Daralyn J. Durie

Major technology companies trust Durie with some of their most difficult cases. She’s represented titans of the industry such as Google LLC, Netflix Inc., Genentech Inc. and Twitter Inc.

When French telecom giant Orange S.A. was accused of stealing an idea from Telesocial Inc., a tiny San Francisco Bay Area startup, it relied on Durie to convince jurors not to follow the easy narrative of David and Goliath that the plaintiffs were pushing. Telesocial Inc. v. Orange S.A., 14-CV3985 (N.D. Cal., filed Sept. 2, 2014).

Telesocial was working to create an app that would let you call a friend using Facebook and pitched the idea to a variety of tech companies in 2012. Orange turned the offer down but later came out with a very similar product by working directly with Facebook Inc. It was a perfect chain of events to spin a negative narrative from the perspective of a plaintiff’s lawyer. They brought trade secret claims and accused Orange of hacking as well. But Durie didn’t back down, took the case to a jury and won in a very unconventional manner. Technically, she lost on one count, a breach of Telesocial’s terms of service. But the jury awarded $1 in damages instead of the $60 million the plaintiffs requested.

This was only the second time Durie had seen that kind of outcome in one of her cases.

“It does happen, but it’s pretty unusual,” she said.

Durie had convinced U.S. District Judge James Donato to exclude both of Telesocial’s damage experts and the company’s CEO struggled to innumerate what his company had lost through Orange’s actions.

“There really wasn’t for any way for Telesocial to show that it made any difference at the end of the day.” Durie said she loves handling major litigation as much as she always did but she’s also proud of the firm she’s built and its place in the industry.

“A huge part of what makes me proud is just seeing the firm grow and be successful,” she said. “There still aren’t that many firms in California with women in front of the masthead.”

— Joshua Sebold