Law, disrupted

John is joined by Christopher A. Seeger, founding partner of Seeger Weiss, LLP, one of the preeminent mass tort class action lawyers in the United States.  They discuss some of the major class action cases Chris has handled including the NFL concussions case, the Volkswagen clean diesel case, the 3M combat earplugs case, the CPAP machines case against Phillips, as well as the opioid cases.  They also discuss Chris’s background, including how he started his career as a corporate transactional  lawyer and transitioned to litigation and plaintiffs’ work, made a name for himself to the point where he was invited to join plaintiffs’ Steering Committees, and established good relationships with a wide network of firms.  Finally, they discuss how young lawyers can get noticed, how to settle difficult cases, and the role of bellwether trials.Podcast Link: Law-disrupted.fmHost: John B. Quinn Producer: Alexis HydeMusic and Editing by: Alexander Rossi

In this episode of Law, disrupted, John is joined by Norman (Norm) E. Siegel, partner at Stueve Siegel Hanson LLP in Kansas City, Missouri. He is the lead plaintiffs’ counsel in the $450 million settlement of a data breach class action against T-Mobile. They discuss how data breach litigation has evolved in the past 10 years. They discuss recent California legislation establishing statutory damages for data breaches in general, as well as for breaches involving medical information. They discuss legislation in other states, as well as the prospects for federal legislation establishing uniform national standards regarding data security similar to the standards in Europe under the GDPR. Finally, they discuss damages theories and how they have evolved in the past five years.Podcast Link: Law-disrupted.fmHost: John B. Quinn Producer: Alexis HydeMusic and Editing by: Alexander Rossi

John is joined by Dan Brockett, partner in Quinn Emanuel’s New York office and Chair of the firm’s Financial Institution Litigation practice.  They discuss how Dan and his team recently recovered over $581 million from JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, UBS, and Credit Suisse, as well as significant injunctive relief, in one of the largest antitrust class action settlements in history.  They discuss how these large banks act as brokers profiting with little to no risk in $1.7 trillion stock loan market and how they allegedly agreed to boycott new technologies, particularly new electronic platforms, which posed a threat to the banks’ lucrative position.  They also discuss how the case developed as a result of years of research by a Quinn Emanuel team at the firm’s expense, the five and a half year history of the litigation, and how a settlement was achieved in mediation after a Magistrate Judge recommended that the class be certified.  Finally, they discuss the injunctive relief reforming the market that the Quinn Emanuel team was able to obtain.Podcast Link: Law-disrupted.fmHost: John B. Quinn Producer: Alexis HydeMusic and Editing by: Alexander Rossi

John is joined by Richard East, founder and senior partner in Quinn Emanuel’s London office. They discuss the key differences between litigating in the US and the UK, including the pre-action protocols that are mandatory in the UK before initiating a lawsuit, the UK presumption that the loser will pay the winner’s attorneys’ fees, and the differences between the broad discovery procedures in the US and the more narrow disclosure rules in the UK.  They also discuss the inability to prepare witnesses before testifying in the UK, the division of UK bar into solicitors and barristers, and the restrictions on public access to court records in the UK.  Finally, they discuss the comparative rarity of jury trials in civil cases in the UK and the differences in the types of interim relief available in the UK, including powerful asset freezing injunctions which are recognized by jurisdictions around the world.Podcast Link: Law-disrupted.fmHost: John B. Quinn Producer: Alexis HydeMusic and Editing by: Alexander Rossi

John is joined by Robert Zink, former head of the U.S. Justice Department’s Criminal Division, Fraud Section and partner in Quinn Emanuel’s Washington, D.C. office and Steve Madison, former federal prosecutor and a partner in Quinn Emanuel’s Los Angeles office.  They discuss the four pending indictments against former President Donald Trump, including, for each indictment, what the government must prove, what former President Trump's defenses likely will be, and the potential impact of the different judges’ backgrounds and jury pools in each case. They also handicap the likelihood of President Trump prevailing in each case. Finally, they also discuss the potential impact of these cases on public discourse and political life.Podcast Link: Law-disrupted.fmHost: John B. Quinn Producer: Alexis HydeMusic and Editing by: Alexander Rossi

