Rafey S. Balabanian

Balabanian, Edelson’s managing partner and the director of its nationwide litigation practice, moved West from Chicago in 2016 to open the firm’s California shop. “Given our focus on privacy and tech, it was untenable not to have a full-scale office here,” he said. He has been appointed lead class counsel in more than two dozen class actions in state and federal courts.

He has been appointed to the executive committee for the NCAA concussion cases, an MDL behemoth that is one of the largest class actions pending in the U.S.

Balabanian added that living in California had long been a goal. “From the time I was a kid, it was a dream.”

As lead class counsel, he’s still litigating the defendant’s appeal of his $925 million jury verdict in the largest privacy case in the U.S. He and his team successfully certified a class of one million consumers who alleged that a multilevel marketing company known for its dietary supplement products violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act by making unsolicited robocalls to class members’ phones. Wakefield v. ViSalus Inc., 3:15-cv-01857 (D. Ore., filed Oct. 1, 2015).

After a three-day trial, the jury held that ViSalus had made 1,850,440 telemarketing calls using an artificial or prerecorded voice to mobile or residential phones. In February 2021, U.S. District Judge Michael H. Simon of Portland, Ore., denied ViSalus’ post-trial motions; the case now moves to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Balabanian served on the committee of tort claimants in the PG&E Co bankruptcy case, which secured an historic $13.5 billion settlement for victims of the California wildfires sparked by the utility’s equipment.

“We had a significant hand in the PG&E matter, representing about 1,000 individuals in the Camp Fire case.”

He also sought to bring to account the once-powerful plaintiff attorney Thomas V. Girardi, after discovering that Girardi had misappropriated client funds that were supposed to go to the victims of Lion Air flight 610, which crashed into the Java Sea in 2018.

— John Roemer