Scott Malzahn recently was recognized by San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria and California Assemblymember Christopher Ward for his contributions to Equality California as president of the prominent LGBTQ+ civil rights organization.

Scott said, “It has been an honor and privilege to work so closely with Executive Director Tony Hoang and his incredible staff.”

This past year, Equality California worked with its partners to permanently enshrine marriage equality in the California Constitution, expanded out-LGBTQ+ representation to a historic 12% of the California legislature, and expanded access to fertility care for LGBTQ+ people seeking to build families.

Though Scott stepped down from the president role at the end of his term, he will continue to remain in its leadership as the group’s treasurer.

A Waymaker trial team represented Global Investment Ventures LLC in a breach of a guaranty agreement a defendant who had signed involving an investment in coal mining equipment.

After Ryan G. Baker and Jose Nuño conducted discovery, including party and non-party depositions, the trial team obtained summary judgment against the defendant.

The defendant argued the contract was invalid based on California’s usury laws, but in his argument, Baker established that Kentucky law controlled on that issue. The court found defendant liable for breach of contract and awarded plaintiff attorneys’ fees.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) a prominent digital rights group based in San Francisco, has filed an amicus brief in support of our client Roman Storm, one of the developers of the crypto privacy protocol Tornado Cash. CoinDesk covered the news.

Storm, who is represented by Brian Klein, Keri Curtis Axel and Kevin Casey, has been charged in the SDNY with conspiracy to facilitate money laundering, to operate an unlicensed money transmitter, and to violate sanctions in relation to his work on the Tornado Cash protocol. His trial starts in April.

The EFF brief explains that the government’s prosecution raises larger civil liberties concerns that could chill the future development of privacy-enhancing technologies more broadly. The EFF also discusses how Roman’s prosecution threatens open-source innovation as “the core issue in the case of holding developers responsible for how their tools are more broadly.”

A judge in the Central District of California granted a motion to dismiss Waymaker filed for a client who was alleged to have mishandled cryptocurrency transactions for two individuals in 2018.

The plaintiffs also claimed they missed the window to swap their temporary tokens for the replacement tokens and lost their initial investment, alleging Waymaker’s client failed to keep them informed.

In response to Waymaker’s motion to dismiss the second amended complaint, the judge dismissed, with prejudice, the sole federal securities claim and declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining four state law claims.

The trial team including Brian Klein, Donald R. Pepperman and Sam Meehan.

A judge in the Central District of California granted a motion to dismiss Waymaker filed for a client who was alleged to have mishandled cryptocurrency transactions for two individuals in 2018. The plaintiffs also claimed they missed the window to swap their temporary tokens for the replacement tokens and lost their initial investment, alleging Waymaker’s client failed to keep them informed. In response to Waymaker’s motion to dismiss the second amended complaint, the judge dismissed, with prejudice, the sole federal securities claim and declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining four state law claims.

Partner Ryan Baker, speaking to Variety on December 23, 2024 about the litigation between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni after Lively filed a sexual harassment complaint against Baldoni, said, “I think people might see what Baldoni did as at least unfair, if not harmful or possibly illegal in terms of further harassment or retaliation.”

After Lively accused Baldoni, her director and costar in the film “It Ends with Us,” of misconduct on the set, it was revealed that Baldoni had hired a crisis PR team to attack Lively in what she alleges is a smear campaign against her.

The case “puts [the conduct] under a little more scrutiny, because all of these things clearly happened in a dynamic where Lively and Baldoni are going back and forth,” Baker said. The film depicts many adult themes, including various forms of abuse, and the portrayal of these themes can put talent in uncomfortable situations. “It is critical that roles are clearly defined and precautions are taken to protect talent from experiencing the trauma they seek to depict.”

Partner Ryan Baker, speaking to Bloomberg on December 6, 2024 about the Jane Street-Millennium Trade Secrets settlement, said the law “contemplates formulas, methods or processes as trade secrets.” The key, said Baker, is to show that a trade secret holds “independent economic value from not being known” and has been protected.

At issue in a fight between two of Wall Street’s biggest names was whether a trading strategy used to build the Indian options business at Jane Street could be safeguarded as a trade secret. Many saw Jane Street’s strategy as seeking to use trade secret law as a surrogate for a non-compete agreement. While Baker agrees the ultimate outcome may be the same, the underlying policy interests are very different. “While the law favors an individual’s right to freely move between employers, no law permits an individual to take a former employer’s confidential intellectual property to a new employer.”

Los Angeles Business Journal named Managing Partner Scott Malzahn a 2024 Leader

of Influence: Thriving in Their 40s. The honor is based on Scott’s notable legal achievements and leadership in the larger community.

An accomplished trial and appellate lawyer who has won cases at every level, Scott has a complex civil litigation practice representing plaintiffs and defendants in intellectual property, fintech, and general commercial disputes. Scott and Waymaker recently won a $18.3 million award in a trade secrets case.

In 2019, he crafted the winning legal arguments adopted unanimously by the California Supreme Court in a decision that established a new legal test to govern anti-SLAPP cases. The published decision is now the leading California decision for anti-SLAPP motions brought under the catch-all provision and has been cited more than 900 times.

Active in the political community, Malzahn is President of Equality California, the nation’s largest statewide LGBTQ+ civil rights organization and was a core member of the trial team in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, which won a historic federal court decision striking down California’s ban on same-sex marriage on constitutional grounds.

Profiled by the magazine, Co-Founding Partner Ryan Baker and Managing Partner Scott Malzahn have been named Legal Visionaries by Los Angeles Times Business of Law 2024. Lawyers were honored based on exceptional legal skill and a commitment to excellence, thought leadership, and impactful contributions to both clients and the broader legal community.

Brian Klein and Teresa Huggins achieved a decisive victory for their Korean-based video game developer clients. On November 12, 2024, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge agreed with Waymaker that the Court did not have personal jurisdiction over any of the defendants and dismissed all claims against them. All claims involved alleged securities violations. The case is Sunwoo Lee, et al. v. Com2uS Holdings, et al.

Partner Brian Klein, spoke to Law.com on November 6, 2024 about a new era of crypto litigation following Donald Trump’s presidential election. “‘Everyone is going to spend some time thinking through what this means for both current court cases and pending investigations,” said Klein, “who has been recognized as one of the nation’s top crypto trial lawyers.”

Partner Brian Klein, speaking to American Banker on October 18, 2024 about TD Bank, the ninth largest in the U.S. and second largest in Canada, pleading guilty to money-laundering conspiracy and settling for $3.09 billion but avoiding criminal charges against individual executives, said “the sheer scale of a large institution often shields the individuals within it.”

The Department of Justice said the bank enabled hundreds of millions of illicit dollars tied to drug and human trafficking to pass through its system, leaving $18 trillion in customer funds unmonitored for more than six years.

“In the case of TD Bank, the penalties it is paying are large – $3 billion is a lot of money, obviously – but for a bank of that size, that should be very manageable,” Klein said. “Prosecutors push for big penalties to show they’re serious, but for a number of these massive institutions paying them is just part of doing business.”

Klein, a former federal prosecutor, said the sheer size of large banks makes it difficult to trace accountability to single person. This fragmentation of responsibility makes it harder for prosecutors to prove that a specific executive had intent to commit a crime.

Former federal prosecutor Brian Klein, interviewed on October 14, 2024 about the forthcoming federal corruption case against former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan on the Bloomberg Law Podcast, said of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent Snyder v. United States ruling on June 26, 2024, “It’s always helpful as a defense lawyer if you have Supreme Court precedent supporting you …”

“The Supreme Court has been very interested in public corruption cases the last five to 10 years” and in Snyder v. United States the Court narrowed the scope of public corruption by ruling that a bride by itself is not enough for a federal charge said Klein. Instead, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which includes Illinois, holds that you need a “an ongoing relationship and a stream of payments to establish quid pro quo,” said Klein, “and that’s the focus of the allegations” against Madigan.

Madigan, now 82 and the then longest serving state legislative leader in the United States, has been charged by federal prosecutors with racketeering, bribery and wire fraud said Klein.

Daily Journal named Co-Founding Partner Ryan Baker as one of California’s Top Trade Secrets Lawyers 2024 in its October 9, 2024 edition. “This case is important because it protects innovation and innovators,” said Baker speaking of his recent victory for IMD, Inc. in a penile implant case where a rival doctor violated an NDA to obtain trade secrets and then used that to secure two patents. The judge awarded $18 million in damages and the patents were invalidated.

In a case in the juice industry, Baker defended Paradise Splash against various intellectual property claims, including trade secrets, and the settlement for a fraction of the damages sought was paid by insurance and “this outcome allowed my client to continue building his business,” said Baker.

Baker said the value of patents is declining in favor of the value of trade secrets. “The cost of litigation continues to escalate based on the ever-expanding volume of available information. Discovery processes meant to conserve resources usually only increase cost and delay litigation, which results in more cost.”

Partners Ryan Baker, Brian Klein, Jaime Marquart, and Donald Pepperman have been recognized as Litigation Stars in the Benchmark Litigation 2025 US Rankings.

Baker is listed for Intellectual Property and Commercial Litigation, Klein for Commercial Litigation, and Pepperman for Competition/Antitrust and Commercial Litigation.

