Newdorf Legal Is Growing With The Addition of A Senior Litigation Associate and Paralegal

San Francisco, CA (July 15, 2010) – Newdorf Legal, one of the San Francisco Bay Area’s leading litigation boutique firms, announced that it is growing to better serve its clients.  The firm has added a senior litigation attorney and senior paralegal.

Vicki Van Fleet has joined the firm as a Senior Associate.  Previously, Van Fleet worked as Vice President and Senior Corporate Counsel in the Office of Corporate Counsel at Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. and as a litigation associate at firms in New York and Boston.

Katherine Debski has joined the firm as a Senior Paralegal.  Previously, Debski worked at Armstrong, Callan & Shiu, LLP in San Jose, Calif., and Disability Rights Advocates in Berkeley, Calif.

Van Fleet is an accomplished attorney with more than two decades of experience.   Her broad range of client work has included advising financial institutions, representing clients in court hearings and proceedings, and drafting and negotiating contracts.  She has handled cases in diverse legal areas including corporate law, entertainment law, employment law, product liability, lender liability, and general civil litigation.

Van Fleet graduated from McGill University in Montreal and received her J.D. from the New York University School of Law in 1984.

Debski is a seasoned paralegal with over seven years of litigation experience in state and federal courts.  She has assisted litigators in a variety of areas including labor and employment litigation, civil rights class action work, commercial litigation, and worker’s compensation administrative proceedings.

Debski graduated from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where she also attended law school.

Managing Attorney David Newdorf said:

“We are fortunate to have added these accomplished and talented professionals to our litigation team.  Vicki is a seasoned attorney with confidence and skill at handling complex legal issues at all stages, from pre-trial through appeal.  Her substantial experience with corporate clients is an asset to our firm and our broad client base.”

Newdorf said: “Katherine’s broad litigation experience and her background working with municipal and corporate entities will benefit our client work in every area.  We are glad to have her on board.” 

Newdorf Legal provides business and public-entity clients a small-firm approach to tackle big problems.  When business executives and public officials face complex legal challenges, they turn to Newdorf Legal for advice and representation.

Newdorf Legal handles business and public entity litigation throughout California.  The firm practices at the trial and appellate levels in State and Federal courts, and also handles arbitrations and mediations.  Newdorf Legal represents businesses, executives, financial institutions, investors, and public entities in contract disputes, business torts/interference with contract, joint venture/partnership claims, real property transactions, development rights, fraud, RICO and other commercial litigation.

Newdorf Legal represents clients in all phases of class actions, the State and Federal False Claims Act/Qui Tam cases, Unfair Practices/Unfair Competition Law (Business and Professions Code section 17200), False Advertising, and Consumer Legal Remedies Act cases.

Mr. Newdorf also has extensive experience in government entity representation in California. He represents local government in a variety of litigation matters, from commercial disputes to challenges to local ordinances, policies and practices.  Newdorf Legal represents public entities, public officials and law enforcement officers in state and federal civil rights lawsuits, including suits under 42 U.S.C. section 1983 alleging unconstitutional statutes and policies, false arrest, excessive force and unlawful search and seizure.

For more information, please visit the firm’s website, http://www.newdorflegal.com, or call Mr. Newdorf directly at 415-357-1234.

Tags: business attorney, California lawyer, civil litigation, contract disputes, lawsuits, San Francisco law firm
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Newdorf Legal and City Attorney Win 12-0 Jury Verdict That Clears Two San Francisco Police Officers Of Alleged Excessive Force And Civil Rights Violations In Arrest of 76-Year-Old Man.

SAN FRANCISCO  ( December 21, 2008) –Following a one-week civil rights trial,

a San Francisco jury took only ten  minutes Friday to vote 12-0 to clear two San Francisco police officers of wrongdoing in a lawsuit brought by a 76-year-old man who had been arrested for threatening his wife and resisting arrest. 

The San Francisco Superior Court jury of nine women and three men in Miller v. City and County of San Francisco, No. 459169, deliberated for only 10 minutes before finding in favor of the officers

in the unusual case filed by Raymond J. Miller, a retired City electrician, who accused officers of barging into his house and breaking his arm while he was peacefully watching pornography. Mr. Miller’s estranged wife, who still shared their home, called 911 after Mr. Miller allegedly became enraged when his wife refused to watch the movie “Asian Co-ed Butt Babes” with him.  Mr. Miller at the time was 5’ 9” tall and weighed 275 pounds and had been drinking.  His wife was 4’11” tall and weighed 100 pounds.
 