John is joined by Francis X. Suarez, Presidential Candidate, Mayor of Miami and Of Counsel (on Leave of Absence) in Quinn Emanuel’s Miami office.  They discuss Mayor Suarez’s personal experience running for President as an underdog candidate, including how he adjusts to the demands of constant travel without the advantage of private jets, what it is like to read the “opposition research” his opponent’s consultants have prepared about him, and how his years as a practicing lawyer have prepared him for this campaign. They also discuss his personal relationships with the other candidates, the current prosecutions of former President Trump, and what he has learned about the country, the process and himself as a result of this campaign.Podcast Link: Law-disrupted.fmHost: John B. Quinn Producer: Alexis HydeMusic and Editing by: Alexander Rossi

John is joined by Bill Price, the founder and co-chair of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan's National Trial Practice Group and a partner in the firm’s Los Angeles office. Bill could lay claim (though he never would, being very modest) to be possibly the greatest business jury trial lawyer of his generation. He has tried over 50 cases to verdict and lost only two of them. Representing plaintiffs, he has won five 9-figure verdicts, as well as one ten-figure verdict. He has obtained equally remarkable results representing defendants. He is a master of all aspects of trial practice but is best known as a brilliant cross-examiner. This episode, therefore, focuses on the art of cross-examination. Podcast Link: Law-disrupted.fmHost: John B. Quinn Producer: Alexis HydeMusic and Editing by: Alexander Rossi

John is joined by Susheel Kirpalani, partner in Quinn Emanuel’s New York office and founder and Chairperson of the firm’s Bankruptcy and Restructuring Group. They discuss restructuring litigation, including fraudulent transfer litigation and valuation disputes, and how it differs from commercial litigation.  They also discuss the importance of building alliances with other stakeholders in the company, how much the practice is based on relationships and trust, and the opportunities that exist to design creative securities that allow a company to survive but also allow its creditors substantial recoveries. Podcast Link: Law-disrupted.fmHost: John B. Quinn Producer: Alexis HydeMusic and Editing by: Alexander Rossi

John is joined by Pablo Arredondo, the Co-Founder & Chief Innovation Officer of Casetext CoCounsel. They discuss how Casetext’s AI tools, based on large language models such as those employed by GPT-4, can be used by litigators to quickly review enormous databases using natural language, full sentence searches and identify relevant evidence even when the words used in the evidence are completely different from the words used in the search. They also discuss how this technology can assist in deposition preparation and expert cross-examination as well as likely applications for transactional legal work.Podcast Link: Law-disrupted.fmHost: John B. Quinn Producer: Alexis HydeMusic and Editing by: Alexander Rossi

John Quinn is joined by Daniel Posner, a partner in Quinn Emanuel’s Los Angeles office, and Asher B. Griffin, Co-Managing Partner of Quinn Emanuel’s Austin, Texas office. They discuss how Dan and Asher’s Quinn Emanuel team was brought in to retry the damages award in a race discrimination case against Tesla and reduced the $136.9 million verdict another firm gave up in the first trial to only $175,000 in compensatory damages and $3 million in punitive damages.  They discuss the unique challenges of a retrial on damages only, including how the jury in the retrial was instructed that Tesla was liable for both compensatory and punitive damages, how the judge limited the parties in the retrial to the documents and witnesses presented at the first trial and how they were still able to use the latitude allowed in cross-examination to challenge the credibility of each instance of alleged discrimination and achieve this outstanding result.Podcast Link: Law-disrupted.fmHost: John B. Quinn Producer: Alexis HydeMusic and Editing by: Alexander Rossi