Partners Brian Klein and Teresa Huggins won a significant victory for client Bitfloor, Inc. and its founder Roman Shtylman when Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Jennifer G. Schecter granted partial summary judgment to onetime customers of the failed cryptocurrency exchange but also granted in part Bitfloor and Shtylman’s cross-motion, agreeing with Bitfloor and Shtylman that the damages awarded should be limited to the dollar value of the digital assets more than a decade ago and that many of the plaintiffs were barred by statutes of limitiations. The Law360 headline read “Crypto Exchange Must Refund Bitcoins, but in 2013 Dollars.”

The judge found that Bitfloor, which operated as a cryptocurrency exchange between 2012 and 2013, breached user contracts when it was unable to return certain user bitcoins due to its founder’s inadvertent deletion of private keys for three cryptocurrency addresses that held user bitcoins in an off-line cold wallet. This mistake resulted in the five plaintiffs being unable to withdraw their total of 217.38 bitcoins from Bitfloor when Bitfloor closed in 2013, said Justice Schecter.

Importantly, Justice Schecter denied the plaintiffs’ request to receive damages at the current price of bitcoin or in the form of the 217 bitcoins themselves, which today are worth almost $14 million. Instead, the damages will be awarded in U.S. dollars based on the price of bitcoin when the breach of contract occurred in 2013. At that time, the 217 bitcoins were worth approximately $15,000.

Justice Schecter additionally granted Bitfloor and Shtylman’s motion to eliminate the breach of contract claims of seven other customers whose allegations were barred by the statute of limitations in their states of residents under New York’s borrowing statute. Justice Schecter also dismissed the unjust enrichment claim against Shtylman in its entirety. The Friday, September 19, 2024 ruling from the bench came during a virtual afternoon hearing.

Former federal prosecutor Keri Curtis Axel has been named to The Best Lawyers in America© 2025 for Criminal Defense: White Collar. A first-chair trial and appellate lawyer, she practices white-collar criminal and government enforcement defense, as well as complex civil litigation.

A former Assistant U.S. Attorney and former SEC enforcement staff attorney, Keri draws on her considerable government experience to help her clients navigate investigations and fight criminal charges across the nation. A graduate of Harvard Law School, she is regularly quoted by leading news outlets about high-profile trials.

In a dispute over the alleged theft and laundering of bitcoin allegedly worth more than $80 million, Brian Klein, Scott Malzahn and Jose Nuño led the Waymaker team who won dismissal of a lawsuit brought against the Kraken cryptocurrency exchange for lack of personal jurisdiction in Florida. In a 36-page opinion entered on August 8, 2024, Circuit Judge Thomas J. Rebull granted the motion to dismiss filed by Waymaker on behalf of Kraken in the matter of Kowalski v. Binance Holdings, Ltd.

Plaintiff originally filed suit in Florida state court in Miami-Dade County against 11 individual and corporate defendants from Hong Kong, Russia, the United States and Singapore alleging they conspired with each other steal, launder or dissipate Plaintiff’s stolen bitcoin. Plaintiff alleged that more than 1,400 bitcoin was stolen from him in a malicious malware attack in Australia that caused the bitcoin to be transferred to a foreign electronic address. Plaintiff’s investigator allegedly traced about 15% of the bitcoin to accounts on the Kraken exchange, including accounts allegedly used by a Florida resident to sell the bitcoin. Waymaker filed a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction and failure to state a claim. The Court subsequently granted Plaintiff’s request for jurisdictional discovery given Plaintiff’s allegations that the Kraken was part of a conspiracy with a Florida resident. In supplemental briefing, Waymaker argued that discovery failed to substantiate Plaintiff’s conspiracy allegations, a substantial aspect of the underlying tort of conversion did not occur in Florida, and the assertion of specific personal jurisdiction over Kraken violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Court agreed with each of these arguments, and dismissed Kraken for lack of personal jurisdiction.

Partner Ryan Baker, speaking to Law360 about the ethical rules applying litigators doing research with AI, said, “It’s easier to ask AI a question and have it churn out an answer, but it doesn’t alter the duties of the lawyer to ultimately verify what is said is accurate and true and applicable to the case” in a story published August 9, 2024.

He added that Waymaker LLP has an internal policy that requires all attorneys using AI tools to check the generated content. Baker is currently lead counsel in a trademark case against OpenAI.

The Waymaker team, Teresa Huggins and Counsel Kevin Casey, prevailed for plaintiff 6759 Hollywood, LLC when The Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District, affirmed the trial court’s decision to grant summary judgment in favor of Waymaker client on July 30, 2024. The case involved an action for breach of contract involving a commercial lease with outstanding rent obligations of more than $2 million and additional property damage.

Superior Court Judge Holly J. Fujie had ruled on April 11, 2023, based on the evidence, that there was no triable issue of material fact in the matter and granted Waymaker’s request for summary judgment in Plaintiff’s favor on its affirmative claims. Judge Fujie had also granted Waymaker’s request for summary judgment against the cross-complaint, dismissing all existing cross-claims against Plaintiff. The Court of Appeal affirmed both decisions and found that client 6759 Hollywood, LLC is also entitled to recover attorneys’ fees and costs on appeal. The case was 6759 Hollywood Associates, LLC v. Museum of Selfies, Inc. et al.

Klein, a former federal prosecutor, spoke to Law360 on July 16, 2024 about U.S. Senator Robert Menendez (D-New Jersey) being found guilty of bribery in a high-profile government corruption case saying, “This was obviously a very hard-fought battle between aggressive prosecutors and excellent defense counsel and nonetheless the jury returned a very quick, resounding guilty verdict …”

“When law enforcement finds gold bars, and a substantial quantity of them, it’s going to give the jury something to focus on,” Klein said. “They were apparently able to link them up and tie them closely to the charges they brought.”

Menendez, a Democrat who chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was found guilty on all the charges he faced, including accepting bribes of gold and cash from three New Jersey businessmen and acting as a foreign agent for the Egyptian government. The conviction came nearly seven years after the government’s first bribery case against the longtime politician ended in a hung jury.

On July 12, 2024, appearing before Judge Failla of the Southern District of New York, Waymaker partners Brian Klein and Keri Curtis Axel argue that the prosecutors case against their client Roman Storm, one of the Tornado Cash developers, should be dismissed.

They explained to Judge Failla that Mr. Storm had no control of the Tornado Cash protocol and could not have stopped third-party bad actors from later using the software for their own purposes. They also noted that the Bank Secrecy Act did not cover Mr. Storm’s alleged conduct of helping to write the protocol’s code, and that the attempt to apply the money laundering and sanctions laws to the alleged conduct was prosecutorial overreach and a violation of the First Amendment and Due Process rights.

While prosecutors claimed that Mr. Storm not only created a software but also controlled a service, Waymaker explained that he merely developed a privacy software for financial transactions that he released to the world for anyone to use. Waymaker also explained that Mr. Storm had no control of Tornado Cash after May 2020 when the protocol became immutable.

Klein said, “This is the only [money laundering] case ever where the defendant didn’t have control over the funds.” Axel pointed out that Tornado Cash’s user interface did not in itself control the transactions that users sent around. “They [the developers] are not connected to those transactions.” Comparing the prosecutors claims against Mr. Storm to other sanctions prosecutions, Axel noted that the defendants in every other case had some connection to the sanctioned regime, while Mr. Storm did not, stating that “we are nowhere close to [anyone] willfully providing services to the DPRK.”

As reported by Coindesk, Judge Failla was skeptical of some of the prosecution’s arguments. When one of the prosecutors on the case argued that any “legitimate business” that becomes aware of criminal activity is required to take steps to stop it, Judge Failla responded, “That’s a lot. I’m not sure what you expected Mr. Storm and his colleagues to do.” Later Judge Failla said, “I don’t see you charging WhatsApp,” an encryption software that criminals sometimes use.

Waymaker counsel Kevin Casey is a member of the Waymaker team and argued the constitutional issues presented by the defense motions to dismiss.

Los Angeles Business Journal (LABJ) has named Partners Keri Curtis Axel and Ryan Baker as 2024 Leaders of Influence: Litigators & Trial Attorneys. As members of an elite group of accomplished litigators and trial attorneys, they were profiled in a special section appearing in the July 15, 2024 edition of LABJ.

Axel, a former federal prosecutor, is a trial and appellate lawyer who practices white-collar criminal and government enforcement defense, as well as complex civil litigation. Baker focuses his practice on high-stakes commercial and intellectual property litigation and trials. Both are regularly quoted by leading news outlets about high-profile trials.

Partner Ryan Baker, speaking to Bloomberglaw.com on July 8, 2024, about Google’s payment of $2.3 million, the maximum statutory damages available, to avoid a jury trial in the DOJ’s antitrust case, said “it seems to me that [Google’s] worst-case scenario in front of a jury was a lot worse than a couple million dollars.”

Google satisfied the only jury claim in the case, which means the remaining claims will be tried before the judge. In antitrust cases involving complex economics and theories of harm, big companies often prefer a bench trial to facing a jury because of the nature of the relief involved.

In this high-stakes case, the Department of Justice is seeking an order breaking up Google’s multibillion-dollar ad business.

