Tamara S. Freeze

Freeze is the managing partner of the plaintiff-side boutique she founded in 2013. Over the past two years she has obtained positive results for clients in whistleblower retaliation matters and Sarbanes-Oxley retaliation claims. In one success in March 2021, she secured a $500,000 confidential pre-litigation settlement for a client who alleged sexual harassment by one of the owners of an auto dealership.

“I survived the pandemic, and now I’m watching the arrival of a very busy, a crushing explosion, an onslaught of employment litigation,” she said.

In July 2020, Freeze filed a highly-publicized suit against social media influencer, movie actor and cannabis company CEO Dan Blizerian on behalf of a fired executive who challenged the company’s business expenses as excessive and was fired for it. The suit alleges whistleblower retaliation and defamation. Heffernan v. Ignite International Inc., 20STCV25549 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed July 7, 2020).

Freeze’s complaint caught the media’s attention with claims that Blizerian charged his company $100,000 for a flight from Las Vegas to London, $18,000 for liquor for a Valentine party and many thousands on transportation of “models” as his “guests.” It also detailed Blizerian’s business spending of $40,000 on a rock climbing wall plus $75,000 for a paint ball field, $45,000 for a game room and $50,000 for a bed frame.

In February 2021 the court denied Blizerian’s anti-SLAPP motion, after Freeze pointed out that in 2019 the state Supreme Court held in Wilson v. Cable News Network that an employee termination was not an issue of public interest within the meaning of the anti-SLAPP statute.

“I’m seeking about $100,000 in attorney fees for the delay caused by the motion.” Freeze said. “Of course, he’s appealing the denial, and that has delayed out December trial date. Delay at all costs might be his strategy. Let me put it this way: litigating with a respected businessman could be like playing chess with a grand master. Litigating with a celebrity is like playing checkers with a five-year-old. He’ll never admit he’s wrong.”

Amid the pandemic, Freeze researched wellness issues for the Consumer Attorney Association of Los Angeles, focusing on attorney mental health. She followed up with an article for Advocate magazine titled “The phone, the fridge and the liquor cabinet, the dark side of working from home” on the dangerous temptations that can derail careers.

“At first everyone thought it was so great to get to be home all the time,” Freeze said. “But then I saw depression among my peers, with easy access to alcohol and social media and all kinds of online distractions, from stock trading to porn.”

Freeze said she was mostly too busy to have problems, “though I did disable my Facebook and stopped posting on Instagram. It was therapeutic to write about it. I got strong positive feedback from lawyers and The Other Bar,” an attorney addiction support group.

“We put together a Webinar and 100 people attended,” she said.

— John Roemer