Farella’s Business Litigation Group, a leading trial team for over 50 years, is committed to helping clients anticipate and resolve legal threats to their business activities and projects. Our Group’s long-standing success hinges on these essential qualities: appropriate staffing for size and scope of matter; judgment—informed by experience—to accurately assess opponents, outcomes, and costs; and the strategic use of the law and procedural rules in negotiations, mediations, and trials.
Large corporations, including well-known brands such as Google, Nestle, Chevron, Visa, Dell, Novartis, Bausch and Lomb, L'Oreal, and Ghirardelli, to name a few, trust us to handle their litigation matters, particularly in Northern California but also throughout the United States. They value our technical knowledge and ability to explain complex facts to judges and juries.
While much of our work is adversarial, we also look for bottom-line solutions to disputes and strive to avoid costly bare-fisted litigation and preserve our clients’ resources and reputations.
Approach to Staffing
Unlike many litigation practices that routinely staff teams of 10, 15, or 20 lawyers to every case, we find strategic advantage in leaner staffing. Our matters are frequently staffed with smaller, highly qualified teams of a partner and two experienced associates, in which each team member has direct responsibility for the outcome. With fewer internal layers to navigate and manage, our teams become fully engaged in “solving the client’s problem” while avoiding the duplicate efforts commonly experienced in complex hierarchies. Our lawyers see how they need to split up the work and get it done cost effectively, winning all-around positive outcomes for clients. When needed for larger, more complex matters, we will add team members, but always with the goal of solving the client’s problem in the most cost-effective manner possible.
Our partners, who have seen a variety of casework spanning industries as diverse as telecommunications, banking, media, consumer products, food and beverage, wine, retail, semiconductor manufacturing, and computer software, ensure that our associates have “early and often” exposure to making judgment calls about case strategy or, in some instances, participating at trial. A recent example is a successful trade secret case tried in federal court in San Jose, California, where our most important witness, our client’s CEO, was examined on the stand by an associate team member. The associate’s work resulted in a significant victory for our client, in which the jury awarded it over 30-million-dollars in damages.
Generalist to Specialist
Farella’s Business Litigation Group possesses multi-faceted experience in matters that range from antitrust, unfair competition, and appeals to consumer class action defense, real estate litigation and contractual arbitrations, and private wealth disputes, among others.
As a team, we place a high priority on authenticity in our work and our relationships with colleagues and clients. Our attorneys and staff all know each other—we’re in one city, one office—and in many cases, they get to know our clients, too. Our attorneys are also well-known to the local state and federal benches, which we believe gives us a strategic advantage in litigation.
To the extent that there is in-house knowledge that can help solve a client’s problem, our ability to collaborate is essential. When our litigators need advice about unique facts surrounding specific business deals or unusual concepts, we have seamless access to corporate transaction lawyers—just down the hall. Routinely, we consult with our insurance coverage lawyers on policy questions related to paying for litigation defense or a company’s liability. We also work closely with colleagues in our real estate, white collar crime, and private client practices when disputes in those areas arise.
In all cases, our clients report that they appreciate our responsiveness, the careful attention of our partners, and the value they receive from the relationship and our work. To us, our clients are not just a book of business. They are real people with complex legal problems to resolve.
Reputation Beyond Mid-Size
Our practice maintains high standards and, as such, enjoys a stellar reputation in Northern California courts—among the bar and the bench—and litigates cases in many other U.S. jurisdictions. Our lawyers routinely handle significant and newsworthy cases. We genuinely enjoy practicing law and appreciate the craftsmanship and collegiality the profession affords.
Active in the legal community, our group members include former presidents of the San Francisco Bar Association and the Association of Business Trial Lawyers, Fellows of the American College of Trial Lawyers, and three previous California Lawyers of the Year.