Baker, who has litigated against Google, said plaintiff lawyers prefer juries because of the chance “to tell your story to people and get a reaction.” Big technology companies, such as Google, often prefer court trials, conducted before a judge not a jury. “Generally speaking, judges are more predictable and present less risk than juries,” according to Baker.

Counsel Jose Nuño and Associates Sam Meehan and Emily Stierwalt have been named Southern California Rising Stars 2024 by Super Lawyers. Meehan was selected for Civil Litigation: Defense. Nuño and Stierwalt were honored for their work in Business Litigation. All three were named Rising Stars in 2023. No more than 2.5 percent of California lawyers are selected for the Rising Stars list.

On June 6, 2024, Chambers released its USA Guide 2024: California rankings. Waymaker is ranked for Litigation: General Commercial: Highly Regarded - California Band 3 and Chambers says Waymaker team is known for “representing both plaintiffs and defendants in high-stakes litigation.”

Among Waymaker’s strengths, Chambers quoted one client saying, “They have an amazing ability to grasp the complexity of a problem and reduce to a coherent theory of the case.” Another reported, “Their work product is top notch.” A third client said, “Waymaker lawyers have significant experience in litigation. Their lawyers understand the law, technology, and have significant experience in court.”

Partners Ryan Baker, Brian Klein and Jaime Marquart are mentioned as notable practitioners and key contacts at the firm. In 2023, Waymaker was Chambers ranked in both Commercial Litigation and Fintech and today’s Chambers 2024 ranking for Commercial Litigation mentions that the firm “is particularly noted for its strength in fintech and cryptocurrency matters.”

Chambers and Partners, the gold standard of legal rankings, utilizes more than 200 researchers upholding the highest standards. Chambers identifies, ranks, and differentiates the best legal talent globally. Their rankings cannot be bought or influenced.

Los Angeles Business Journal has named Partners Keri Curtis Axel and Teresa Huggins “Women of Influence: Attorneys 2024” and included their profiles in the May 27, 2024 edition. Named to the annual list three consecutive years, Axel and Huggins were honored as among the leading female lawyers in Los Angeles based on their legal skill and achievements, and community leadership. Axel, a former federal prosecutor, currently defends former Dodgers star Yasiel Puig, who is alleged to have made false statements to the government during its investigation of a sports betting ring. She practices white-collar criminal, government enforcement defense, and civil litigation. Huggins handles complex commercial litigation at both the trial and appellate level, in state and federal court, with an emphasis on intellectual property, fintech, cryptocurrency, and First Amendment matters. Both Axel and Huggins are graduates of Harvard Law School.

On May 22, 2024, Daily Journal named Partner Ryan Baker one of California’s Top IP Lawyers for 2024. One of California’s leading trial and appellate lawyers, Baker regularly handles cases that involve innovative or disruptive technology.

In June 2023, Baker won a sweeping 8-0 trial verdict in a high-profile federal trade secrets case involving the first FDA-cleared male penile enhancement implant that resulted in an $18.3 million award. His victories have been described in the media as a “legal earthquake” and “landmark.” Commenting on the Daily Journal award, Baker stated that “with so many outstanding IP lawyers practicing in California, this recognition is a tremendous honor.”

Last week the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held that federal courts must honor a request to stay a case after ordering the dispute into arbitration. In a six-page opinion authored by Justice Sonia Sotomayor not even a month after hearing oral argument in Smith v. Spizzirri , the high court relied on a textual interpretation of federal arbitration law to conclude that the Ninth Circuit was wrong to find that federal courts have discretion to dismiss after compelling arbitration, thereby allowing the losing party to appeal the decision.

The relevant statute, Section 3 of the Federal Arbitration Act, says a trial court referring a case to arbitration “shall on application of one of the parties stay the trial of the action until such arbitration has been had.”

Ryan Baker gave his reaction to Law360, “In a lot of these cases, what the Supreme Court is saying is, ‘Look, all you litigants out there who don’t like this. The remedy here is to petition Congress to amend the FAA ... The word “shall” means what it says.’”

The justices rejected an argument from the respondents in the case, on-demand delivery service IntelliQuick, that the word “stay” only meant that the court was obligated to stop parallel in-court litigation, which it could also do by dismissing the litigation.

To read the full article, click on the link (subscription required).

https://www.law360.com/articles/1838047/high-court-decision-requiring-a-stay-raises-more-questions

Partner Brian Klein, a former federal prosecutor, speaking to Reuters in a May 7, 2024 story about Archegos founder Bill Hwang’s criminal trial in the Southern District of New York and the prosecutions novel market manipulation theory said, “You could definitely say the prosecutors are pushing the envelope here …”

Market manipulation cases usually involve some form of concealment or trickery, but the alleged trades Archegos occurred in the open market and did not appear to involve deception.

As the head of Archegos, Hwang is the alleged architect of a multibillion-dollar fraud that shook Wall Street in March 2021. Prosecutors claim that Hwang and his deputies lied to banks about the scale of Archegos’ derivative positions to borrow billions that the investment firm then used to inflate the underlying stocks through open market purchases. The firm’s meltdown left global banks with billions in losses and prosecutors allege that Archegos’ collapse caused billions more in shareholder losses at companies in its portfolio.

Partner Ryan Baker, speaking to the Law.com on April 19, 2024, about the impact of fewer federal jury trials and appeals, said, “If there is not a robust pipeline of decisions going up and coming down where the appellate courts are providing guidance to trial judges, then the consequence is often times a lot of wasted time.”

In recent decades there has been a dramatic decrease in the number of federal jury trials and for its Friday Roundup Law.com spoke to Baker and other prominent trial attorneys. Baker noted that if a large majority of cases are resolved outside of jury trials, appellate courts may not get a chance to weigh in on evolving issues.

Additionally, Baker said there may be less guidance for trial attorneys when crafting jury instructions. In 2023, Baker experienced this when he won a major trade secrets case when a federal jury voted unanimously 8-0 in his favor. In that victory, as he told Law.com, the case law was thin on some nuanced legal questions that arose when preparing jury instructions. To find answers to guidance on some of these issues, Baker and his team had to look to other circuit and district courts for guidance. According to Baker, “our system depends on evolving precedent, which is most powerfully and clearly articulated by the appellate courts, including the Supreme Court; this precedent can be of particular significance when it comes to jury instructions and other issues related to jury trials.”

Los Angeles Business Journal has named Partner Ryan Baker one of the Top 100 Lawyers in Los Angeles 2024. Ryan is one of LA’s leading trial and appellate lawyers, handling cases that often involve innovative or disruptive technology.

Los Angeles Business Journal has recognized the Top 100 since 2022, and Baker has been honored each as one of the Top 100 Lawyers each of the last three years. Commenting on this announcement, Baker stated that “with so many exceptional lawyers practicing in the greater Los Angeles area, this recognition is a tremendous honor.”

Partner Ryan Baker, speaking to the Los Angeles Times on April 16, 2024, about a Los Angeles billionaire and animal philanthropist suing a local designer for extortion, after the designer had attempted to settle her dog bite claims against the billionaire, stated, “[s]he can’t become her own private judge, jury and executioner.”

A dog bite situation at a popular Los Angeles dog park led to dueling legal claims of extortion and negligence. Baker reviewed the exchange between the dog owners for the LA Times to offer an opinion on whether their communications amounted to civil extortion, which under California law includes receiving a benefit such as money through the threatened exposure of any “disgrace or crime” even if falsely alleged.

Baker said that the victim had the right to pursue a private settlement under the threat of her own lawsuit, but if she threatened to report the other dog owner unless he met her demands she crossed a “bright line.” The jury will have to decide the “critical question” of whether the dog bite victim had extorted the money or had simply received and kept it.

On March 28, 2024, a California federal judge awarded more than $18.3 million in implied royalties and exemplary damages to Waymaker’s plaintiff clients, International Medical Devices (IMD), Menova Inc. and Beverly Hills urologist Dr. James Elist. This award follows the unanimous jury trial verdict the firm secured last year related to a competitor’s theft of penile implant trade secrets. In addition to the damages award, the court also issued a permanent injunction and invalidated two of defendants’ patents.

Dr. Elist and his two companies won a sweeping 8-0 jury trial verdict in June, with jurors finding that Houston-based urologist Dr. Robert Cornell and others associated with him stole Elist’s trademark secrets related to a cosmetic penile implant.

On March 28, U.S. District Judge Consuelo B. Marshall ordered the $18.3 million award and found that Dr. James Elist’s claims against Cornell demonstrated an irreparable injury in the high-profile trade secrets case covered by Daily Journal and Law360. In a separate order, Judge Marshall stated that “the evidence supports the factors favoring a permanent injunction.” Based on the jury’s finding by clear and convincing evidence that defendants’ patents are invalid, Judge Marshall stated that “the Court will enter judgment consistent with the jury’s finding.”

Lead attorney Ryan Baker told Law360, “The court’s ruling, consistent with the unanimous jury verdict on liability, recognizes the importance and value [of] an inventor’s intellectual property.”

“The defendants in this case have been rightfully punished for trying to claim Dr. Elist’s lifelong work as their own,” he said. “Today is a good day for inventors and innovation.”

