACH, FLA.)
BY EMILY JACKOWAY
ANDREA
LEWIS HAS KNOWN WHAT SHE
wanted her career to stand for from day one. Her outlook rested on two principles: She was going to be a trial lawyer, and she was going to advocate for those who needed her help most. With her current career devoted predominantly to fighting for survivors of sexual abuse, she has made that mission a reality.
Lewis’ passion for advocacy is rooted in the courtroom. She joined the mock trial team while in law school at Florida State University and knew she’d found her calling. Invigorated by standing up in court, Lewis then joined the Certified Legal Intern program, which earned her eight trials under her belt before graduating. She then secured a role with as much trial experience as possible: Assistant State Attorney for the Palm Beach State Attorney’s Office. “It was really my time as a prosecutor that ignited the fire inside me where I really realized what I love doing,” Lewis says.
After four years at the State Attorney’s Office, Lewis moved to private practice at prominent personal injury firm Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley. Throughout her time as a prosecutor, Lewis realized that she wanted to focus her practice on sexual abuse, and her move to Searcy Denney brought that to fruition. Lewis says she is fortunate to have been allowed to forge her own path focusing on helping children and survivors of sex crimes: “Every single person at this firm is passionate about what they do,” she says. “They’re extremely supportive. Having the ability to go to work every day to really focus my practice and handle these cases primarily is wonderful. The thing I enjoy the most is being able to see the difference it makes in these people’s lives.”
Many of those people are children. Lewis has taken on numerous cases on behalf of minors who have been abused in school, family and work settings. A prominent portion of her practice includes representing child athletes who have been victims of sex crimes. In one case, she was one of the first lawyers to go through the U.S. Center for SafeSport arbitration process on behalf of a 13-year-old figure skater who was sent explicit images by a 26-year-old Olympian.
Lewis has taken on prominent cases outside of her sexual
abuse practice, as well. Just after she came to the firm in 2014, Lewis was involved with a case which awarded an amputee $8.5M against concierge medical service MDVIP. For her first civil case, Lewis was a part of the first team to sue a medical concierge company successfully. In addition to her work at the firm, Lewis is deeply involved in the legal community – she is currently President-Elect of the Palm Beach County Bar Association.
Lawdragon: Tell me about your time as Assistant State Attorney before transitioning to private practice.
Andrea Lewis: I’ve always felt it was an honor to be a prosecutor. I felt a responsibility to the community to do my part to keep the community safe, and to the victim in those cases, to make sure that I did everything that I could to seek justice on their behalf. But also, I felt a sense of responsibility to the defendant. Most people probably think that that would be unusual
for a prosecutor, but my thought was all defendants are not created equal. You have the ability to steer their path, too. There are people committing crimes maybe because they’re addicted to drugs and not necessarily a bad person. As a prosecutor, you are given the unique opportunity to intervene in people’s lives many times on their worst day. That could be a defendant or the victim of those crimes.
LD: That’s such an important outlook for a prosecutor to have. What cases stand out to you from that time?
AL: One case I will never forget involved a retired nurse in her 70s who lived alone (aside from her little dog) who was raped in her home by a 19-year-old man. The crime was violent and shocking, and it could not have happened to a nicer woman. While preparing for trial, I had the opportunity to get to know her and hear about her life – including many tragedies that she had suffered. As a young woman, she fell in love and got engaged to a man in the military. Unfortunately, her fiancé never returned home from war and, as a result, she had never married or had children and, prior to being raped by the defendant, she had not had sexual intercourse for over 30 years. Despite her struggles, she put herself through school to become a nurse, helped countless people throughout her lifetime, and never missed an opportunity to give back to her community.
During the horrific assault, she studied every detail of the man’s tattoos and committed them to memory. The level of detail that she provided to law enforcement was remarkable and, as a result of her assistance, the police caught the man later that evening. I remember telling her at the time – and I still believe – that she was one of the strongest people that I have ever met. Further, even after all of the things that the man did to her, she wanted him to know that she had forgiven him. She was an extraordinary person. That was many years ago and I still think about her often.
LD: When you transitioned over to private practice, did you know that you wanted to continue working on those kinds of cases specifically, or did they come your way as you transitioned?
AL : I am a firm believer that the only way you are going to excel to the highest extent possible in your chosen field is if you are very passionate about what you do. When thinking about that in terms of what am I passionate about, the answer has always been helping and fighting for people who are victims or survivors of crime, fighting for children who don’t have the ability to go into court and take on the bad guy. I
can do that for them. And not only that, but I can fight for change to keep these things from happening to other children. To me that is equally as important as getting justice in the court system.
LD: When you’re working on these cases, especially ones involving children, what methods of prevention do you see not being acted upon that could be?
AL : Children are very smart; they know when a situation is not right. The message I would give to parents is, number one, listen to your children. If they’re telling you they have complaints about pains in areas of their body that they shouldn’t have, listen to them. Ask them questions. Trust your instincts and investigate. If they tell you that they don’t like being around a certain adult or you notice them acting unusually, ask questions.
