Robyn C. Crowther

Crowther had a huge piece of foam board in her office covered in Post-it notes mapping how the worker's compensation system is supposed to work. On another wall, she had a similar graph breaking down components of X-ray technology and how they were developed.

A testament to her diverse civil litigation practice, she was working on a case challenging gender discrimination in worker's compensation and representing a small X-ray technologies company in Idaho in its claim that a larger company interfered with its relationship with the U.S. Air Force.

"I need to break down these big, complicated processes into something I can understand and ultimately explain to a judge or a jury," she said. "Litigation skills are similar, even when the subject matter of cases are very different."

At the same time, Crowther was in trial as co-lead counsel representing automobile photo purveyor Evox Productions LLC in a copyright infringement case alleging Kayak Software Corp. used images Evox provided beyond the scope of their licensing agreement. Evox Productions LLC v. Kayak Software Corporation et al., 2:15-cv-05053 (C.D. Cal., filed July 2, 2015).

Her team previously obtained summary judgment that Evox's copyright of the photos are valid, and that when Evox licensed the right to use its photos on a website, it did not include the right to use them on a mobile application.

What remained were claims under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act relating to the fact the photos distributed over the mobile app didn't have Evox's copyright notice on them, and then determining appropriate amount of damages.

Crowther used to explain to her young daughters before she went into trial why she was going to win. If her then-11-year-old didn't get it, she'd go back and retool. She still does it, but, at 18, 15 and 13, they're "a little too sophisticated."

But they're still part of the process: When she comes home from work, they ask her about what she's working on and discuss the issues presented. "It does help to figure out what resonates with people who are coming to it with really fresh eyes," she said.

— Lila Seidman