Baker added, “The totality of the relief here sends a clear message to would-be infringers – not only will you have to pay for the damages you cause, but you will also not be able to benefit from your theft of intellectual property in any way.”

The Waymaker team proved that Cornell unlawfully claimed inventorship of Elist’s penile enhancement concepts that led to Penuma®, the first FDA-cleared cosmetic penile implant, one with significant commercial possibilities.

The Waymaker trial team also included Scott Malzahn, Donald Pepperman, Sam Meehan and Emily Stierwalt. Waymaker staff also contributed significantly. “This was a total team effort,” Baker stated.

Partner Ryan Baker was quoted in a January 30^th article in the San Diego Union Tribune about Razuki v. Malan, a San Diego Superior Court complex civil case arising from a failed real estate partnership. The equitable doctrine of unclean hands has become a central issue after the plaintiff engaged others, with his civil litigation pending, to intimidate and/or murder the defendant, plaintiff’s former business partner. The defendant has argued the plaintiff should not be permitted to recover because the plaintiff has unclean hands, having engaged in criminal conduct against the defendant.

Baker explained to Union Tribune reporter Alex Riggins that defendants will often use the unclean hands doctrine as an affirmative defense when first responding to a lawsuit, but it’s not often that the unclean hands doctrine is litigated as a central issue. Explaining the unclean hands doctrine, Baker said, “[y]ou’re coming and asking the court to punish (the defendant), but you’ve also done wrong here,” Baker said. “You’re not entitled to any recovery because you also engaged in misconduct as related to the claim.” “Courts are ultimately trying to be fair.”

Baker also said that unclean hands typically only applies to conduct that directly relates to the claims and it is therefore usually based on conduct that occurred prior to the filing of the litigation in which it is argued. He identified the example of an employee who sues his employer for wrongful termination but had lied on his resume to get the job. A court might find the employee had unclean hands and bar any recovery. With regard to the Razuki case, Baker warned that although unclean hands is an equitable “doctrine based on fairness,” allowing the defendant to cite conduct subsequent to the filing of a lawsuit would create a slippery slope for courts and litigants.

Although plaintiff Razuki certainly has unclean hands in the sense that he committed a crime, the question is whether his criminal act, which took place after he filed his civil claims, deprives him of his rights in the civil action. It’s an interesting question that will probably ultimately be considered by the appellate courts.

Partner Ryan Baker recently spoke to Bloomberg Law about a Supreme Court case addressing the issue of whether a district court must stay or may dismiss a case pending arbitration. In story published January 24, 2024, Baker said that the Smith v. Spizzirri case, addressing whether a district court may dismiss rather than stay a case in arbitration, “is a battle between making remedies available to litigants versus the administrative cost or burden on the judicial system.”

Baker said a stay pending arbitration can benefit litigants because it allows parties to file status reports to update the district court on the progress of the out-of-court proceeding and to potentially resolve any problems or disputes that may arise in arbitration, including issues related to the scope of the arbitration proceeding.

“But it may make sense” in some cases for claims subject to arbitration to be dismissed in their entirety. For example, filing status reports can stretch judicial resources, and both parties incur additional legal expenses, Baker said. “It can be a waste of the court’s time,” he said. “The whole point of arbitration is to be out of court.”

The Association of Business Trial Lawyers (ABTL) was founded in Los Angeles, California to develop a better forum for the discussion of business trials. It also provides a forum in which litigators and judges meet to address issues important to business trial lawyers.

Huggins represents individual and corporate clients at all stages of complex commercial litigation in both state and federal trial and appellate courts, with an emphasis on intellectual property and fintech matters. She has significant experience litigating business disputes, and has represented executives, entrepreneurs, investors and corporations.

Law360 quoted Waymaker Partner Brian Klein speaking about the upcoming USA v. Gordon Coburn et al. trial in a story about New Jersey cases to watch in 2024. Klein said, “This is a high-profile prosecution of a CEO and chief legal officer. There aren’t a lot of Foreign Corrupt Practice Act trials out there.”

“Usually, the company takes a plea or enters into a non-prosecution agreement and individuals implicated in the bribery aren’t prosecuted, often because they are located abroad, making them difficult to arrest and extradite,” Klein said. “So this is a pretty unique situation that an FCPA trial of executives based in the U.S. is going to trial.”

In the 12-count indictment, Gordon Coburn, the former Cognizant chief executive, and Stephen Schwartz, the former chief legal officer, have been charged with approving a $2 million payment to an Indian Government official in exchange for a permit to speed up a construction project in Chennai, India that had been long delayed.

Partners Ryan Baker, Brian Klein, Scott Malzahn, Jaime Marquart and Donald Pepperman have been named Southern California Super Lawyers 2024. Baker was honored for Intellectual Property Litigation, Klein for Criminal Defense: White Collar, Malzahn for General Litigation, Marquart for Business Litigation, and Pepperman for Antitrust Litigation.

Partner Ryan Baker, speaking to Law360 in a December 19, 2023 story about the top patent damage awards of 2023, said, “Every court was backlogged. I’ve had more trials than I’ve had in years past. There was a breakup of this logjam…”

Law 360 reported that there were a “striking” number of trials in the first six months of 2023 as “the COVID-19 bottleneck broke …”

When asked about the magnitude of 2023 patent verdicts, Baker wondered whether the numbers “this year [are] more in line with where things ought to be, because then you don’t have these humongous verdicts that then get relitigated for the next decade.”

Partner Keri Curtis Axel’s client YouTuber and former U.S. Olympian snowboarder Trevor Jacob praised his “incredible lawyer” as he was spared the 12-month prison term sought by federal prosecutors and instead was sentenced to six months after he crashed his plane in a YouTube stunt and obstructed a federal investigation into the crash in Los Padres National Forest in 2021. The December 4, 2023 sentencing was reported in multiple outlets, including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, CNN, and The Washington Post.

Prosecutors recommended a 12-month prison sentence. Responding to Axel’s arguments and Jacob’s support letters, U.S. District Judge John F. Walter found that Jacob’s regret was sincere and ordered a sentence of 6 months in prison. “It’s hard to reconcile his law-abiding life with the incredibly poor decisions he made,” Judge Walter said.

A former federal prosecutor, Alex said, “Trevor is taking full responsibility for his mistake in judgment; he hopes to move past it and to use his status as a world-class action sports athlete, entrepreneur and influencer, to be a source of good for society.”

In a statement, Jacob said, “This was a massive learning experience. I’m grateful for the support system I have around me. Especially my incredible lawyer. This would have been a much worse outcome without her.” Judge Walter said that Jacob acted with the intention of creating a video for his YouTube so that he could “gain notoriety and make money.”

Jacob pled guilty earlier this year to one count of destruction and concealment with the Intent to obstruct a federal investigation, a crime that carries a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison. On Monday, Jacob told the judge that he wanted to again compete for a place on the U.S. Olympic team.

The Chambers USA FinTech Guide 2024 ranks Waymaker LLP, partner Brian Klein and Counsel Ashley Martabano among the nation’s elite practices, with Klein earning two Band 1-rankings (the highest possible) and Martabano earning Up and Coming in Crypto-Asset Disputes. Klein was again ranked Band 1 in Crypto-Asset Disputes and FinTech Legal: Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies. As a firm, Waymaker was ranked Band 1 for Crypto-Asset Disputes and Band 3 for FinTech Legal: Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies.

The Chambers FinTech Guide 2024 reports that the Waymaker team “is held in high esteem for FinTech and crypto-asset disputes.” One client wrote “Waymaker is absolutely tier one.” Another client said, “The Waymaker team is small but mighty” and “highly responsive.” Chambers says Klein is “one of the pre-eminent cryptocurrency litigators in the USA” and one impressed source said, “he really is the crypto lawyer in the country in the white-collar space. He is brilliant, the person that everybody turns to.” Of Martabano, one crypto-asset client said, “Ashley is terrific” and another said, “Ashley is incredibly impressive in her ability to quickly and efficiently understand a client’s business, and understand the challenges that the matter at hand presents. ”In FinTech Legal: Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies space, one client told Chambers, “Brian is the best of the best. He is my first call and he responds immediately.”

Interviewed for a Bloomberg.com story October 25, 2003 about Sam Bankman-Fried taking the stand in his own defense, after numerous witnesses implicated him in defrauding investors and customers of the failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX out of billions, Partner Brian Klein said, “He couldn’t stop talking to the press and wider world after FTX collapsed and before he was arrested and then while out on bail so no one should be surprised that he is choosing to take the stand.”

Three of Bankman-Fried’s closest former employees, Caroline Ellison, Nishad Singh, and Gary Wang plead guilty to fraud, cooperated with federal prosecutors, and gave searing testimony portraying the former crypto mogul as the criminal mastermind. A former federal prosecutor, Klein said after those witnesses, Bankman-Fried’s testimony will be “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.”

The 31-year-old Bankman-Fried is facing decades in prison if convicted.