It’s also very important to let your children know that they can always talk to you about anything. Even if someone tells them to keep a secret, they should never listen to that person. They’ll never get in trouble. Many times, perpetrators threaten, coerce or manipulate children by saying that they’re going to get in trouble if they ever tell someone. You have to be the one to proactively tell your children, “That is absolutely incorrect. I will always listen to you, and I’ll always believe you.”
LD: Looking at your recent cases, tell me about your work with the U.S. Center for SafeSport.
AL: The U.S. Center for SafeSport is an organization that Congress created to provide oversight on sporting activities such as figure skating. One of the goals of the organization is to identify and investigate sex crimes, harassment and other misconduct. It’s still a fairly new organization and it is definitely a work in progress. They will do an investigation, independent of the police, memorialize their findings in a confidential report, and then determine whether the person is going to be sanctioned. They are wellmeaning. The problem is that they do not share their findings or what they uncovered during their investigation with the general public. I represented a young girl who was victimized when she was 13 years old by a famous Olympic figure skater. SafeSport conducted a thorough investigation into circumstances surrounding the sexual misconduct, including allegations that many powerful people, including Olympic-level coaches, failed to report the skater’s actions and took steps to cover up the man’s bad acts in order to get the skater – and themselves – to the Olympics. SafeSport ultimately sanctioned
AS A PROSECUTOR, YOU ARE GIVEN THE UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY TO INTERVENE IN PEOPLE’S LIVES MANY TIMES ON THEIR WORST DAY. THAT COULD BE A DEFENDANT OR THE VICTIM OF THOSE CRIMES.
numerous people for their involvement and the case went all the way through the appeals process.
LD: I’m sure it’s difficult for clients, especially after they’ve been through something terrible, to have this out in the open in the media. How do you guide them through that process?
AL : Given the nature of the cases that I handle, a lot of them are highly publicized and, as a result, media relations tends to be a large part of the job. Understandably, there is great public interest in cases involving sexually motivated crimes and – most importantly – holding the perpetrator accountable to ensure they can never hurt anyone else in the future. The media can play a very important role in bringing attention to cases and obtaining justice for the victims and survivors of sexual abuse. That said, most of my clients want their identity kept confidential and prefer that I speak to the media on their behalf when necessary. Some, however, feel strongly about telling their story personally with the goal of helping other survivors.
For instance, I represent a young woman who was 20 years old at the time that she was raped by an Uber driver. It was a horrible crime, and the man is now in prison. After learning that the driver had a lengthy criminal record, I filed suit against Uber and, almost immediately, I started getting calls from media organizations around the country. Despite how difficult it was for her to speak publicly, it meant a lot to my client to tell her story, warn other people, and hopefully prevent something similar from happening in the future.
LD: That’s horrifying.
AL: It was an understandably traumatic experience for her. Still is. And, despite everything that she has gone through, despite how hard this has been for her, it was very important to her to speak out. I really commend her for her bravery, because she wanted to tell her story for one reason and one reason only: She didn›t want it to happen to anybody else. She wanted to warn other young women.
LD: Regardless of whether they’re appearing in the media or not, I’m sure that these cases are difficult emotionally for your clients to go through. How do you support them through litigation?
AL : With this subject matter, you’re dealing with something that is extremely personal, extremely private. On top of that, if there is an ongoing criminal investigation or prosecution, that can be difficult for someone to navigate and participate in – especially in the aftermath of a traumatizing event. Given my prior work as a prosecutor, I am very familiar with law enforcement investigations, the inner workings of a criminal prosecution, and what it takes to successfully prosecute criminals. That knowledge and experience enables me to stay on top of and assist with the criminal case while my clients focus on healing.
LD: I’m sure that you have clients come in who are wrestling with that decision to come forward. Do you have a message for people who might be struggling to decide whether or not they want to do so?
AL: You are not alone. People want to help you. You deserve to live your life without harboring painful secrets or the burden of trying to protect someone who hurt you. Take the first step and ask for help.
LD: What advice do you have for early career lawyers who might want to build a career like yours?
AL: Find an area of law that you are passionate about and pursue it. Passion is the key to success.
LD: What do you find most fulfilling about your career now?
AL: Many of my clients have been through horrific things that most people cannot imagine and, when they first walk into my office, they are traumatized, emotional and scared. Their stories are often heartbreaking – and infuriating – and it is impossible not to get emotionally invested. I don’t like to see people hurting, and I really don’t like bullies, abusers and people that prey on children. I feel very passionate about helping my clients and doing whatever I can to ensure that the perpetrators are held accountable.
ROGGE DUNN
ROGGE DUNN GROUP (DALLAS)
ROGGE
DUNN KNOWS A THING OR TWO
about getting people to see things his way. He’s been a trial attorney for over 35 years, where the art of persuasion is a large part of the equation. Dunn uses every tool in his vast toolbox to convince judges and juries that his version of events is the rightful one. His deep passion for psychology has kept him at the forefront of the field for all of these years.
