Bethany W. Kristovich

High-stakes civil litigation doesn’t come much more fraught than two current cases on Kristovich’s docket. One is her defense of MGM Resorts International in the 2017 Mandalay Bay mass shooting. The other involves her defense of the law firm in the crosshairs of a billion-dollar malpractice claim by its former client, CashCall Inc.

The Munger Tolles partner said she relishes those and other complex challenges, which typically involve professional responsibility, consumer protection, product defect and personal injury matters.

“It’s an honor to work on those cases—they’re right in my wheelhouse,” she said. “I get to try to find creative solutions when conventional litigation isn’t enough.”

In the MGM Resorts matter, a Nevada state court judge on Sept. 30, 2020, signed off on an $800 million settlement on the eve of the third anniversary of the Oct. 1, 2017 shooting in which a lone gunman killed 60 people and injured more than 800 before killing himself in his 32d floor suite at the Mandalay Bay Hotel. The settlement closes out 4,069 claims after lengthy litigation that included Kristovich’s controversial countersuit against plaintiffs. Sheppard v. Mandalay Bay LLC, A-18-769752 (Clark Co. Dist. Ct., filed Feb. 16, 2018).

The countersuit, Kristovich said, was designed to consolidate the claims and remove the cases to federal court under the never-before-litigated Safety Act of 2002, a law passed in the wake of 9/11 that shields from state liability companies using security technology certified by the Department of Homeland Security for adequately protecting against mass injury. “That was a novel, creative and aggressive approach,” said Kristovich, who said she arrived at the plan when her team noticed that the security services employed by the resort had the required DHS certification.

“We looked at what that meant and saw it could be useful. We knew there’d be heat over the action, but MGM’s legal team courageously looked at our long term goal of getting everyone in the same venue. It was very unpopular, but it got every litigant into a manageable unit. The settlement wouldn’t have happened without it.”

Kristovich cited the words of a leading plaintiffs lawyer in the case, Robert T. Eglet of Las Vegas’ Law Office of Eglet Adams, who was quoted as praising MGM over the settlement and adding he had not believed its claim that the countersuit was designed to aid the deal. “But I was wrong. I was wrong.”

In the CashCall case, Kristovich is defending the lender’s former law firm for $1 billion over alleged malpractice in a faulty consumer lender scheme. A trial is set for next year. CashCall Inc. v. Katten Munchen Rosenman LLP, 2017-00914968 (O.C. Super. Ct., filed April 14, 2017).

“Clients engage in risky business decisions, and when they don’t pan out they turn around and point the finger at their lawyers,” Kristovich said.

— John Roemer