Partner Ryan Baker urged a California judge to award nearly $46 million to Beverly Hills urologist Dr. James Elist and his company International Medical Devices (IMD) after Waymaker’s unanimous federal June trial win in a contentious trade secrets case, saying his client deserves $15 million in royalties that should be tripled for willful and malicious conduct, reported Law360 on October 25, 2023

Arguing against the minimal damages theory presented by the defense, Baker told the judge, “They can steal everything and walk out, do nothing with it, or they can get caught red-handed and be prevented from the court from doing anything, and if they get caught, they don’t owe anything,” Baker said. “They can’t lose. That’s not how it works, Your Honor.”

A California federal jury, on June 16, 2023, found a Houston-based urologist and others stole trade secrets and infringed other intellectual property rights related to a cosmetic penile implant that Beverly Hills urologist Dr. Elist had developed over decades. After three years of litigation against Dr. Robert Cornell and others, the jury invalidated two patents and unanimously found for plaintiffs on nearly every single liability issue.

Partners Ryan Baker, Brian Klein, Jaime Marquart, and Donald Pepperman have been recognized as Litigation Stars in the Benchmark Litigation 2024 US Rankings.

Baker is ranked in Intellectual Property and Commercial Litigation, and Klein and Pepperman are ranked in Commercial Litigation. Speaking of the firm as whole, Benchmark says Waymaker has “carved itself out a unique position in the local litigation community through its cases, which encompass practices such as antitrust and intellectual property, with novel niche focuses in areas like fintech and cryptocurrency.”

On October 4, 2023, the California federal judge overseeing the Puig case refused to reconsider its previous order barring prosecutors from using a retracted plea deal by former Major League Baseball star Yasiel Puig in his upcoming trial on charges of obstruction of justice and making false statements.

Partner Keri Curtis Axel told Law360 that she was “pleased that Puig will receive a trial on the merits” after U.S. District Judge Dolly M. Gee said in her order that she will not “further address” federal prosecutors’ claim that the Cuban-born, Spanish-speaking Puig waived the argument that the plea’s factual statement is inadmissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 410.

The judge previously found the plea agreement unenforceable and its factual statement inadmissible, and she reaffirmed that ruling, extending it to bar use of the factual statement on impeachment in response to Waymaker’s arguments. The case is USA v. Puig Valdes in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California and Puig is represented by Waymaker lawyers Keri Curtis Axel, Jose Nuño, Emily Stierwalt, and Riley Smith. The matter is set for trial January 16, 2024.

Brian Klein, a former federal prosecutor, was interviewed by June Grasso for the Bloomberg Law podcast about the criminal trial of Sam Bankman-Fried in New York.

Klein discussed what to expect at the trial, including both how the prosecution will present its case and what to expect from the defense.

While there are millions of pages of evidence, Klein explained, “The prosecution will focus on 10 to 20 documents central to the prosecution’s theory.”

Based on pre-trial reports, Klein anticipates that “the defense will argue that Bankman-Fried was out-of-the-loop and that the things he knew about he had sought legal counsel.”

Listen to Podcast

In an August 29, 2023 story, the Wall Street Journal quoted Waymaker partner Brian Klein about the challenges judges face in deciding whether a presidential candidate’s remarks violate the rules protecting a fair and orderly trial. “They’re going to tread carefully here,” said Brian Klein, a former federal prosecutor and a partner at Waymaker LLP. “Anything that one of these judges does is going to be quickly appealed if it’s adverse to Trump.”

The WSJ story points to one of the exceptional circumstances surrounding the multiple criminal trials faced by the former president. In advance of trial, most defendants do not flout the rules judges establish to preserve an unbiased jury pool and ensure a fair trial. The standard advice of defense counsel is for their clients to keep quiet and avoid antagonize the judge. Trump, however, appears to disregard such advice and regularly attacks the judges and prosecutors saying his speech is protected by the First Amendment.

After Elon Musk’s Twitter (now X Corp.) sent a letter accusing Meta’s new Threads platform of stealing Twitter trade secrets, BBC WorldService interviewed Partner Ryan Baker on July 6, 2023, who said the claims “sound like saber rattling” and may be difficult to prove in court.

“It is hard to imagine that a company like Meta, with hordes of lawyers, both in house and external, would go off and create a product that obviously infringes on a competitor,” Baker said. Thirty million people have already signed up for Threads only days after launching and, in response, Musk sent a letter to Meta threating legal action, saying, “Competition is fine, cheating is not.”

Twitter alleges that Meta has “raided its employees in an effort to take trade secrets and other information that is proprietary,” Baker said. The difficulty for Twitter is that “California is a fairly free market state for employees. There have been litigations that held that employees had the specific right to go work for a competitor … Google tried to limit a lot of its employees from working for other browsers or other search engines and those cases all failed.”

“It’s hard to say right now if there is real merit to the claims,” Baker said. To prevail, Twitter would have to prove that Meta had the intent of seeking these employees for this information. Additionally, Twitter’s lawyers would have to “establish that the information sought and obtained was subject to a confidentiality agreement or was otherwise protected,” Baker said.

In a “How They Won It” July 3, 2023 story, Law360 reported that Ryan Baker’s “strong direct examination of the defendant (Dr. Robert Cornell) that left him ‘red-faced’ and ‘sputtering’” was the turning point in a contentious IP trade secrets trial between Beverly Hills urologist Dr. James Elist and his Houston rival Dr. Cornell.

A Los Angeles federal jury on Friday, June 16, 2023, invalidated two patents as it found that Dr. Cornell stole trade secrets from Dr. Elist, the inventor of the first FDA-cleared cosmetic penile implant. Baker undermined Cornell’s credibility when he got Cornell to “admit to filling his website with false statements” and then told the jury Cornell contradicted a sworn declaration. Baker said, “When I pulled that declaration out it was just another assail on his credibility.”

Another key moment in the nine-day trial, according to Law360, was when Emily Stierwalt questioned Minerva Acosta, a surgical technician for Elist. At the conclusion of the trial, the jurors told to U.S. District Judge Consuelo B. Marshall that Ms. Stierwalt, “did a good job with a difficult witness.”

Said Baker, “I had to decide, was I going to roll the dice on Emily, my junior associate, being able to properly defend and take this important witness, and ultimately, I decided to do it … obviously it was the right call.”

The Waymaker trial team also featured vital contributions from Managing Partner Scott Malzahn, who cross examined the expert witnesses for the defense, Partner Donald Pepperman, who identified the reasonable royalty damages theory as a court issue, and Associate Sam Meehan, who was involved with every aspect of the case.

After a Los Angeles federal jury found that a Houston-based urologist and others stole trade secrets from Dr. James Elist, the urologist who invented the first FDA-cleared cosmetic penile implant, Partner Ryan Baker told Law.com in a June 20, 2023 story that damages could reach $10 million. Baker said the jury was limited to finding that misappropriation occurred and that the court will decide the amount of damages later based on a hypothetical reasonable royalty analysis.

“The idea is [Dr. Cornell] already let the horse out of the barn,” Baker said. “The main issue from our perspective is we have these things that were trade secrets that would have had an infinite life as long as we could keep them confidential.” A jury of eight in the Central District of California found that defendants Cornell and all the other defendants misappropriated trade secrets, including ‘voids of space within the silicone body of the penile silicone implant to add softness and elasticity,’ according to the verdict form reported Law.com.

Disgorgement of profits was not possible because, prior to any FDA clearance, plaintiffs obtained an injunction preventing Cornell’s company from further commercializing its implant, Baker told Law.com. Instead of lost profits or disgorgement, plaintiffs will seek royalty fee damages based on a hypothetical license – the fees defendants would have paid if they had entered into a licensing agreement with Elist and his company, International Medical Devices Inc

“In this ‘but for’ world, our expert witness will come up with some hypothetical damages figure,” said Baker. Under the California Uniform Trade Secrets Act, the judge will decide the appropriate reasonable royalty..

A Los Angeles federal jury on Friday, June 16, 2023 ruled overwhelmingly in favor of Waymaker client Dr. James Elist as it invalidated two patents and found that a rival urologist stole trade secrets from Elist in a case involving the first FDA-approved cosmetic penile implant. The high-profile case received coverage by Law360 and Daily Journal.

The sweeping verdict means that Waymaker client Dr. James Elist will be able to keep the defendant’s rival device off the market. Defendant Dr. Robert Cornell viewed several of Elist’s surgeries in 2018 to learn how to install Elist’s “Penuma” implant. Dr. Cornell had claimed he had asked a mere three questions during the surgeries, an assertion Partner Ryan Baker attacked in closing. Several other witnesses testified that Dr. Cornell asked numerous questions about the procedure and potential improvements to the implant device. “Is it credible that Dr. Cornell claims he asked fewer questions than he witnessed surgeries?” Baker asked the jury. Baker argued that the evidence showed that Cornell signed a nondisclosure agreement with his “fingers crossed” and within months of viewing Elist’s Penuma surgery, filed patent applications based on Elist’s trade secrets.

Those patents were an attempt “to build a legal moat that would prevent the plaintiffs from using their own ideas,” Baker said. After the verdict was read on the ninth day of the trial, Elist told Law360 that he wanted to “thank God” and that the verdict shows that people are “responsible for their actions” and that “the truth, and only the truth, will come out.”