A self-described, “self-taught psychologist,” Dunn believes that understanding the science of human behavior is the most powerful tool he has on hand. Every month, Dunn researches and writes an article about the psychology of persuasion in D CEO Magazine. An exercise that ensures he keeps up on the latest research in the field, a routine that keeps Dunn sharp in the art himself.
Dunn founded The Rogge Dunn Group and has achieved deep success in building his own firm, a boutique of trial lawyers in Dallas who primarily handle financial, business and employment related disputes.
In addition to his psychological acumen and finely honed courtroom skills, Dunn loves the stage of a courtroom and excels at the art of storytelling – the pauses, the gestures, the art of approaching the bench, and techniques like “accidentally” leaving a blow-up in front of the podium for longer than it needs to be there. But in the end, Dunn maintains that the true secret to his success is a love of helping people.
“If you care about helping people,” Dunn says, “if you take care of your clients and you care – everything else is going to take care of itself.”
Dunn has earned a spot on both The Lawdragon 500 Leading Plaintiff Financial Lawyers and The Lawdragon 500 Leading Civil Rights & Plaintiff Employment Lawyers guides.
Lawdragon: Can you give us a overview of your practice area?
Rogge Dunn: I have a varied practice and I specialize in trial law. I represent individuals in the financial industry space – both financial advisors and firms. Everything from transitioning teams,
to regulatory issues, interfacing with the FINRA authorities and assisting FAs who have been accused of regulatory violations, to non-competes, promissory notes, suing for wrongfully forfeited deferred compensation and wrongful discharge. I handle breach of partnership agreements, fiduciary duty and a variety of other business disputes. I’ve handled more than 40 death cases.
LD: Truly runs the gamut.
RD: What has helped me be successful is I’m not a specialist, but I’ve worked on a variety of cases in more than 30 states nationwide. I learn one perspective from a New York lawyer and a different perspective from a Mississippi lawyer. I’m able to take those lessons and put them in my toolkit and pull them out and use them as appropriate for a particular jury. I’m a bit of an odd duck in that I do both plaintiff and defense work. So while my primary work is on the plaintiffs’ side, I grew up doing defense work and I still do some. The lawyers who are all plaintiffs’ lawyers or all defense lawyers tend to wear blinders. When you do both sides, you know how the other side thinks because you’ve been there. That gives me a unique education and experience.
LD: Was that strategic on your part, to understand both sides like that?
RD: No, it happened organically. I truly believe that being an attorney is an incredibly wonderful position to be in because you can really make an impact on people’s lives. I started with Thompson & Knight (now Holland & Knight), a traditional corporate defense firm. About five years into my practice, one of my students’ wives was employed by the city of Greenville and they called and said, “We have a discrimination case against the city of Greenville, and the city offered a very low settlement. We don’t think it’s enough money.” I told them I had never handled an employment case, I didn’t even take employment law in law school, but based on what they had told me – the city of Greenville was wrong. So I said I’d do it on contingent fee. So I took over the case. One of my clients was African American and in this case, you had to prove intentional discrimination –and that’s hard to do. Well, I stumbled across an old postcard with a picture of a sign from the city of Greenville. “This sign was proudly displayed at city hall until 1985 – Welcome to Greenville, the blackest land, the whitest people.”
LD: Oh wow.
MY JOB IS TO TAKE SOMETHING THAT’S COMPLEX AND BROAD-BASED AND BOIL IT DOWN SO THE JURY, JUDGE OR ARBITRATOR CAN UNDERSTAND IT. TO COMMUNICATE IT IN AN EFFECTIVE MANNER.
RD: This was back in the ‘80s. It was literally taped into my legal brief, it wasn’t an electronic image. I got them four times what had been offered without ever taking a deposition. As they say, the rest is history. I truly enjoyed helping those individuals. I also prosecuted a case for a licensed vocational nurse making $40,000. Her boss was a black belt in karate, and he was bullying her. I won her over $1M and we were both crying after the verdict. She said, “Rogge, you keep all the money. I just wanted vindication.” I said, “No, Patty, this is your money.” You don’t get that level of satisfaction from representing corporations –it’s just money to them.
So that was the genesis of my gravitation to the plaintiff side, and I’ve never looked back. I still have some Fortune 500 corporate clients. Probably 20 percent of my practice is still for corporate defendants, but they’ve got to be good corporate citizens. I’m at the stage of my career where I could retire, so I’ve got to like them. I’m able to pick and choose my clients.
LD: Can you tell us about some big wins you’ve had that stand out?
RD: I won $58M in New Orleans involving the New Orleans Fairgrounds racetrack fire – that is the highest products liability verdict ever in Louisiana. Then I won $7.9M against Goldman Sachs in Los Angeles, which broke my record for the largest wrongful discharge verdict against Goldman Sachs. I helped a West Point graduate win under USERRA –which is that law that protects military men and women if they serve in the military, the reserve or the guard if they are discriminated against. That case was extremely rewarding to help one of our veterans vindicate his rights.
LD: What made you first decide to become a lawyer?
