Keesal, Young & Logan

Litigation

Long Beach

San Francisco

Samuel A. “Skip” Keesal earned his bar card in 1966 and opened his firm in 1970. “It was originally me, a $60 used typewriter and a loyal secretary,” he said. He soon recruited J. Stephen Young and Robert H. Logan from his alma mater, University of Southern California Law School. Keesal said he wanted offices near the Long Beach sands so he could go play volleyball if he was short of clients. “I didn’t get to play volleyball,” he added.

Indeed, the firm has since handled more than 20,000 cases for financial services clients. Citigroup Inc. signed up in 1971, Morgan Stanley in 1970 and Wells Fargo & Co. in 1974. Others include JPMorgan Chase & Co., UBS Group AG, Franklin Templeton Investments, Edward Jones, Raymond James Financial Inc., and Black Rock Inc.

Logan retired in 2005 to practice mediation; he remains of counsel. Stephen Young arrived early at the firm from a job on Wall Street, bringing insider expertise that would prove useful in representing stock brokerages and their employees. “Over 45 years we built a big, powerful firm,” he said. “We’re unusually collegial; we put in place a pay structure that incentivized us to collaborate. My partners are my dearest friends. Our kids play together. It’s been a great run and a great place to work.”

The firm has expanded to 52 attorneys. Keesal’s background as an admiralty and maritime attorney was the original practice with partners establishing offices around the Pacific Rim: in San Francisco, Seattle, Hong Kong and Anchorage. Keesal said he maintains a firm tradition — based on the shabby, threadbare coat and trousers and unreliable clunker of a car he started out with — of furnishing junior associates with a Brooks Brothers suit and cash for a new vehicle.

“Our successes come from common sense and being prepared, plus being tough while being nice,” he said. Last year, for example, he and partners Terry Ross, Michele R. Underwood and Stacey M. Garrett successfully defended Citigroup Global Markets Inc. against a $493 million claim by veteran stock market investor Kosti Shirvanian, the founder of Western Waste Inc., that his brokers engaged in churning, breach of fiduciary duty and failure to supervise. Following a 37-day arbitration, a three-member panel ruled for Citigroup and awarded Keesal, Young & Logan $2 million in attorney fees. Shirvanian v. Citigroup Global Markets Inc., 72-168-Y-00004 (AAA 2017).

“That was a big case for us,” Keesal said. “You don’t usually see so many of our partners on a single matter. We demonstrated that the trades he questioned were trades he had initiated at other firms as well. Plus, there was a huge delay in his bringing the claims after filing the case. It turned out well for us.”

Beyond the major client matters, Keesal said the firm has maintained a longstanding commitment to charitable giving. Keesal, Young & Logan has raised more than $1 million for Boys & Girls Clubs by hosting luncheons featuring, among others, former Presidents Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush and Gerald Ford; former Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair and John Major; and former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger, Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright and Condoleezza Rice. The firm established its charitable foundation in 1991.

— John Roemer