The jury was presented with 52 liability questions and answered 48 in favor of Waymaker’s clients. The court will now consider plaintiffs’ damages claim, which are based on a hypothetical reasonable royalty. According to Baker, “the damages question was a challenge in this case, because we had obtained a preliminary injunction before the defendants were able to sell a single product, but the firm’s clients were substantially harmed by defendants’ publication of trade secrets.”

The victory was nearly absolute as the jury went Waymaker’s way on every single claim and almost every defendant on every single claim in a case the firm handled from inception more than three years ago. Among the victories along the way, Waymaker won a preliminary injunction, defeated a motion to amend the complaint, defeated a motion for summary judgment and won claims on summary adjudication, defeated Daubert motions and won a $100,000 motion for contempt sanctions.

The Waymaker trial team included Partners Baker, Scott Malzahn and Donald Pepperman, and Associates Sam Meehan and Emily Stierwalt. Malzahn cross examined the defendant’s experts and presented IMD’s experts to show that there were confidential meetings regarding the very trade secret concepts at issue more than a year before the alleged theft. Pepperman identified the reasonably royalty damages theory as a court issue, Meehan won two critical motions to exclude distracting arguments from the defense team, and Stierwalt, who according to the jury, did “a great job with a tough witness,” helped tell the story about what really happened in the operating room when Dr. Cornell received training from Dr. Elist.

International Medical Devices Inc. CEO Dr. Jonathan Elist told the Waymaker team: “You were superb. You’ve each been amazing across this three-plus year journey together. You’ve managed to win every single major motion, and you got a jury verdict that was a total sweep.”

The case was International Medical Devices Inc. et al. v. Robert Cornell et al., case number 2:20-cv-03503, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

A Los Angeles federal jury on Friday, June 16, 2023, invalidated two patents as it found that a Houston-based urologist stole trade secrets from a rival Beverly Hills urologist who invented the first FDA-cleared cosmetic penile implant reported Law360.

The verdict means that Waymaker client Dr. James Elist will be able to keep the defendant’s rival device off the market. Defendant Dr. Robert Cornell viewed several of Elist’s surgeries in 2018 to learn how to install Elist’s “Penuma” implant. Dr. Cornell had claimed he had asked a mere three questions during the surgeries, an assertion Partner Ryan Baker attacked in closing. Several other witnesses testified that Dr. Cornell asked numerous questions about the procedure and potential improvements to the implant device. “Is it credible that Dr. Cornell claims he asked fewer questions than he witnessed surgeries?” Baker asked the jury. Baker argued that the evidence showed that Cornell signed a nondisclosure agreement with his “fingers crossed” and within months of viewing Elist’s Penuma surgery, filed patent applications based on Elist’s trade secrets.

Those patents were an attempt “to build a legal moat that would prevent the plaintiffs from using their own ideas,” Baker said. After the verdict was read on the ninth day of the trial, Elist told Law360 that he wanted to “thank God” and that the verdict shows that people are “responsible for their actions” and that “the truth, and only the truth, will come out.”

The jury was presented with 52 liability questions and answered 48 in favor of Waymaker’s clients. The court will now consider plaintiffs’ damages claim, which are based on a hypothetical reasonable royalty. According to Baker, “the damages question was a challenge in this case, because we had obtained a preliminary injunction before the defendants were able to sell a single product, but the firm’s clients were substantially harmed by defendants’ publication of trade secrets.” The Waymaker trial team included Partners Baker, Scott Malzahn and Donald Pepperman, and Associates Sam Meehan and Emily Stierwalt.

The case was International Medical Devices Inc. et al. v. Robert Cornell et al., case number 2:20-cv-03503, in the U.S. District Court for the Central

In his opening statement, Partner Ryan Baker told a Los Angeles federal jury on Wednesday, June 7 that said the theft of the first FDA-cleared cosmetic penile implant was sloppy, reported Law360

Waymaker client Urologist Dr. James Elist testified as the first witness in a trial based on claims he filed against Dr. Robert Cornell, who, Dr. Elist says, received specialized training under terms of a nondisclosure agreement about how to surgically implant Elist’s “Penuma” penile device. During that training, Dr. Cornell asked numerous questions about the implant and planned future improvements, said Baker.

Elist says Cornell violated the agreement by developing a rival device and revealing Elist’s closely guarded secrets by filing a patent application based on Elist’s work. The theft was sloppy, Baker said, because Cornell’s patent application included a copyrighted graphic of a penis with Penuma implanted on it. “All of this was a pattern to take [Elist’s] business and build his own.”

The Penuma device developed by Elist is designed to create cosmetic improvements to the male genitalia by making it larger or fixing deformities.

Attorney Weining Bai, who represents Cornell and other defendants, denied any misappropriation occurred, although he admitted copyright infringement and that Cornell described himself as a Penuma specialist on his website, using the registered Penuma trademark without authorization.

The case is International Medical Devices Inc. et al. v. Robert Cornell et al., case number 2:20-cv-03503, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

Associates Kevin Casey, Sam Meehan, Jose R. Nuño and Emily Stierwalt have been named Southern California Rising Stars 2023 by Southern California Super Lawyers. Meehan was first selected in 2021, Meehan and Nuño also were honored in 2022.
No more than 2.5 percent of California lawyers are selected for the Rising Stars list. Meehan, Nuño and Stierwalt are graduates of USC Gould School of Law. Casey graduated from Columbia Law School.

Los Angeles Business Journal has named Partner Ryan Baker one of the Top 100 Lawyers in Los Angeles 2023. Noting Baker’s record of winning trial verdicts and appeals

in “high-profile and high-stakes cases across the country,” LABJ identified him as one of LA’s top Intellectual property lawyers, whose cases often involve innovative or disruptive technology.

This is the second year that Baker has been honored by Los Angeles Business Journal as one of the Top 100 Lawyers in Los Angeles.

Partner Ryan Baker and Counsel Ashley Martabano led roundtables at the 8^th Annual Fullstack GC Conference on Friday, May 19, 2023 at the Intercontinental San Francisco. Baker co-led a Litigation Roundtable on Best Practices to Protect Privilege in the Corporate Context while Martabano co-led an Investigations Roundtable: What to Do When a Regulator or Law Enforcement Comes a Knocking.

TechGC, an independent, invite-only organization of GCs and CLOs of leading high-growth technology companies and venture capital firms, hosts the annual San Francisco conference that draws more than 250 attendees. Globally, TechGC has more than 2,000 members.

The Litigation Roundtable hosted by Baker focused on how GCs can protect privilege communications when communicating internally and with outside counsel so that when litigation arises sensitive communications are protected.

Former federal prosecutor Keri Curtis Axel, interviewed on May 12, 2023 about New York Republican Congressman George Santos facing 13 federal charges for fraud, money laundering, and theft, told LiveNow Fox, “This is a very interesting indictment because it’s a potpourri of different fraud charges,” involving lying to contributors, lying to state and federal authorities about unemployment benefits, and lying on campaign disclosure forms. Rep. Santos pled not guilty to the 13-count federal indictment Wednesday, May 10, 2023.

Speaking with Fox Host Giacomo Luca, White Collar Defense Attorney Axel said, “It’s always serious business to bring federal charges against anyone, because steep sentences are involved, and, if convicted, it will change your life forever.”

Axel said that when the government has hard evidence, such as text messages, it is harder to refute the charges. “The government does often put one’s emails and text messages together to devastating effect,” she said. “He may have some kind of defense, but his defense strategy seems difficult.”

Partner Teresa Huggins was quoted by the Daily Journal in a May 5, 2023 story about economic strains on the commercial real estate market in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Huggins said, “If the only excuse [for nonpayment] is COVID, the tenant will likely lose. In multiyear leases, COVID restrictions were for part of the time, so the lease wasn’t particularly frustrated.”

Huggins and Associate Kevin Casey recently obtained summary judgement of $2 million in compensatory damages for 6759 Hollywood Associates LLC, which sued its tenant, Museum of Selfies, for breach of its commercial lease.

The Waymaker team, Teresa Huggins and Associate Kevin Casey, prevailed on two summary judgment motions in 6759 Hollywood, LLC v. Museum of Selfies, LLC, et al., winning the case in favor of the firm’s client, 6759 Hollywood, LLC.

On April 11, 2023, Superior Court Judge Holly J. Fujie ruled, based on the evidence, that there was no triable issue of material fact in the matter and granted Waymaker’s request for summary judgment in Plaintiff’s favor on its affirmative claims. Judge Fujie also granted Waymaker’s request for summary judgment against the cross-complaint, dismissing all existing cross-claims against Plaintiff.

This was a breach of contract case in which the tenant left the building with outstanding rent obligations of more than $2 million and additional property damage. 6759 Hollywood, LLC is also entitled to recover attorneys’ fees.

Los Angeles Business Journal has named Partners Keri Curtis Axel and Teresa Huggins “Women of Influence: Attorneys 2023” and included their profiles in the April 17, 2023 edition. Axel and Huggins were honored as among the leading female lawyers in Los Angeles based on their legal skill and achievements, and community leadership.

Axel, a former federal prosecutor, currently defends former Dodgers star Yasiel Puig, who is alleged to have made false statements to the government during its investigation of a sports betting ring. She practices white-collar criminal, government enforcement defense, and civil litigation. Huggins handles complex commercial litigation at both the trial and appellate level, in state and federal court, with an emphasis on intellectual property, fintech, cryptocurrency, and First Amendment matters. Both Axel and Huggins are graduates of Harvard Law School.