RD: I took a speech class my sophomore year of high school, and the last module of that class was debate –
and I loved debate. If there was a professional debating circuit, I’d do that for a living. That was when I decided I wanted to be a trial lawyer. I buckled down and started making really good grades.
My dad was an alcoholic, so there was no money to go to college. I had to work through high school and college, and I was able to get an academic scholarship and a work study at SMU, and then I worked while going to school, and that’s how I got through school.
LD: Do you remember what kind of jobs you had back then?
RD: Hell yeah. I started sacking groceries the day I turned 16 at Kroger. Then I had a courier job where school got out at 4:00 PM and I drove a courier route from 5:00 PM to 10:00 PM Monday through Friday, and then Saturday mornings 8:00 to noon. So that was pretty intense. I had my own lawn business in college.
LD: No kidding. When did you decide to start your own firm?
RD: I was a senior partner at Cozen & O’Connor, and they hired a lawyer who was three years younger than me, whose credentials weren’t as good as mine. They paid him five grand more than they paid me –that was the kick in the tail I needed. The next year I made double what I had made at the mega-firm and the year after that I made four times what I’d made.
LD: Wow. What do you like about being a generalist?
RD: My job is to take something that’s complex and broad-based and boil it down so the jury, judge or arbitrator can understand it. To communicate it in an effective manner. A good trial lawyer will tell you, you don’t need more than 10 or 15 documents to win a case. I know how to avoid information overload. Every month I write on psychological persuasion techniques. Have you ever heard of The Jam Experiment?
LD: I don’t think so.
RD: This great professor out in California did a study. They went to an Epicurean market – it had mustards from Germany and jams from England and all these overpriced specialty items. They did an experiment over two days where they set up two tables. One table had four different jars of jam, and the other table had 24 different jams. Which table do you think sold more?
LD: Tell me.
RD: Table one! The one with 24 bottles of jam attracted more attention, but table one, the one with fewer jams, made more in sales. When you give people too many choices, they become overwhelmed. It’s called information overload – they say forget it, that’s too complicated and walk away.
That’s a mistake lawyers make – they give 10 reasons why their clients should win. No! Boil it down to four key essential reasons or the jury will likely quit listening. That’s how you’re going to persuade them. That’s an example of what I bring to the table – the thoughtfulness, and the psychological aspect. I’ve participated in more than 40 mock trials around the country. I’ve learned from some of the best PhD jury consultants. When you’re negotiating with a lawyer who has a lot of heads on the wall and experience going to trial, your client gets a better deal because they know you’re not afraid to go to trial.
LD: Could you describe your style in the courtroom?
RD: I try to keep it dynamic. Jurors are used to watching these shows on TV where a two-week trial is shown in 30 minutes of airtime, and there’s a lot of surprises and quirks. So I try to keep things exciting. A lot of lawyers now are foolishly using only onedimensional PowerPoints. I think that’s a huge mistake –I like three dimensional exhibits. I prefer things that you can hold in your hand and you can keep with you and show the jury throughout the trial.
I try to interact with the jury. The worst thing you can do is stand there with your hands locked onto the podium. I keep it active, make eye contact, and I use some PowerPoint, but I prefer to have a good mix of multimedia with three-dimensional exhibits. I once used a blowup and I put it in front of my podium when I finished speaking. The other side didn’t take it down. It was sitting there staring the judge and the jury in the face for the first hour and a half. Little things like that can make a difference.
LD: Do you know how your interest in these psychological aspects of jury engagement came
about? Can you pinpoint that?
RD: It started when I began working with jury consultants. I regret majoring in English and economics. If I had to do it all over again, it would’ve been pure psychology. So I’m a self-taught psychologist. The PhDs got me interested in the psychology of persuasion.
LD: You and your wife are very involved in charitable causes. Is there one or two that you find especially meaningful?
RD: I bought the maquette from the first Jurassic Park movie, it’s one ninth size. It was the very first T-Rex used in the very first Jurassic Park, and I donated that to the Perot Museum, which is one of our favorite charities. Also Frontiers of Flight Museum – my wife and I donated money for a tower and they display part of my poster collection.
LD: What inspires you about museums in particular?
RD: The Perot Museum is focused on education for children. I’ve always thought it was a wonderful museum and I used to be on the legal committee there. And then, I love airplanes and they do a lot of STEM work for kids at the Frontiers of Flight Museum, where I am on the board. So that’s certainly something that I enjoy. They also do a lot to honor veterans, which is a cause near and dear to our hearts. My wife’s dad saw combat duty in Korea and my dad was a Korean War vet as well.
LD: Wow. And your kids – are any of them lawyers now?
RD: No lawyers, thank goodness. I would discourage anybody from taking this path. It’s very time intensive and certainly litigation is stressful.
LD: Kind of takes over your life, doesn’t it?
RD: It does. There is a phrase from the 1600s, “The law is a jealous mistress.” And it’s true, if you’re good, and you give a shit.
LD: Right. You really have to love it.
RD: You have to. Or you’re going to turn to alcohol or depression or whatever. If you don’t love litigation, I don’t know how you could handle it.
LD: So you clearly love it. Is that the key to your success?
