Personal Injury: Multi-Million Wrongful Death Settlement
The Facts
An employee murdered our client away from work premises while off-duty. The employee used a car to run over our client. The car belonged to his mother. Negligent hiring and entrustment cases centering on murder, like this one, are notoriously difficult.
Our Approach
We moved quickly to develop the employer's knowledge of the employee's unfitness for work and the mother's knowledge of unfitness to drive, despite being issued a driver's license by the DMV. We took party depositions within a few months of filing the lawsuit and aggressively pressed written discovery and third-party subpoenas.
Result
Secured a multi-million dollar wrongful death settlement with the employer and the mother shortly after the party depositions.
Legal Malpractice and Trusts: Multi-Million Jury Verdict
The Facts
Medical doctor client claimed he did not read (or understand) his estate plan before signing it. His wife, his daughter, and his trusts and estates attorneys disagreed.
Strategy
Center the narrative on the the attorney client relationship and what clients expect (and deserve) from their attorneys.
Knowing What's Important
This jury trial took over a month. Hundreds of exhibits were used. But in closing we focused on only a few to prove our case.
One of the Largest Legal Malpractice Jury Verdicts in California History
Probate: Defense Verdict
Retained as trial counsel for the defense a week before a civil bench trial over allegations of wrongful investments of a $40,000,000 trust. The case was tried in the historic Anacapa Courthouse in Santa Barbara (pictured in the background). After a three-week trial, the court issued a complete defense verdict.
Real Estate: Plaintiff Verdict
After years of litigation, retained on the eve of trial to represent homeowners in a real estate boundary dispute. After a week-long bench trial, the court issued an injunction in our clients’ favor.
Civil Corporate Theft: Defense Verdict
Retained shortly before jury trial to defend a physician and two corporations for a civil conversion case. The jury fully exonerated the defendants in less than an hour on a novel theory that the Plaintiff did not own the converted property.
Criminal Defense: Jury Acquittals
Secured jury acquittals for numerous clients charged with federal felonies, including bribery, gun possession, drug trafficking, threatening a federal officer with murder, immigration offenses and other crimes.
Other Notable Representations and Results
Judge Acquittals
Won several judgments of acquittal by courts including reversal of conviction and full judgment of acquittal for client charged with bank fraud.
Dismissals
Successfully litigated dismissals for both civil and criminal clients, including a dismissal by Ringo Starr in a hotly litigated trademark case. Meanwhile... You Can't Buy These Sex Toys Inspired By The Beatles
Groundbreaking Litigation Strategies
Successfully crafted and litigated novel legal strategies, including strategy to declare the government’s continued prosecution of medical cannabis businesses illegal under an appropriations law. The legal strategy has since been used by attorneys in high-profile cases and featured in the New York Times and other national media.
Post-Conviction Relief
Successfully litigated post-conviction matters, including obtaining a rare immediate release order for client serving a federal mandatory minimum life sentence.
Constitutional Challenges
Designed successful constitutional challenges, including novel sixth amendment challenge resulting in dismissal of all charges for client who was witnessed by law enforcement throwing away forty-five thousand pills of ecstasy during a high-speed chase.
White-Collar Defense
Defended several serious white-collar cases, including tax preparation company owner in largest federal tax fraud scheme of its kind in United States history.
Appeals
Successfully drafted and argued appeals before federal appellate courts, including reversal of conviction in drug trafficking case based on precedential setting theory of prosecutorial misconduct and .
Our Results