Bethany W. Kristovich

Kristovich thrives on what she calls “a practice that has no defined characteristics other than sticky problems.”

Those problems are the cases in which the usual approaches to litigation just won’t work for her clients, she said. Instead, she must devise creative, out-of-the-box approaches to untangle them, she said.

For instance, there is what at first glance appeared to be an ordinary lawsuit about trade secrets and employees lured away to a competitor. Kristovich represents the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa suing another Atlantic City hotel.

Kristovich secured an injunction from a federal judge in Nevada, split two individual defendants off to arbitration and transferred the case against the competitor to New Jersey, where she added a racketeering claim. Marina District Development Co. LLC v. AC Ocean Walk LLC, 1:20-cv-15719, (D. N.J., filed Nov. 9, 2020).

In another case, she represents a large law firm sued for malpractice. In March, she convinced a discovery referee that the firm’s dissatisfied client fabricated a key document needed to prove damages. A hearing on terminating sanctions is set for October. Dorey v. Reed Smith LLP, SC128612 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Dec. 27, 2017).

In August, she will go to trial to defend another big firm against a $1 billion malpractice claim by a large lender that blames it for widespread losses. CashCall Inc. v. Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP, 30-2017-00914968, (O.C. Super. Ct., filed April 14, 2017).

The best example of her out-of-the-box approach to litigation, however, remains the countersuit she filed for MGM Resorts against victims of the mass shooting at the company’s Mandalay Bay Resort in 2017.

That highly controversial action eventually made possible the $800 million settlement announced in September for about 4,400 survivors and family members, she said. She has spent much of the past year helping to get the deal approved and operating. MGM Resorts International v. Acosta, 2:18-cv-01288 (D. Nev., filed July 13, 2018).

— Don DeBenedictis