David J. Reis

Over the last 18 months, Reis has won two high profile jury verdicts against prominent Bay Area plaintiffs' counsel for clients the Oakland Raiders and PNY Technologies Inc. Beyond California, Adobe Systems Inc. retained him to defend a federal lawsuit in Virginia that challenged Adobe's worldwide sales commission plan. Reis obtained summary judgment on all claims in favor of Adobe. Conzone v. Adobe Systems Inc., 1:15-cv-1217 (E.D. Va., filed Sept. 23, 2015)

The case was brought by a former sales representative in the Eastern District of Virginia, home of the rocket docket, where speed rules with the fastest federal docket. Adobe sought an experienced lawyer because of the importance of the issue — one of Adobe's officers was a named defendant and at risk was the key provision of Adobe's sales commission plan that applied to more than 2,500 Adobe sales representatives worldwide.

"I like the rocket docket," Reis said. "This case was over eight months from the time it was filed. I do arbitrations where discovery and the hearing are short and quick, so this matter in federal court was more like a quick and easy arbitration. The speed kept is all on our toes."

In the case itself, Reis said of the plaintiff, "This guy got a $525,000 commission for a sale of software. He alleged bad faith by Adobe's head of worldwide sales in calculating his commission. We argued that the named defendant was acting within the scope of his employment, and the court agreed that he was doing his job. So we got him dismissed from the case."

That left claims that Adobe's formula-based commission schedule itself was unfair. Reis moved for summary judgment. "The hearing was on April 29, and the trial was set for three weeks later," he said. "The other side had fairness arguments, but under the employment contract, Adobe had discretion in how it pays commissions. And discretion is fine if it's done in good faith."

The law seemed clear, but Reis wanted to do more. Within the politics of a case, "whether it's a jury or a judge, the decision maker wants to see and hear feel-good facts to help come to a ruling. The key to us was to show that even though we had the contract language on our side, we had also acted in good faith."

Reis said it was an important lesson. "That was a good learning point for the associates working on the case. Even though the burden was on the plaintiff to show unfairness, when it came to the hearing, the judge asked me at length about the fairness of what we had done compared with other deals Adobe had paid commissions on that year. It was irrelevant to the legal point that we had discretion. The judge wanted to feel good about ruling for us."

— John Roemer