Linda M. Burrow

For client Fox Searchlight Pictures Inc., Burrow in 2015 followed her trial victory over plaintiff Napoleon Pictures Ltd. to the state court of appeal. There, she won an affirmance of her successful 2012 trial court defense of claims that Fox had denied Napoleon more than $13 million in contingent compensation for the 2004 comedy Napoleon Dynamite. "Marty Singer on the other side made it colorful at trial," Burrow said, identifying the ferocious Hollywood litigator. "And then we went up against Jeremy Rosen on the appeal," she said, naming the prominent Horvitz & Levy partner. "Jeremy and I were summer associates together at Munger [Tolles & Olson LLP] way, way back."

Also last year, Burrow led a team of Caldwell Leslie attorneys in a state and federal constitutional challenge to Los Angeles County's 2014 decision to add a Latin cross to the official county seal. U.S. District Judge Christina A. Snyder of Los Angeles heard argument November 2015 on Burrow's clients' motion to permanently bar the cross from the seal. On March 6, Snyder granted the plaintiffs a permanent injunction against using the cross on the seal. The cross "places the County's power, prestige, and purse behind a single religion, Christianity," which violates the U.S. and California constitutions, Snyder wrote.

"It was super fun," Burrow said. "Very few go to law school to litigate profit participation claims, though I love 'em. But you very seldom get to argue the Constitution, the separation of church and state." Caldwell Leslie was co-counsel with the ACLU of Southern California in the case. Under California's no aid, no preference clauses, religion is held to be strictly outside of the state's domain. "It requires an analysis as to aid," Burrow said. "Is the aid you're providing to a religious entity incidental, like street sweeping in front of a Catholic school? Yes, because secular schools get the same service. But if you put a cross on a seal, that can have no other meaning than Christianity involving an expenditure of state funds. In our view that's an unlawful aid to religion."

John Roemer