Alto Litigation PC

Complex commercial Litigation

San Francisco

Bahram Seyedin-Noor founded Alto Litigation in 2013, after leaving the partnership at Wilson Sonsini Goordich & Rosati PC. He was 8 when his family fled Iran amid the repression that followed the 1979 revolution. He jokes that in comparison, leaving big law for a startup didn’t seem that risky.

Seyedin-Noor knew that bringing talent aboard early was essential. “Fortunately, Bryan Ketroser joined me out of Wilson Sonsini,” he said. “We’d started together there as young associates, and I persuaded him to join my fledgling enterprise. That was key for us.”

Ketroser became Alto’s second partner. “You have to be a little adventurous to jump to an untested entity,” Ketroser said. “But Bahram and I think a lot alike. You don’t do well if you’re not enthusiastic in this business, so I think we were bound to succeed.”

Even so, going entrepreneurial seemed daunting. “At first I thought about it and it was unthinkable,” Seyedin-Noor said. “In some ways, of course, cloud technology makes starting a firm easier. But you require top-tier human capital, and that was the most challenging job for me.” He said he focused on building a formidable trial team, tightly integrating technology into the firm’s ethos and offering clients alternatives to the billable hour. The firm’s fee arrangements have included flat fees, success fees and contingencies, Seyedin-Noor said.

The result: more than $70 million in judgments and settlements for plaintiff-side clients over five years and multiple dismissals and arbitration wins for clients needing defense work. Clients include Sycle Inc., a former chief financial officer of Marvell Technology Group Ltd., iTy Labs Corp., and the chief operating officer and an investor in mAPPn Inc.

In the Marvell Technology case, a shareholder class sought nearly $100 million in damages over stock drop claims. The plaintiffs also asserted that Alto’s client, the former CFO, was liable under a “control person” theory. Following two successive motions to dismiss between 2015 and 2017, Alto obtained a complete dismissal of all claims against its client, with prejudice. Luna v. Marvell Technology Group Ltd., 3:15-cv-05447 (N.D. Cal., filed Sept. 11, 2015).

Over the last two years Alto recruited attorney Ian Browning, who joined in 2016 when he relocated to California from his New York practice with Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP and Sullivan & Cromwell LLP. Browning has since second-chaired an arbitration that resulted in an eight-figure award for the client and has helped secure wins for major financial institutions and energy companies in federal and state courts at the trial and appellate levels.

Additionally, Daniel Sakaguchi joined in 2017 as the firm’s third partner. He moved from St. Louis, where he was a partner at Armstrong Teasdale LLP. Sakaguchi won a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmance of the dismissal he had obtained in district court of claims against client Eastman Chemical Co. Seyedin-Noor pointed out that Sakaguchi brings an impressive national network to the firm as president-elect of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association.

“There’s a business need for growth when you’re turning away cases because you’re beyond capacity,” Seyedin-Noor said. “But new hires have to fit in with our heavy technological focus.” The firm uses Asana work management software to track virtually everything in the shop. “I’ve seen big firms using spreadsheets, and I have to laugh,” Seyedin-Noor said. “That’s Stone Age, not dynamic, not made for collaboration. We think we have a better way.”

— John Roemer