The Los Angeles Business Journal reported February 20, 2023 that Waymaker Managing Partner Scott Malzahn has been elected president of Equality California, the largest statewide LGBTQ+ rights organization in the nation. “We are the primary voice in California for LGBTQ-plus issues,” said Malzahn.

“For a long time, we’ve played an important role in state politics and building the pipeline for local leaders in state and federal positions,” Malzahn said. He will serve a two-year term as president and previously was vice president of the organization. Before joining Waymaker, Malzahnwas at Gibson Dunn and a member of the trial team for Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the case that overturned Proposition 8 and legalized same-sex marriage in California.

“Scott has been an invaluable member of Equality California’s board of leadership and we’re so grateful for his and Waymaker’s generous support of our mission,” Equality California Executive Director Tony Hoang said.

Given the conservative tilt of the U.S. Supreme Court, Malzahn said Equality California will focus on the state level. “Here in California, we playa leading role in terms of establishing a standard that the country can look forward to as a whole,” Malzahn said. In addition, “We’re going to be keeping our eyes closely on trans issues that arrive in other states … to make sure that families with trans kids are protected and that California is a place where they can be protected,” he said.

Malzahn has a complex commercial litigation practice that spans entertainment disputes, class actions in the securities arena, fintech, and intellectual property and has handled many high-profile disputes both in the trial court and on appeal.

Partner Brian Klein will speak at the Southern California ABA’s White Collar Crime Committee Tuesday, February 21, 2023 about trends in Cyber Enforcement at a 5:30 p.m. event hosted by Holland & Knight in downtown Los Angeles.

Klein joins Kal Shobaki, the Deputy Cyber Crimes Chief of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, and Jennie VonCannon of Crowell & Moring to discuss a number of topics including the DOJ’s latest guidance on the new Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and developments in the case law, the SEC’s consideration of the new cybersecurity rules, and the Biden administration’s approach through recent legislation. The CLE panel will take place from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m.

The address for Holland & Knight’s Los Angeles office is 400 South Hope Street, 8th Floor, Los Angeles 90071. Please check the Holland & Knight website for information.

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal about an alleged $110 million crypto market manipulation scheme by his client, Avraham Eisenberg, Partner Brian Klein said the defense team is trying to work out a bail package for Mr. Eisenberg, who faces U.S. criminal and civil charges.

The United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York has charged Mr. Eisenberg, arrested on December 26, 2022 in Puerto Rico, with commodities fraud, commodities market manipulation, and wire fraud in connection to what prosecutors said was manipulation of Mango Markets, a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange. The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission have filed parallel civil charges against Mr. Eisenberg, which are first of their kind.

Speaking about Eddie Antar, a notorious high-stakes gambler who was convicted of fraud in 2019, Klein said, “A party’s recent criminal conviction can,for example, often be used when cross-examining that party, and no doubt the other side will raise it at every available opportunity as the case proceeds.”

“On a practical level, it’s also just harder for his attorney to work with him when he’s behind bars,” said Klein. “It doesn’t mean he can’t overcome all the serious difficulties this can pose, but it does mean it’s going to be much more difficult for him to pursue his civil case than it was before.”

Antar, who says he wagered nearly $30 million from July 2020 to January 2021, claims BetMGM would disconnect him every 15 to 30 minutes when he had a favorable hand. He filed suit against BetMGM and Borgata and other defendants accusing them of fraud, negligence, and violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.

LOS ANGELES – Waymaker LLP is pleased to announce that its Managing Partner Scott Malzahn has been elected to a two-year term as the 2023 President of Equality California, the nation’s largest statewide LGBTQ+ civil rights organization, beginning January 2023. Malzahn has been involved in the organization since 2017 and most recently served as Vice President.

“Equality California does a tremendous amount of legislative work to improve the lives of LGBTQ+ people in different communities where they live across the state,” says Malzahn. “Given the current composition of the Supreme Court, the work performed by Equality California becomes all the more urgent.”

Malzahn and Waymaker have supported Equality California’s mission by offering legal and financial support to the organization. And, more than a dozen years ago, Malzahn was involved in the federal trial that resulted in Proposition 8 being ruled unconstitutional, which brought marriage equality to California and eventually to the entire country.

“Scott has been an invaluable member of Equality California’s board leadership, and we’re so grateful for his and Waymaker’s generous support of our mission,” says Equality California Executive Director Tony Hoang. “We look forward to our continued partnership in the fight for full, lived equality for all LGBTQ+ people.”

Through its Leadership Program and other initiatives, Equality California plays a big role in building a pipeline for LGBTQ+ individuals and allies to run for public office at the local, state and federal levels, and brings elected leaders together.

“Equality California will continue to vigorously defend the rights of LGBTQ+ Americans at the federal level as well as work with the state’s legislature to expand protections at the state level to make California a safe place for the most marginalized – including trans kids and their families,” says Malzahn.

January 11, 2023

Partners Ryan Baker, Brian Klein, Scott Malzahn, Jaime Marquart and Donald Pepperman have been named Southern California Super Lawyers 2023.

Baker was singled out for excellence in Intellectual Property Litigation, Klein for Criminal Defense: White Collar, Malzahn for General Litigation, Marquart for Business Litigation, and Pepperman for Antitrust Litigation.

The Anti-Defamation League’s Board of Directors has approved Partner Ryan Baker’s nomination to the ADL’s National Commission allowing Baker to contribute to the fight against ignorance and hatred countrywide beginning January 1, 2023.

“I am pleased to continue working with the great and dedicated people of the ADL, and I am eager to continue the fight against hate on a national level,” said Baker. “The ADL is an organization aimed at creating better understanding among people with different backgrounds—ethnic, religious or otherwise. Although the organization is rooted in the fight against anti-Semitism, the ADL fights all manner of hate.”

Currently, Baker is a member of the Anti-Defamation League’s Regional Executive Committee. “My engagement with the ADL on a national level will help connect me with others who can ensure I am doing all I can through advocacy to not only generally promote tolerance, but to also specifically advocate for laws to increase transparency online and otherwise fight hate speech.”

Partner Ryan Baker, interviewed by Law.com on December 15, 2022, About the proliferation of anti-SLAPP suits said, “The cure has become the disease. Anti-SLAPP has become bloated … it’s become a problem for real plaintiffs …”

Anti-SLAPP, shorthand for anti-strategic lawsuits against public participation, law is intended to protect First Amendment and petitioning rights. “There’s a catch-all provision of the Anti-SLAPP statute, which essentially says, ‘Anything that’s a matter of public interest, or relates to a matter of public interest or public dialogue [is protected],’” said Baker. The law is meant to protect litigants from abusive lawsuits, but wealthy defendants frequently use anti-SLAPP motions early in the cases to essentially freeze the action and require the plaintiff to surmount what can be a formidable challenge—it is difficult if you are “a little guy filing a suit [to overcome] anything that can touch upon public interest.”

Baker overcame the public interest hurdle in 2019 in a unanimous decision, FilmOn.com Inc. v. DoubleVerify Inc., by the California Supreme Court because the case dealt with private, confidential contract. Notably, however, the trial court and court of appeal had found the conduct protected.

Venue matters said Baker. He said a key reason Depp’s attorneys took the viral defamation case of Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard to Virginia was to escape California’s much tougher anti-SLAPP statute. “In California, the case would have been dead on arrival … it just illustrates the difference between states.”

Ryan Baker speaking to CBS News Morning on December 12, 2022 about more than 1,200 families suing social media companies for allegedly impacting their children’s mental health, including cases of teen suicides, said “the algorithms are products that the companies develop themselves and those products can be the basis for liability”…

Speaking with Anchor Anne-Marie Green, Baker said, “The state of the law is in flux.” Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act provides some immunity from liability to providers of a social media site because the host is not the provider. However, Baker said, “It is exactly right” that the host companies are responsible for the algorithms. Baker said negligence law takes into account to whether a company acted in a reasonable and responsible manner.

The CBS News Morning episode featuring Baker followed a 60 Minutes report on Sunday evening that featured an interview with parents who had lost a daughter to suicide after she saw a Instagram video detailing a certain method of hanging yourself. The girl’s parents said the Instagram video was not taken down for another year and a half even though the social media company has a policy against showing content about self-harm.

Keri Curtis Axel, an experienced criminal and civil litigator and parent of a Swiftie, interviewed by BBC on December 6, 2022 about the lawsuit by angry Taylor Swift fans against Ticketmaster, and its parent company Live Nation, said the goal is “to get rid of the bots so that common customers have a chance to get tickets in the first place. The claimants have a beef and so did Taylor Swift.”

The lawsuit was the result of Swift fans not being able to get tickets to the pop stars new tour. “This is a trade practice case, not an antitrust case,” said Axel. The problem, she said, is not the resale of tickets, which is common, but “how to make the first round more fair.” Axel continued, “Congress is interested in this issue as well and a lawsuit like this is part of customer outrage to make the law fairer to individual buyers.”

Axel told BBC that her daughter did get tickets.

