7-year malpractice suit against O’Melveny nears end

A nearly seven-year legal malpractice lawsuit against O'Melveny & Meyers LLP may finally end after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal on Friday upheld a district court ruling confirming an arbitration award in O'Melveny's favor.

A three-judge panel found former O'Melveny client Jeffrey Golden, the Chapter 7 trustee of the now defunct research and management firm Aletheia, had failed to show that the arbitrator who ruled against him was biased or "manifestly disregarded" the law.

Golden also said arbitrator Gary A. Feess of Phillips ADR Enterprises in Corona Del Mar ruled against him for a personal reason. Golden said after he raised concerns about Feess' son applying for a job at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP -- the firm representing O'Melveny -- Gibson Dunn decided not to interview the young lawyer.

Unanimously ruling without oral arguments, 9th Circuit Judges Richard Paez, Consuelo M. Callahan and Mark J. Bennett -- like U.S. District Judge Christina Snyder before them -- said Golden had not established specific facts indicating actual bias.

"Nothing in the record suggests that the arbitrator held anything against Golden because of the arbitrator's son not receiving employment offers from firms involved in this litigation," the panel's memorandum stated.

Representing O'Melveny, Kevin Rosen of Gibson Dunn said O'Melveny's work was "exemplary," and he was pleased the lengthy legal proceedings "have now fully and finally confirmed that fact."

"We are grateful the 9th Circuit unanimously rejected the trustee's scurrilous claims so promptly," Rosen said in an interview Friday. "An arbitrator, a district court judge, and now three 9th Circuit judges all have concluded that the trustee's arguments were meritless."

The lawsuit filed in 2014 said O'Melveny ignored a conflict of interest in its dual representation of Aletheia and its founder, disgraced securities trader Peter J. Eichler Jr.

Golden said that O'Melveny and two of its attorneys, J. Jorge deNeve and Steven J. Olson, engaged in "actual conflict of interest that existed as to the attorneys' joint representation of the debtor and the debtor's former co-founder." Golden v. O'Melveny & Meyers LLP, 2:14-cv-08725-CAS-AGR (C.D. Cal., filed Nov. 10, 2014).

Feess, Snyder, and the circuit panel found Golden's arguments unpersuasive.

Golden's counsel, Brutzkus Gubner partner Jerrold L. Bregman, argued the arbitration award should be vacated because it "violates California public policy."

The circuit panel suggested that though public policy might be a valid ground for vacatur of an arbitration award under the Federal Arbitration Act, it did not invoke it here "because we find Golden's public policy argument an unpersuasive effort to relitigate the arbitrator's finding."

"Here, the arbitrator thoroughly considered the relevant California precedents in his 137-page decision, and we find no instances where he manifestly disregarded or misapplied them," the panel wrote.

Bregman did not provide a response by deadline Friday.