I’ve handled “bet the company” cases in complex commercial litigation, intellectual property, and antitrust litigation. I understand business and how to solve business problems. I know how to develop creative business solutions with the goals of my client’s business in mind to maximize return on investment.
I have first chair trial experience in jury trials, bench trials, and arbitrations.
I have a wide range of experiences and have worked on everything from a murder case to billion dollar patent cases. I gained a lot of “on my feet” experience early in my career when I owned my own law firm. That’s when I first started to learn how to effectively handle cases on very tight budgets and with minimal resources. Those experiences taught me how to run the biggest and most complex cases efficiently and with identified goals to create business solutions.
My ability to run large complex cases, while finding ways to save my clients money, led me to creating an Ediscovery practice group that is involved in every case in my law firm. As Chair of the Ediscovery Practice Group, I developed strategies and methods that are designed to maximize efficiencies and save clients money at every stage of the litigation cycle. I have saved clients millions of dollars over the course of a litigation.
I completely internalized Ediscovery and created soup-to-nuts solutions that eliminate duplication with vendors and inefficiencies. I also built a multi-million dollar data hosting system and document review center right in our firm. My strategies have been so effective and efficient that clients have hired us to handle the Ediscovery and document review on their cases that we are not lead counsel on. We’ve done this on multiple cases.
Industry Experience
I have experience in many different industries. Some of these include the financial industry, consumer electronics, online retail, food and beverage, automotive, real estate, construction, hunting, and overseas manufacturing.
Client Examples
My clients range from individuals, to mid-sized companies, to some of the largest and most well-known companies in the world. For example, I have recently represented 3M, TiVo, U.S. Bank, Supervalu, Best Buy, and FICO. I have also represented clients against some of the largest companies in the world like Samsung, Verizon, AT&T, Experian, and Amazon.com.
Case Examples*
As an example of one of my current cases, I’m representing a company in a case involving breach-of-contract and warranty claims under the UCC, fraud allegations, trademark and unfair competition claims, and patent infringement claims. I recently won partial summary judgment in my client's favor on its breach of contract claim, and the only issue left for the jury to decide is how much money the other side owes my client. I also won summary judgment on the other side's trademark infringement, unfair competition and consumer fraud claims, and the Court dismissed those claims from the case. I’ll try that case this spring.
As an example of some cases I recently handled, I represented TiVo Inc. (with the Irell & Manella law firm) in patent infringement cases against Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, relating to multimedia time warping technology. TiVo reached favorable settlements and business deals in each of those cases which resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in payments to TiVo.
I also recently represented Supervalu in a complex case in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The plaintiffs brought claims for antitrust, RICO, abuse of process, consumer fraud, and tortious interference. The plaintiffs’ initial demand was approximately $30 million. I won a motion to dismiss in that case that kicked out all of the antitrust, RICO, abuse of process, and fraud claims against Supervalu. That resulted in the plaintiffs agreeing to dismiss their remaining claims and settling the case for $0 dollars.
I also represented 3M in a trademark case relating to aftermarket automotive products. 3M reached a favorable settlement in that case which prevented the use of its trademark and required a transfer of a domain name.
In addition, I handled a patent case in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware against some of the world’s largest online retailers. My client reached a favorable settlement on confidential terms.
I also represented the world's largest plaintiff bar association in a trademark case. The United States District Court for the District of Minnesota granted summary judgment in my client’s favor and dismissed the defendants’ claim that my client abandoned its trademark rights when it adopted a new corporate name. The case then settled favorably for my client with the defendants paying my client a substantial monetary payment.
Pro Bono*
I’ve handled numerous pro bono cases in many different areas of the law. For example, in a case of first impression in Minnesota, I represented a guardian ad litem at trial seeking the termination of a mother's parental rights to her one-year-old daughter. During the trial, the mother agreed to voluntarily terminate her parental rights and thanked me for--what she called--my “passionate opening statement” which made her realize that termination was best for her daughter. The child was later adopted by her foster parents who had cared for her since the day she was born.
Personal
I married my high school sweetheart and we have four young children who are very loud, creative, and funny. In my free time, I’m usually playing guitar with my kids, helping coach my son’s hockey team, skiing with my family, or playing hockey with my buddies.