Lyn R. Agre

Agre achieved a first last year: she convinced a jury to hold a consulting company liable for a botched software implementation.

The $25 million verdict found the contractor, Sparta Consulting Inc., knew it was failing at the installation of the pricey enterprise software system, but took steps to hide its incompetence. Copart Inc. v. Sparta Consulting Inc., 14CV00046 (E.D. Cal., filed Jan. 8, 2014).

Such verdicts are common against professionals such as doctors and attorneys, but nearly unheard of in the software industry.

“You really have to prove that they knew what they were doing was wrong,” said the partner with Kasowitz Benson Torres LLP in San Francisco. “To get those kinds of documents and emails and then be able to prove it through deposition and trial testimony is really difficult.”

Agre is also representing Anheuser Busch against a former employee it says stole trade secrets “related to the company’s brewing process” and violated a confidentiality agreement. Anheuser Busch Companies LLC et al. v. James Alan Clark, 13CV00415 (E.D. Cal., filed March 1, 2013).

On top of that, she works as a defense attorney in two complex criminal cases. One involved charges of mail fraud and bid rigging against an investor who bought properties at a foreclosure auction, U.S. v. Mohammed Rezaian, 13CR246 (N.D. Cal., filed April 16, 2013).

The other involves an Iranian man indicted for allegedly violating the Emergency Economic Powers Act, a law allowing the president to regulate commerce during emergencies. United States v. Sadr Emad-Vaez, 18CR00160 (N.D. Cal., filed April 19, 2018).

While each of these cases may seem quite different, Agre said they all involve a complex paper trail.

“You are always trying to put pieces of a puzzle together,” Agre said. “What you do in white collar is very easily translated into these types of litigation cases, especially involving negligence or fraud because you evaluate the evidence in the same way.”

— Malcolm Maclachlan