San Francisco Trial Attorney David Newdorf of Newdorf Legal, who defended the officers along with the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office, said:  “The police officers that night did their job and followed their training in arresting Mr. Miller to protect a potential domestic violence victim.  Although Mr. Miller’s claims of excessive force lacked any merit, San Francisco takes these claims seriously.  When the evidence shows no wrongdoing by police, it is gratifying to be able to present the facts to a jury of citizens so that officers’ reputations will not be stained by baseless accusations.”

The jury heard evidence at trial that the officers involved immediately called paramedics, who treated and released Mr. Miller for minor wrist lacerations due to handcuffing.  The officers notified their supervisor about the arrest and documented a “bar-arm takedown” that the officers used when Mr. Miller refused to put his hands behind his back and advanced angrily at the officers.  The officers took photographs of Mr. Miller’s injuries.  X-rays taken later that evening at San Francisco General Hospital showed a possible hairline fracture of the radial head, one of the bones of the elbow joint.  

The jury also heard testimony from Don Cameron, an expert in police training and use of force, who demonstrated the bar-arm take down and hand-cuffing on Mr. Newdorf for the jury.  “Jurors said the demonstration of the actual technique used to guide Mr. Miller to the ground and the handcuffing corroborated the officer’s testimony and dispelled the plaintiff’s claims that the force was unreasonable,” Mr. Newdorf said.

Mr. Miller claimed officers used excessive force the night of Jan. 7, 2006, after his wife called 911 from their Potrero Hill home. He claimed he was sitting in an easy chair in the living room of his home on Texas Street, drinking vodka and watching the movie when the officers burst in, pushed him to the ground and handcuffed him. He was asking for $50,000 in damages because, he said, the officers broke his arm and cut his wrists.

Miller testified during the trial that he had simply invited his wife of 35 years, Jean Miller, to watch a “sexually explicit” movie, but that she decided she didn’t like it and instead called 911 for “no reason.”

Mrs. Miller testified that she and her husband had long been separated and that she had refused his request to sit on his lap and have sex while he watched pornography.  He became angry, she said, and pushed furniture at her and threatened to kill her. When she called 911, she said, her husband wrestled the telephone away and hung up, which he denied. Police emergency dispatch records showed a 911 call was made and it was disconnected, which automatically prompted a police response to their home.

When officers arrived, Mr. Miller, who appeared to have been drinking, was wearing only swim trunks and watching pornography, according to court testimony. He told the officers “Get the f— out of my house!” and did not comply with a verbal command to place his hands behind his back.  He then advanced toward the officers and attempted to pull away from their grasp, prompting the takedown.

“We’re gratified that a San Francisco jury needed only 10 minutes to clear the officers from Mr. Miller’s outrageous allegations,” said Deputy City Attorney Daniel Zaheer, who represented the officers along with Newdorf Legal. “We felt that Mr. Miller’s allegations had no foundation at all and we’re thankful that good cops can protect the safety of domestic abuse victims like Mrs. Miller without having to fear frivolous lawsuits.”

ABOUT NEWDORF LEGAL

Newdorf Legal represents businesses and public entities in trials and appeals.  David Newdorf has been a trial lawyer focused on business litigation and representing public entities for 14 years.  He recently obtained a $3.4 million judgment for attorney’s fees and cost for his client, San Francisco International Airport, in a dispute with a Houston developer.  He was a litigator at the San Francisco office of O’Melveny & Myers LLP and a trial attorney and supervisor at the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office.  He has been lead counsel in hundreds of lawsuits, including class actions and high-stakes commercial disputes.  He founded Newdorf Legal to provide business and public entities large-firm results combined with small-firm service and attention.  For more information, visit the firm’s website, http://www.newdorflegal.com

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How Newdorf Legal Uses Technology To Reduce Client Costs And Improve Service In Business Litigation

It’s nice — especially for the lawyer — when the client has a six-figure litigation budget for a case.  But not every client can afford that, and even if you can, not every dispute is worth it.  Fortunately, advances in technology have leveled the playing field so that small firms with low overhead can provide many of the same services that were once the exclusive domain of the large law firms. 

Newdorf Legal uses the latest legal software and technology to provide cutting-edge service together with excellent value for the client.  Here’s an example of what’s available to our clients.

