Pryor Cashman's Litigation Co-Chairs Don Zakarin and Todd Soloway recently sat down with New York Law Journal as part of its "Litigation Leaders" series that features some of the biggest and most innovative law firms in the country. Below are some highlights of the conversation with Todd and Don:
Todd Soloway on what makes Pryor Cashman different:
We believe that being a litigator is not merely a job nor even merely a profession-instead, we believe it is and should be a passion. And we look to hire people who feel that way about being lawyers and, in particular, are passionate about being litigators and representing our clients. To encourage that feeling, and because we firmly believe that lawyers are best able to grow and develop their skills by doing, from the time lawyers join our firm out of law school or laterally from other firms, we try to get them as close to the front lines as possible and expose them to the full breadth of the work of litigators instead of limiting them to research, writing briefs or reviewing documents-although these are important skills and tasks that we all perform. We include our lawyers in client meetings, expose them to taking or defending depositions, involve them in strategic decision-making and give them the opportunity to argue motions and to work on trials. Their growth and success fuel our firm's growth and success. And although some cases require large numbers of lawyers, the opinions and ideas of the more junior attorneys are always welcomed and encouraged. Furthermore, wherever possible we try to staff our cases with one or two partners working with one or two associates so that everyone on each team is actually an active part of the whole rather than feeling as if they are doing piecework. Does this make us different from the large firms? We think so, and the young lawyers who have joined us from other firms tell us it is so.
Don Zakarin on the firm's recent successes:
A team of litigators led by Jim Janowitz and Bill Charron successfully defended a film production client against a multimillion-dollar breach of contract claim in arbitration brought by a Chinese film distributor regarding "The Expendables" film franchise. After proving that the claimant had engaged in witness tampering with our expert witness in China, resulting in the loss of our client's original expert, we recovered attorneys' fees and sanctions and defeated totally the claimant's breach of contract claim. (The arbitration was held before the Independent Film & Television Alliance [IFTA] in 2022). This was a case in which it initially appeared as if the claimant had a solid breach of contract claim, but the focused pursuit of discovery and identification of discrepancies in some of the claimant's submissions led the trial team to question issues of authority, which in turn led to the claimant interfering with our client's expert. That focus enabled the trial team to completely reverse the case dynamics.
Our trial team (led by Frank Scibilia, Ben Semel and me) successfully obtained the largest Copyright Royalty Board rate increase ever awarded after a six-week trial in 2017 in the proceeding known as Phonorecords III, only to have aspects of the award overturned on appeal in 2020 and remanded for further proceedings. Those remanded proceedings went forward in 2021 and 2022. In July 2022, in the middle of the trial team's work in preparing for trial in the Phonorecords IV proceeding, we successfully obtained, on remand, a reaffirmation of the most significant aspect of the original victory-the percent of revenue rate increase for songwriters and publishers. Two months later, after nearly a year of intense litigation against some of the largest companies in the world-Apple, Amazon, Google and Spotify-which included some 20 depositions and dozens of discovery motions, merely a week before a five-week trial was scheduled to commence, the trial team achieved a favorable settlement in Phonorecords IV setting mechanical rates for the period from 2023 through 2027. As in our 2017 trial, these results were largely the product of the unmatched depth of knowledge of the streaming industry of our music litigators combined with their Copyright Royalty Board experience, which only a few firms in the U.S. have, and their intense commitment, division of labor and collaboration, enabling a 15 person team to confront and match five "big law" firms, each with dozens of lawyers deployed in the proceeding, representing the streaming companies.
Our hospitality team consisting of Todd Soloway, William L. Charron, Bryan T. Mohler, and joined by Meghan Hill, James Paulson and Lara Kasten-Hoffman, successfully represented Virgin Hotels-a Richard Branson company-in a three-week trial against the owner of the former Virgin Hotel in San Francisco. The Pryor Cashman team secured a complete victory for Virgin, scoring a $12 million judgment and obtaining an award of attorneys' fees as well. Critically, the victory was not only monetary but also expressly vindicated Virgin's business practices.
This case is an indicator of the type of bet-the-company litigation that the real estate litigation/hospitality group handles on a regular basis.
The full interview can be found here.
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