Baker Marquart LLP

Civil, criminal and regulatory litigation

Los Angeles

Baker Marquart LLP, founded by Harvard Law School graduates Ryan G. Baker and Jaime W. Marquart, elicited a clarification of anti-SLAPP limits from the state Supreme Court as part of the firm's aim to make substantive differences as it represents its clients in high-stakes cases.

"As our reputation grows, we just want to continue to play a role in defining the legal landscape in ways that we think are fair and good for everybody," said Baker.

Baker and Marquart started their litigation boutique in 2006 after leaving Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP as they wanted to create a "work hard, play hard" environment that they had control over.

"We had a desire to go and do something entrepreneurial ourselves and be in control of our own destinies," Marquart said.

"We had been running cases at Quinn Emanuel but there were layers of attorneys above us who were ultimately calling the shots and dealing with the clients," Baker said. "Those are things we thought we were ready to do and wanted to do them. We decided to do them on our own terms."

Today, the firm has 15 attorneys and a trial practice that takes on matters such as antitrust and trade regulation, commercial disputes, corporate governance, criminal defense, cybersecurity, employment, entertainment, financial technology, intellectual property, patent litigation and securities.

In February, Baker Marquart went before the California Supreme Court on behalf of its client FilmOn.com Inc., which had filed a 2014 suit for libel and slander, among other claims, alleging DoubleVerify Inc. gave misleading information in a confidential report to FilmOn.com's online advertisers, leading to a loss of advertisements. Baker led the legal team before the state high court, where Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar found lower courts erred in granting dismissal of the case against Double Verify under the anti-SLAPP law. The unanimous opinion clarified the limitations of the anti-SLAAP law. The decision meant that statements made about FilmOn's business in reports did not fall under protected speech. As a result, FilmOn's claims against DoubleVerify may proceed to trial.

"That case got an important result that starts to draw parameters around the otherwise very nebulous and amorphous anti-SLAAP jurisprudence," Baker said. "It's exciting when you're at the forefront of a legal issue."

Partner Brian E. Klein, who joined the firm in 2012, leads Baker Marquart's regulatory and criminal defense practice. He represented Marcus Hutchins, a British computer security researcher, who was charged with cyber-related crimes. Hutchins is also known for stopping the "WannaCry" ransomware malware attack that targeted computers in May 2017. United States v. Marcus Hutchins, 17-CR-124 (District of Wisconsin, filed July 11, 2017).

With the help of Klein and his team, Hutchins was sentenced to one year of supervised release and no prison time.

"We were able to get the result we got because we worked very hard to develop the arguments that resonated most with the prosecutors and the judge," Klein said. "We were fierce advocates for Marcus."

Baker said the firm has proven itself capable of taking on large clients and important issues.

"Due to the quality of our work, the results we've achieved, we've continued to experience an increase in size and frequency of matters we're handling," Baker said. "The team that we've put together here has ... provided a platform for motivated and talented lawyers to join with us and expand their own practices."

"To me, it's more important in our firm how we grow, than how much we grow," Marquart said. "We're certainly willing to take on more talent, rather than less, but we're very careful about how we grow. We don't just want to be big. We've developed a good group of people that we consider family and we want to keep it that way."

Maintaining its reputation for top tier legal services is also important as the firm grows, the attorneys said.

"We want to continue to do excellent work for great clients and I think we'll continue to get bigger and more interesting cases," Baker said.

-- Alexandra Applegate