RD: Probably the biggest key to my success is that I care about helping people. You’ve got to be client focused. If you have a diferent agenda, maybe you’re not right for this business.
STEPHEN GARCIA
GARCIA & ARTIGLIERE (LOS ANGELES)
BY ALISON PREECE
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-figure 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 fi ghting 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, including 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?
“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 fi gure 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.”
TOM SPOONER
SPOONER STAGGS (PORTLAND)
BY MEGHAN HEMINGWAY
THERE ARE NO SMALL CASES, ONLY SMALL
lawyers. And Tom Spooner certainly isn’t one of them. While Spooner’s no stranger to huge settlements and high-octane cases, at the end of the day it comes down to a quest for justice, and oftentimes that means fighting for just a single deserving underdog.
Having been lead attorney in over 100 trials and arbitrations, Spooner has more than proven himself in state and federal courtrooms throughout Oregon. His grounded and meticulous nature, his empathy and dedication to justice make him truly stand out amongst his peers. Spooner believes in showing respect for all involved in these often harrowing and life-altering incidents.
A recent leap from “one side of the V” to the other finds Spooner, along with his firm Spooner Staggs Trial Lawyers , firmly footed on the plaintiffs’ side, after spending most of his career aggressively defending insurance companies. Recently, the firm started to notice a change in how claims were being handled by insurance companies. As the companies increasingly relied on cold AI and algorithms to make the settlement decisions, Spooner knew it was time to rethink their practice.
It was a seamless switch for Spooner, who has always been motivated to seek justice. His ability to guide people through the obstacle course of the insurance industry with ease and expertise is an incredible asset for clients – and garners big wins for the firm.
“We have such an in-depth insight into insurance coverage issues from having worked on the defense side, that I know immediately when something doesn’t smell right,” Spooner says. “Whether you get a jury verdict of half a million dollars or you help a kid pay for his car, at the end of the day, it’s the same amount of satisfaction to me – helping someone to navigate the system.”
That kid was a 21-year-old, living with his parents, who found himself at the mercy of a big insurance company who thought they could sweep him and his expenses under the rug. That’s where Spooner came in.
“I was looking at it thinking, this isn’t right, you’re getting screwed,” says Spooner. “This was his first car, he’s working a full-time job and trying to get his
life started – it was important to us to help this kid.”
Spooner brought his full force to this relatively small claim and made an enormous impact for this young man, shaping the way he sees the world and himself in it. And that, according to Spooner, is a great way to value success.
Lawdragon: Your father is celebrated trial lawyer Ralph Spooner. Did that have any impact on your decision to go into law?
Tom Spooner: Growing up, my dad would take my siblings and me to work with him. He would pull us out of school when he was doing a trial or a significant summary judgment hearing and have us come watch him work. He wasn’t doing it to force us to be lawyers, but rather to show us what the world was like outside of school and what he was up to each day. It had a big impact on me regarding how to carry myself in the
world, how to deal with people, how to talk to people. In college, I didn’t plan to get into law. After college I was working as a fishing guide. So much of that job wasn’t about fishing; it was about spending an entire day with people, just talking about their lives and backgrounds – people from all walks of life. That actually motivated me to go to law school. I got into the University of Oregon and once I was there, I loved being in law school.
So many of my classmates had fantastical ideas about what it was to be a lawyer, but I really knew what I was getting into. Being exposed to my father’s practice as a trial lawyer steered me in that direction once I was in law school. I knew what I liked about being a lawyer was being in the courtroom.
LD: Tell us about a case that stands out in your career on the defense side.
TS: I had a very interesting construction case, and those cases primarily deal with contract disputes. But in Oregon, a party – a building owner or a homeowner – can make a claim for negligent construction outside of the terms of the contract. This was the situation regarding an apartment building project where I represented the general contractor. There is a standard AIA form contract that gets used on commercial projects that is favorable to architects and general contractors.
There were multimillion-dollar claims against our client on this apartment building. Normally in Oregon, the breach of contract statute of limitations is six years from the date of the breach and the negligence statute of limitations is two years from when you discover the damage to your building. But this AIA contract has an accrual clause that threw that all out the window. The statutes of limitations start running from substantial completion of the project and the limitation period is just two years for any type of claim. At the time, this clause had never been tested in Oregon courts. It had been used a lot, but no one had ever actually litigated it. We filed a motion for summary judgment and won. The court ruled that yes, this clause is enforceable.
The building owner appealed, and it was heard by our court of appeals. We did an enormous amount of legal research from different courts around the country and provided examples of exemplary case law. Based on our research, the court of appeals upheld the trial court’s decision and agreed with us, finding that it was a proper contract clause under Oregon law. The building owner appealed to the Oregon State Supreme Court and they denied to review it – essentially saying they wholeheartedly agreed with the lower court’s decision.
That was a major feather in my cap because it was an issue that had never been dealt with before in Oregon. It effectively created a new law on these very popular construction contracts.
LD: Spooner Staggs recently switched from the defense to the plaintiffs’ side. Tell us a bit about that transition.
