Rosen Saba LLP

James R. Rosen and Ryan D. Saba faced an important defense challenge when they were retained by Conair Corp., the small appliance and personal care products manufacturer, to fend off a potential class action by customers with false advertising and other contentions. As much as $1.87 billion in liability exposure was at stake. "We lived and breathed the case for years," Saba said of the litigation, filed in the Eastern District in 2014. "There were many, many trips to Fresno."

The named plaintiff, Delia Wilson, claimed she had been injured when the cord on her styling iron malfunctioned. The case illustrated how Rosen Saba LLP, a nine-lawyer firm, can adjust its workforce to handle a major matter, controlling costs and maintaining efficiency. To analyze hundreds of thousands of pages of records obtained in discovery, Rosen and Saba hired about 25 contract document review lawyers. "We can scale up when necessary, and this was one of those times," Rosen said. "At one point, late at night, we were all in a big conference room going through loose documents and looking at screens showing our sophisticated reviewing platform software at work on electronic discovery product."

"It was a small firm going back to its biglaw roots," added Rosen of the move to radically grow his attorney roster to work on a single case. Rosen had done defense work at Buchalter Nemer APLC until striking out on his own in 1993 and founding Rosen Saba in 2006. "Sitting there that night we came to a collective realization that there was no way the plaintiffs could link up all the facts to establish commonality and typicality. We said, 'We've got this.'" On June 6, Senior U.S. District Judge Wiliam B. Shubb denied class certification. Wilson v. Conair Corp., 1:14-cv-00894 (E.D. Cal., filed June 11, 2014). The case was dismissed in late September.

In fact, Rosen said, "We've never lost a jury trial when we were on the defense side. There's never been a dime in damages from a jury."

He added that the firm recently obtained a defense judgment in a wrongful termination claim for a national home mortgage finance company, Impac Funding Corp. and a defense summary judgment in a federal copyright infringement action in which the plaintiff alleged the firm's client stole content and pictures from the client's professional website.

On the plaintiff's side, Rosen won a $38.5 million jury verdict in 2005 for client Billy Blanks, the martial artist who created Tae Bo, in a legal malpractice and fraud claim against Seyfarth Shaw LLP. It was rated the fifth largest plaintiff verdict in California that year. Blanks v. Seyfarth Shaw LLP, BC308355 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Dec. 24, 2003).

Six years after going solo, Rosen hired Saba, who was a plaintiffs' lawyer at McNicholas & McNicholas LLP. "It was a perfect blend of both sides of the table," Rosen said of the resulting Rosen Saba approach. "We look at each case from both angles, which is a huge benefit to our clients."

Added Saba, "McNicholas actually introduced me to Jim when they knew I was looking to expand my experience. They said Jim was an exceptional lawyer and a tenacious litigator, and they were right."

"I do have a plaintiffs streak running through me," Rosen said. "In biglaw, you only see the defense side."

In a new plaintiffs case, Rosen Saba represents minority tenants who are suing Los Angeles' Grand Central Market for civil rights violations under California's Unruh Civil Rights Act. The complaint alleges unfair business practices. "The place is being gentrified," Rosen said. "Our legacy tenant clients are being replaced by upscale hipster eateries." Kim v. Grand Central Square Ltd., BC593628 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Sept. 2, 2016).

Saba said he'd just obtained $1.3 million in a medical malpractice arbitration on behalf of an 83-year-old client whose physician performed a pancreatic stone removal that left him unable to walk. "Arbitrations can be difficult," Rosen said. "They are so different from jury trials. You dispense with the theatrics, because you are before a professional fact finder. In this case, we might have gotten more if we had been before a jury."

Rosen added, "I really liked working at Buchalter. I got great training. But I wanted a team and a collegial environment. It is so important for you to like and respect your peers. Here, we're social, we're friendly, and like Ryan said, we work both sides of the aisle."

— John Roemer