Document Databases.  When I started as a lawyer at a large national law firm in 1994, I was led to a document room (bigger than my current office) with file boxes full of hundreds of thousands of documents for an environmental insurance coverage case.  I spent months trying to master the contents of those boxes, but couldn’t make a dent.  Today, document storage and review  has been simplified by electronic imaging and Optical Character Recognition (OCR).  In a case with 1,000 documents or 100,000 documents, you can sort and review e-mails or memos by date, author, subject or keyword.  The cost of scanning large numbers of documents with OCR included can be as low as 15 cents a page, depending on the complexity of the database required.  The documents can be accessible anywhere via the internet.  Though some cases still require a platoon of young associates and paralegals to comb through documents in a warehouse, there are economic alternatives that allow small firms to compete in document-intensive business litigation.

Trial Presentation.  For large trials, big law firms these days always use trial presentation software that allows documents and videos to be displayed on TV monitors or projected on large screens in the courtroom.  The software allows the user to highlight and enlarge portions of documents on the fly.  More and more courtrooms are being rewired and remodeled to accommodate electronic display of evidence.  The software also saves the time and expense of poster-sized blow-ups.  In the internet age, jurors are pre-conditioned to learn from screens.  And judges appreciate it, too.  The cost of the software and LCD projectors is falling.  In my opinion, even a small trial these days requires at least a PowerPoint presentation for closing argument.

Mediation Presentation.  As fewer and fewer cases go to trial, the emphasis is increasingly on mediation and arbitration.  The same graphic display techniques used at trial should be used at mediation.  A persuasive PowerPoint that incorporates blow-ups of key documents almost always benefits the client.

Deposition Software.  Most court reporters can provide “real time” transcription, so the lawyer’s notebook computer is hooked up to the court reporter’s computer.  With “real time,” you see the rough draft transcript of the testimony almost simultaneous with the witness’s words.  No more waiting for rough drafts.  Back at the office, the electronic transcripts can be loaded into a database that permits easy word searches.

E-filing.  Federal trial and appellate courts and a growing number of state courts use e-filing for court documents.  No more sending a messenger to the courthouse with stacks of paper documents.  E-filing has numerous benefits, including saving on the cost of photocopying, delivery and postage.  With a push of the button, the lawyer can submit documents to the court and all other parties in a case via the internet.  Elecontric document assembly is efficient and eliminates hours of work formerly done by paralegals and secretaries.

On-line legal research.  In a junior high school science class, I learned how to use a slide rule.  It was my father’s vintage 1940s slipstick.  Within a few years, slide rules went the way of the abacus and rotary dial phone.  Much later, in law school, I learned how to “Shepardize” a case — the process of using hardcover books and softcover update pamphlets to determine whether a case had been overruled.  By the time I graduated, that skill was as useful as the ability to calculate with a slide rule.  On-line legal research — Westlaw and LexisNexis are the main services — is the standard today.  

Specialized legal technology, together with ubiquitous applications such as Mircosoft Office and Adobe Acrobat, has narrowed the achievement gap between large and small firms.  

But I do confess to sneaking down to the law library about once a week.  I enjoy the peace and solitude (no one goes there anymore) as I flip yellowed pages amid the rows of dusty tomes.  You just might catch me, Dad’s slide rule in hand, as I double-check the bookkeeper’s ledgers.

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Newdorf Legal Wins $3.4 Million Attorneys’ Fee Award For San Francisco International Airport

SAN FRANCISCO—A San Mateo County (California) judge ordered a large national law firm and a Texas developer to pay the City and County of San Francisco $3.43 million in attorneys’ fees and costs for their unsuccessful four-year legal battle against the San Francisco International Airport.  This is the largest fee ever awarded to the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office for its successful defense of a lawsuit.

Developer Airis Holdings LLC of Houston, Texas, and its attorneys from Duane Morris LLP had sued San Francisco for breach of contract stemming from the City’s rejection of a proposed $250 million air cargo facility at the airport.  The Board of Supervisors voted against the project in December 2003, citing concerns over the sufficiency of lease payments to the Airport, use of a private developer to build and manage the facility, and the fairness of the process by which Airis had been granted exclusive negotiation rights for the project.

The case is unusual both for the size of the fee award and the fact that a major law firm is liable for its opponent’s fees and costs, said San Francisco litigator David Newdorf, who represents the Airport.  Duane Morris entered into an arrangement with Airis whereby the law firm wrote-off $750,000 in legal fees owed by Airis for an assignment of the developer’s right to sue.  The developer and law firm then joined as plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the City.

In explaining the size of the fee award at a court hearing on Friday, October 10, 2008, San Mateo Superior Court Judge Carol L. Mittlesteadt said that the case had been “litigated, and litigated, and litigated” since it was filed in 2005.  She praised the legal work done by the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office as “excellent” and comparable in quality to major national law firms that undertake similar complex litigation.  Newdorf headed the defense as a Deputy City Attorney and continued to represent the City after he opened his own litigation firm in San Francisco, Newdorf Legal.