TS: What I’ve enjoyed so much about the plaintiffs’ side is the full spectrum of types of clients and cases that I’ve handled – from big to small. This past year I did a fourday jury trial representing a client who was run off the road by a semi-truck in a hit-and-run crash. From day one the semi-truck driver just denied having anything to do with it, despite multiple witnesses to the accident.
My client was a Vietnam veteran who had built a great 25-year career in commercial real estate development. He was past retirement age but enjoyed his job and earned a significant commission-based income. The accident had a big impact on him physically and prevented him from working while he was undergoing treatment for his injuries. The trucking company completely denied any responsibility and put on the full defense – we’re not at fault, the plaintiff caused the accident, and he wasn’t injured. And if he was injured, it wasn’t bad. And he didn’t need to take time off work. And he shouldn’t have been working at all because he’s at retirement age. It was endless.
The truck driver was an experienced older guy, but the company didn’t do much driver training. According to his GPS from the day of the accident, he didn’t know where he was going, he missed his turn and was driving this crazy loop around all these side streets. He was turning left from the far right-hand lane, on a multi-lane one-way street, across the other lanes. That’s when he hit my client and forced him off the road into a concrete utility vault.
The jury found the trucking company and their driver at fault for the accident, awarded my client $200,000 in pain and suffering – which for Oregon was very significant because my client didn’t require any surgical procedures. His injuries would be classified as purely “soft tissue.” And a six-figure jury verdict for a soft-tissue injury case is not common in Oregon. In addition, they gave my client the equivalent to about a year-and-a-half of his lost income, which was roughly $350,000, plus medical expenses. All told the verdict was just over $600,000.
LD: It sounds like the defense was veering into age discrimination.
TS: Yes absolutely. They hammered on that in this case.
He’s an old guy with lots of existing aches and pains, he’s well past retirement age, he doesn’t even need to be working. They were hitting all those angles of age discrimination in front of the jury. It’s a tough thing for the client to have to navigate. Their case is being devalued by this defense attorney purely because he happens to be 72 years old. So that was a very satisfying win for him.
I have another personal injury client who was in a terrible car wreck. He’s 21 and lives with his parents and was young enough to be on his parents’ insurance policy. And the policy had his car on it, but the insurance agent didn’t add his name to the policy. The insurance company had sent all these denial letters to the family, trying to deny coverage for the total loss of his car. So, I contacted them to ask for a copy of the insurance policy to review. They kept dragging their feet on that, then they would subtly send me incomplete copies. It felt wrong, like they were hiding something, or hoping they could sneak something past me. I’m too experienced for that; I kept pushing them. “Hey, you’re missing these pages. You’re missing these specific endorsements.” I kept on top of them – I could tell they were hoping I’d forget or lose interest. Not a chance. It took almost three months to get a full copy of the policy.
But once they did, I could see the Oregon endorsements deleted the language that they’d been relying on to deny coverage for his total loss. I sent them a nasty letter, calling them on their misconduct and demanding full payment for the vehicle along with other damages they then owed for wrongfully denying the claim. At that point, they knew I had them, and they promptly paid his total loss, his bank loan, plus the bank’s penalty for when they thought he was uninsured. They also paid eight months of prejudgment interest that we would’ve been able to recover had I filed suit against them, plus my attorney fees. It got this decent young kid back on his feet and able to get a fresh start. We all felt really good about this. Law is just a tool that can be used to accomplish certain goals, and it’s nice to be able to use our training and experience to use it to help people.
LD: I can imagine a lot of lawyers would look at this as small potatoes, but that must have made such a huge difference for your client.
TS: We have such an in-depth knowledge of insurance coverage issues from having worked on the defense side that I know when something doesn’t smell right. And this denial just didn’t make sense. It isn›t right and I know how to help. Whether you get a million-dollar jury verdict or help a kid out get the $12,000 he deserves for his totaled car. At the end of the day, it›s the same
amount of satisfaction and gratification for me. I just like helping people where I can.
LD: Has your style changed at all now that you have moved over to the plaintiff side?
TS: No, I win cases by being really detail oriented, and that works on both sides of the aisle. When I was on the defense side, I would often see a plaintiffs’ lawyer who didn’t know the documents well enough, or missed small things in the medical records, or was mired in the details. And if you know the minutiae better than your opponents, you have such a huge strategic advantage. I approach my plaintiff cases the same way. It really is the little stuff that can win cases.
LD: What advice do you have for younger lawyers who want to have a career in the courtroom?
TS: My first piece of advice is one that my father gave me which is, the number one thing is to be yourself. Don’t try to create a different persona for the courtroom. When someone puts on a false façade – jurors immediately see through that. They want to see your true, authentic self.
Additionally, always be polite and professional to your colleagues, to the court, and the court staff. No matter how crappy your day is going, and no matter how badly the other side is acting – stay polite. That’s a big factor to success. In our courthouses, there’s not a separate entrance for jurors. You’re coming in through the same security area, you’re using the same stairways, you’re riding the same elevators. Then when you’re in the courtroom, they see everything. If you have a single moment where you’re not being professional, there’s a good chance a juror will see that, and that could tank your whole case.
