Diane M. Doolittle

Getting a case tossed in the early stage is nice, according to Doolittle, but she also said she has no problem going to trial. In fact, she relishes it.

As the co-chair of the national trial practice group at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP, Doolittle has over 70 cases under her belt in over 30 years of experience.

Taking part in several high-stakes complex commercial, intellectual property and white-collar disputes, she has won over 90 percent of those cases.

“Fewer and fewer lawyers have been to trial and thus fail to understand how the front end of the process, discovery and motion practice, plays into the back end, namely trials,” she said.

Doolittle said she has that experience in spades.

Since 2014, the former senior trial attorney for the Santa Clara County district attorney’s office has served as lead counsel for Pfizer Inc. in multiple trials alleging trade secret misappropriation from a San Francisco-based nonprofit entity.

The plaintiff physician argued Pfizer had stolen his trade secret medical databases in connection with a drug development project.

The first jury trial, which was handled by another firm, resulted in a defeat for Pfizer, which could have cost the company up to $1 billion.

But after a successful appeal, Doolittle got the jury to rule in favor of her client on 155 of 162 of the trade secrets, resulting in an award of just $165,000. IREF v. Pfizer Inc. et al., Santa Clara County Superior Court, 2004-1-CV-026653 (Santa Clara Super. Ct., filed Sept. 10, 2004).

The veteran attorney attributed her trial success to weaving together a coherent narrative for juries to understand.

“Lawyers forget that there is a story to tell and figuring out what that story is early is an enormous advantage,” Doolittle said.

— Winston Cho