Aaron Peskin, president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, said:  “David Newdorf’s tireless advocacy made the difference and saved taxpayers millions of dollars.”

Airis Holdings LLC develops and manages air cargo facilities around the world.  Duane Morris LLP employs more than 700 lawyers in 24 offices from coast to coast in the U.S., in Europe and Asia.  Duane Morris was ranked the 71^st largest law firm in the United States based on 2007 gross revenue, according to American Lawyer magazine.

Duane Morris’s lawsuit against San Francisco was marked by ups and down for both sides.  The developer originally pressed claims for lost profits, breach of contract, breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, promissory estoppel and unjust enrichment.  The developer and their lawyers sought $40 million and were motivated to take the case to trial, Newdorf said.

Facing numerous legal and factual theories, the City Attorney’s Office mapped out a legal strategy to eliminate the developer’s claims one by one, according to Newdorf.  After two years of discovery and pre-trial motions, the case had been reduced to only three legal theories and a monetary demand of $2.1 million.  At a five-week trial in May and June 2007, the City prevailed on two of the three claims, but was hit with a jury verdict of $1.05 million for breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing. 

The City filed a post-trial motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict (known as a JNOV motion).  In granting the City’s motion, the judge ruled that Airis’s and Duane Morris’s claims and evidence were insufficient as a matter of law and threw out the verdict.  The Exclusive Negotiation Agreement between Airis and the City required the loser in any lawsuit concerning the agreement to pay reasonable costs and attorneys fees to the prevailing party.  The post-trial order granting judgment in favor of the City laid the groundwork for the fee application that was granted last week. 

“We’re of course disappointed, but we anticipated this outcome,” Duane Morris partner Oliver Lock Holmes told a reporter as he left court.  Duane Morris said it would appeal the rulings.

“Perhaps because they were so involved themselves in the case, Duane Morris didn’t have the detached judgment that an attorney should have about the strengths and weaknesses of its case,” said Newdorf. “The firm undertook a financial risk that I think was larger than they truly understood.”

The case had high stakes for both sides.  If the developer had won, the City would have been liable for the $1 million verdict and an additional $4 million to $5.5 million in attorneys’ fees and costs incurred by Duane Morris.  Including the fee award to San Francisco, the litigation has cost Duane Morris and its client $9 million or more, Newdorf estimated.

Newdorf said that Airis knew going into the negotiations with the Airport that there would be no deal unless and until the Board of Supervisors approved the project and that the developer bore the financial risk that the Board might not approve it. 

“This award is fair and reasonable compensation for the thousands of hours of attorney time required to fend off this lawsuit,” Newdorf said.  “But the taxpayers will never recoup the true cost of the litigation because the City will not be compensated for the thousands of hours that Airport and City officials were required to spend on this lawsuit.”

The lawsuit is Airis SFO LLC, Airis Holdings LLC, and Duane Morris LLP v. City and County of San Francisco, No. CIV 448274, San Mateo County Superior Court.

ABOUT NEWDORF LEGAL

David Newdorf has represented businesses and public entities in trials and appeals for 14 years.  He was a litigator at the San Francisco office of O’Melveny & Myers LLP and a trial attorney and supervisor at the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office.  He has been lead counsel in hundreds of lawsuits, including class actions and high-stakes commercial disputes.  He founded Newdorf Legal to provide business and public entities large-firm results combined with small-firm service and attention.

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Newdorf Legal Lends Expertise To Bar Publication

David Newdorf served as an attorney consultant for the latest edition of California Civil Writ Practice (4th Edition), published in the summer of 2008 by Continuing Education of the Bar. As a consultant, Mr. Newdorf lent his experience as a government litigator in commenting on the manuscript before publication. Writ proceedings are specialized procedures for challenging government administrative and quasi-judicial decisions or interim orders issued in the trial courts.

The expanded, two-volume new edition covers civil writ proceedings in the superior court and includes completely reorganized and rewritten coverage of civil writ practice in the appellate courts, including the California Supreme Court. It includes two chapters of exemplar forms drafted by expert practicing attorneys and a chart of the appropriate method of appellate review for common court orders. The treatise is organized and written to provide practical information, advice and tips to assist lawyers in deciding whether to file a writ petition, to know how to prepare one correctly, and advice on opposing a writ petition.

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David Newdorf Appointed To California State Bar Litigation Committee

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