Then the last thing I would say is – show up prepared. Don’t think you can figure it out on the fl y. Have a clear game plan and stick to the plan. Even if it may feel chaotic, the fact that you are following a simple strategic plan will usually get you a better result.
LD: What keeps you motivated about the work that you do?
TS: It’s always been about helping people in their darkest times, helping them navigate the system that we have, regardless of what side you’re on. On the plaintiff side, you’ve got a person who has been injured and has the stress of dealing with injuries and medical bills. I help them get a just recovery. It’s a very stressful time for people and being able to guide them through something that’s very unfamiliar for them at a very difficult time in a person’s life – that’s very motivating.
NATALIE WEATHERFORD
TAYLOR & RING (LOS ANGELES)
BY EMILY JACKOWAY
IT TAKES A COURAGEOUS AND DETERMINED
lawyer to fully devote their practice to championing victims of sexual abuse. Victims and their attorneys are often subject to a host of constraints, from victimblaming to statutes of limitations to the challenge of taking on institutions with significant financial backing. In spite of – or perhaps because of – the limitations, Natalie Weatherford is one of those lawyers.
Weatherford is a partner at Los Angeles-based Taylor & Ring, a firm well-known for its track record in sexual abuse cases. That reputation is what first drew Weatherford to the firm; her position there was her first job out of law school. She felt personal injury practice and specifically sexual abuse litigation was her calling from the start: “Helping people who have been victimized, either children or adults, seemed very fulfilling – like a good thing to dedicate your life to,” she says. While she initially litigated personal injury cases of
all kinds, over the years, Weatherford’s focus has shifted to almost exclusively sexual abuse cases.
An overwhelming number of the cases Weatherford takes on involve abuse that occurred in schools. Recently, Weatherford represented a victim who was abused by her band instructor over a period of three years – beginning when she was in just seventh grade. Several years later, the teacher was finally arrested at the school. Weatherford and her co-counsel, who represented a second victim, sued the school district. In March of 2022, the jury returned a verdict of $102.5M for the two plaintiffs.
Weatherford’s sole commitment to justice for victims means this is far from her only remarkable result in the practice area: In one case, she secured the largest amount per victim ever paid by a school district in the country, at $7M per plaintiff. Another litigation’s result led to updating laws surrounding consent evidence for minors in California.
While many of the victims Weatherford represents were abused as children, she takes on clients who were abused at any point in life. In 2021, Weatherford and partner John Taylor represented a female truck driver who was sexually assaulted by her co-driver
while on the job. When the driver alerted the company, CRST International, to the assault, the male co-driver denied the allegations – and the company allowed him to continue working. Weatherford’s client, traumatized by the attack, was forced to abandon her career. The company left her only with a bill for her job training. She took legal action, and the case settled for $5M.
The courage it takes to hold those responsible accountable, as demonstrated by the truck driver, is representative of why Weatherford continues to be inspired by this work. “The bravery that it takes for victims to come forward always impresses me,” she says.
Lawdragon: From starting to work in the sexual abuse practice area to now, what have been the biggest surprises? Has anything shifted?
Natalie Weatherford: The most surprising thing is the way that the victims are treated in a lawsuit – and not in a good way. I feel like we’ve moved past victimblaming more as a society, but it’s still present in civil and criminal litigation.
In criminal and civil litigation for victims of sexual abuse, there are a lot of attempts to embarrass the victim or make them feel bad about the abuse. They’re put through so much. No matter what laws get passed or how good you are at representing the victim, they’re still going to be put through some really difficult litigation.
LD: So, you’re still seeing those victim-blaming tactics from the defense?
NW: Yes. They’re getting a little bit better at disguising the victim-blaming tactics, but they’re all still there, and some of them are even more blatant than before.
LD: In what way?
NW: For example, I have a case right now where my client is a victim of sexual abuse. The defense brought in her ex-boyfriend whom she had a restraining order against. It has nothing to do with the abuse she suffered, but they dig into the most embarrassing and damaging parts of the victim’s life just to try and discourage them from going forward with the lawsuit.
LD: That’s awful.
If you’re still noticing these kinds of tactics on the defense side, what about jurors – are you seeing recent cultural events affect their attitudes toward these cases?
NW: Jurors are valuing the impact that sexual abuse has on a victim, and they’re seeing that it can last your entire life. And it’s true. That’s something that medical professionals and us lawyers and victim advocates
have always said, but now I hear it echo through the jurors. So, that’s very important, especially for jury verdicts when they’re considering what kind of award to make for the victim. They’re giving higher awards because they understand that this leaves an imprint on a person for their whole life.
LD: Speaking of jury trials, tell me a bit about your recent case against Union School District, which yielded a $102.5M verdict for your client and your cocounsel’s client.
NW: That case has left a pretty significant imprint on me. It was a hard-fought, three-year litigation.
We represented women who, as middle school girls, were sexually abused by their band teacher at Dartmouth Middle School in San Jose. I represented Jane Doe 2, who was one of the first victims of the perpetrator.