Daily Journal on December 7, 2022 named Partner Brian Klein as one of its top White Collar Attorneys 2022. A former federal prosecutor and accomplished and renowned trial attorney, Klein leads Waymaker’s White Collar practice.

Klein has a nationally recognized finance and technology-focused litigation practice handling high-stakes criminal and regulatory defense matters and civil litigation in federal and state courts around the country. His cases often involve the DOJ, SEC, CFTC, FTC, CFPB, and state authorities.

Chambers ranked Waymaker LLP and its partner Brian Klein as having elite litigation practices in FinTech, with Klein earning two Band 1-rankings (the highest possible). As a firm, Waymaker was ranked Band 1 for Crypto-Asset Disputes and Band 3 for FinTech Legal: Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies.

The Chambers FinTech Guide 2023 reports that the Waymaker team “is held in high esteem for FinTech and crypto-asset disputes” and that the group is “very, very active.” Waymaker is “very reputed for this work and are on the big cases.” One impressed source said of Klein: “He is one of the best crypto litigators in the country … I think the world of him; he really, really knows this space and should be ranked as highly as possible in this sector.”

The Guide went on to report that “Waymaker attorneys handle some of the most complicated crypto matters. They understand the technology completely and can help to develop incredibly sophisticated strategies that incorporate a deep knowledge of how blockchain works.”

Continuing Chambers wrote, “They are great co-counsel to work with – very responsive, cooperative, and with high-quality work product.” Speaking of Klein, one Chambers source said: “Brian is an excellent attorney with whom I enjoy working and I often recommend to my clients when crises, in the form of enforcement actions, hit.”

Representing former Dodgers star Yasil Puig in a sports betting case, former federal prosecutor Keri Curtis Axel said “significant new evidence” prompted the defense to withdrawal Puig’s agreement to plead guilty of lying to investigators, reported the Los Angeles Times on November 30, 2022.

“I want to clear my name,” Puig said, “I never should have agreed to plead guilty to a crime I did not commit.” Speaking about the new evidence, Axel said, “We are prepared to publicly share that information in the appropriate forum and at the appropriate time.”

In an earlier court hearing, Axel raised the possibility that “Puig might have been entrapped,” reported the Times.

Ryan Baker spoke to BBC World Service about the Balenciaga BDSM ad scandal, which erupted when the edgy high-end fashion house published photographs from a new “gift collection” ad campaign, which featured images of children holding stuffed teddy bears wearing bondage, discipline, sadism, masochism articles with other BDSM objects also on display. The gift collection campaign caused an immediate uproar on social media, which resulted in the discovery of the U.S. v. Williams Supreme Court opinion depicted in a separate Spring 2023 ad campaign, meant for spring 2023. In U.S. v Williams, the U.S. Supreme Court confirmed that the pandering of child pornography was not protected free speech. In the wake of significant criticism over these images, Balenciaga sued the set designer the company claims is responsible for the placement of U.S. v. Williams case. Baker characterized the suit as a strategic attempt to shift the dialogue, as no one wants to take responsibility.

In U.S. v. Williams, 553 U.S. 285 (2008), the Supreme Court found that a federal statute prohibiting the pandering of child pornography was not unconstitutional, reversing an Eleventh Circuit ruling based primarily on the premise that there is “offers to participate in illegal transactions are categorically excluded from First Amendment protection.”

In the wake of significant criticism, Balenciaga filed suit in the Supreme Court of New York against the set production company, North Six, and set designer, Nicholas Des Jardins, which Balenciaga alleges were responsible for the design of the spring 2023 ad campaign photoshoot. Although the complaint has not been filed, Balenciaga has indicated it seeks up to $25 million in damages for the resulting “false association” between Balenciaga and the “repulsive and deeply disturbing subject of the court decision.” Ryan Baker, speaking to the BBC, described the suit as an attempt to shift the blame, questioning whether Balenciaga could reasonably expect to recover damages. “Often these cases are kneejerk reactions to shift the focus to another party,” said Baker speaking to the BBC’s Davina Gupta. Many such cases, according to Baker, are “filed for strategic reasons, not really to recover damages.”

Balenciaga has also issued press releases in which it takes some responsibility for the images. Ultimately, however, Baker described responsibility as a “hot potato” passed among Balenciaga, the photographers and the set designers

In response to the lawsuit, Jardins’ agent told the Washington Post that the legal papers in the ad “were obtained from a prop house … Everyone from Balenciaga was on the shoot … and worked on the edit of every image in post-production.” The photographer said the materials in the shoot were not his responsibility.

Partner Keri Curtis Axel, a former federal prosecutor, quoted by Yahoo! Finance November 23, 2022 on Elizabeth Holmes’ 11-year prison sentence for her fraud while CEO of the blood-testing start-up Theranos, said, low-security federal prison facilities such as the one Holmes is being sent to in Texas, “they’re not great places. No one wants to be there.”

Axel said non-violent offenders, such as Holmes, are often granted the opportunity to serve their time in one of the federal government’s minimum-level security facilities such as FPC Bryan, a female-only facility about 100 miles northwest of Houston. The prison allows for frequent family visitation and requires that inmates participate in work programs.

“Sometimes they’re called ‘Camp Fed’ because they have more amenities and are a little nicer places” compared to high security prisons, said Axel. Federal prosecutors had asked the judge to sentence Holmes to 15-years in federal prison for her crimes while running the high-profile Silicon Valley company. Judge Davilia noted that FPC’s lenient visitation policy could benefit Holmes who is currently pregnant with her second child.

Former federal prosecutor Keri Curtis Axel, quoted by Yahoo! Finance November 18, 2022 on Elizabeth Holmes’ sentencing hearing for her fraud and conspiracy conviction related to the blood-testing venture Theranos, said, “the judge has pretty broad discretion to depart almost entirely from [the guidelines] if he chooses to do so.”

Government prosecutors asked Judge Edward Davila, who presided over the case, to sentence the former Theranos CEO to 15 years in federal prison, plus three years of supervised release. Holmes’ defense attorneys asked the judge not to send Holmes to prison and instead sentence her to only 18 months house arrest.

Partner Brian Klein speaks at the ABA’s Blockchain and Cryptocurrency National Virtual Institute on Thursday, October 27, 2022 on a panel discussing how law enforcement and regulatory actions play a critical role in shaping the industry. Brian has organized the National Institute since its inception almost a decade ago.

The Key Enforcement Actions panel will discuss recent law enforcement and regulatory enforcement actions, how they impact the industry, and offer thoughts and predictions on the direction of enforcement actions. Klein is joined on the panel by crypto leaders at the DOJ, SEC and OFAC.

Partner Brian Klein was quoted by the Wall Street Journal in an October 5, 2022 story about the alleged Capital One hacker receiving probation for one of the largest purported data breaches ever and not the seven-year prison sentence sought by federal prosecutors.

“Although we disagree that Paige committed any crimes, we are Pleased the judge sentenced her to no prison time, especially when the prosecutors sought years,” said Klein.

Judge Lasnik was persuaded by defense arguments, including that prison would be particularly difficult for Ms. Thompson, who is transgender, owing to her status and mental health. Klein and Emily Stierwalt were co-counsel with the Federal Public Defender’s Office in Seattle. The firm undertook this case pro bono as part of its ongoing commitment to help those who cannot afford legal services and face pressing legal matters.

Partners Ryan Baker, Brian Klein, Jaime Marquart and Donald Pepperman have been recognized as “Benchmark Litigation Stars” and Waymaker LLP is ranked as “Recommended” in Benchmark Litigation California 2023

Baker is ranked in Intellectual Property and Commercial Litigation, Klein is ranked in Commercial Litigation as a California Litigation Star and Local Litigation Star, and Marquart and Pepperman are ranked as Local Litigation Stars.

This is the 16^th year of Benchmark Litigation, a trusted guide to the nation’s leading litigation firms and lawyers. The rankings are based on a rigorous nomination system that Includes extensive interviews with litigators and their clients as well as analysis of the region’s most important cases and firm developments.

The American Heart Association (AHA) is facing a lawsuit brought by Waymaker on behalf of advocacy group Animal Outlook that its certification of some red meat brands as “heart healthy” is misleading and false. Specifically, the lawsuit challenges AHA’s use of its widely trusted “Heart-Check” certification, which AHA fails to disclose is a paid endorsement.

“By allowing the use of the AHA Mark on certain beef products and making claims on its website and in its promotional materials about the Heart-Check Certification program and the health benefits of eating beef, AHA is actively and knowingly misleading consumers regarding the cardiovascular risks associated with eating beef,” states Animal Outlook in its complaint.

The lawsuit alleges that the AHA is taking money from beef manufacturers in exchange for its certification of red meat products, without disclosing such payment, “even though doing so runs directly counter to AHA’s stated mission and its own admissions that eating beef is not, in fact, heart healthy.” A major non-profit founded in 1924, AHA’s claimed mission is focused on cardiovascular health. The complaint also alleges that AHA advertises that its standards for evaluating beef are more stringent that the government’s standards when, in fact, they are not, and that AHA states that meat has certain cardiovascular benefits on its website and in its promotional materials despite knowing that these statements are false.

The complaint was filed August 24, 2022. Brian Klein, Teresa Huggins, and Jared Sohn represent Animal Outlook.