The perpetrator began grooming girls right when he got hired at the school. Right away, the school received complaints that he was text messaging middle school girls late at night about things that weren’t related to school. A mother brought in text messages between this 28-year-old teacher and her 12-year-old daughter. The school, instead of firing the guy, which they could absolutely have done – he was just a probationary teacher, he wasn’t tenured, they had no legal connection that required them to do anything – instead did a confidential investigation into the text messages to determine if they were sexual harassment. The outcome of their investigation was that he didn’t sexually harass the girls. So, he kept his job and went on to sexually abuse my plaintiff. Then, he went on to sexually abuse Jane Doe 1, three years after my plaintiff. It wasn’t stopped until Jane Doe 1 reported him to the police, and he was arrested on the school campus.
LD: And your client was in his class his first year of teaching, when she was in seventh grade?
NW: Yes. There were two years of him grooming and doing less severe abuse to my plaintiff. And then right before his third year as a teacher, this parent brought forward the text messages and the investigation was performed. After that, the most significant abuse of my plaintiff began, when she was in ninth grade. He invited her back onto the campus to volunteer for the band program, and that’s when he began abusing her in his classroom.
LD: What was so impactful to you about this case?
NW: This is a case where the plaintiffs – both of them –
were significantly injured and impacted by this abuse. Your middle school years are such formative years for growing up, understanding yourself, developing your sexuality. So, when you’re abused during those years, it is significantly impactful.
Now we’re on appeal with the district, and they’re still making the same arguments, even though the evidence of what the school knew about this perpetrator before he ever abused my client was just overwhelming. It was a San Jose jury, so a lot of engineers and very factual people. After they gave their verdict, we talked to all of them, and they said, “This school knew a lot. They did nothing with what they knew. They violated the law and the plaintiffs were incredibly damaged by the abuse.” So, that’s where our award comes from.
LD: Where are you in the appeal process?
NW: The very beginning. It’ll probably be a couple years.
LD: Tell me about working with your co-counsel, Lauren Cerri of Corsiglia, McMahon & Allard.
NW: It was amazing. It was great to be able to try this case with another female lawyer. That doesn’t happen very often, where you have a trial team of only women. I consider her a really good friend now, and I respect her so much.
LD: I know you primarily work on cases involving sexual abuse of minors, but you’ve also had clients who were abused as adults. How is it different working on cases involving minors versus adults?
NW: Those cases are very different than the ones involving children, because in the adult cases, the defense is allowed to argue consent. It is very difficult and embarrassing for the victim because you have to prove that the sexual assault occurred, and then you have to also prove that they didn’t participate in it. Then, the plaintiff’s entire sex life can become part of the litigation.
But there are ways to protect adult victims of sexual abuse. I do my best to make sure that the litigation is as low impact as possible. Just because you’ve been sexually abused as an adult doesn’t mean that you have any less right to bring your lawsuit than a child victim does.
LD: Absolutely. Then, on many occasions, you’re representing adults who were abused as children. The statute of limitations was lifted in California at the start of 2020 for a three-year window, which allowed you to bring a number of cases in the last couple of years that would have been off-limits before. How can other states follow suit in better protecting victims, and what
further steps would you like to see California take?
NW: Other states should do what California did by opening a window for the statute of limitations or eliminating the statute of limitations altogether for these types of cases.
The impact this abuse has on your brain, psychologically, means that you either blame yourself or you tuck away the abuse. It’s a coping mechanism to just ignore what happened. I get a lot of victims who don’t come forward until they’re in their forties who were victimized when they were children, because that’s the point in their life where they’re finally feeling safe and comfortable to talk about what happened.
In California, I think we’ve made some steps, but there are still significant limitations for childhood victims of sexual abuse. Since the window closed at the end of 2022, you now have up until the age of 40 to come forward. Some states have completely eliminated the statute of limitations for sexual abuse, and I think that’s something we should do.
LD: It must be heartbreaking to have to tell people, “I’m sorry, but the window’s closed.”
NW: Yes, because they blame themselves, and it continues the cycle. With this window being open, I’ve handled a lot of cases where adults who felt like they didn’t do the right thing when they were children were able to bring their lawsuits, to confront the perpetrator and the institution that failed to protect them and get justice from that. It’s an incredibly healing and profound process.
LD: What advice would you give to an early-career attorney who wants to focus their practice on sexual abuse?
NW: Get in the courtroom as much as you can. I still get nervous when I go into court for anything, so nerves are totally normal. If you’re not nervous, it means you don’t care. So, just go in as much as you can and develop your skills. You’re never going to feel like you are some amazing lawyer in the courtroom. You’re always going to question yourself. Those are all normal feelings. Just do your best when you get in the courtroom.
LD : Looking ahead, how do you see your career developing from here? Do you want to keep doing the same thing you’re doing, fighting for individual plaintiffs?
NW: Yes, I just want to keep, hopefully, doing exactly this: representing victims in courtrooms in California. It’s been really fulfilling.
