Clifford H. Pearson

Pearson, who founded his class action boutique with Daniel L. Warshaw in 2006, is often the only one in the Sherman Oaks office these days. Bruce L. Simon, who joined a year later and worked out of San Francisco, now is semi-retired and most of the firm’s 14 other lawyers and its staff work from elsewhere during the pandemic. “I check the mail and put the paper in the copy machine,” he laughed. “I recall when I started as a young lawyer in 1983 you had two secretaries to take dictation. Today you multitask.”

The remote distribution of his colleagues and the other disruptions wrought by Covid haven’t cut into Pearson Simon’s litigation successes.

In February, he and co-counsel partly settled for $170 million a major antitrust case against the poultry industry on claims that major producers conspired to ace out small competitors. The deal covered six defendants; 14 others remain in the litigation. In re: Broiler Chicken Antitrust Litigation, 1:16-cv-08637 (D. Ill., filed Sept. 2, 2016).

In March, U.S. District Judge Lucy H. Koh of San Jose granted final approval of an $18 million class settlement with Apple Inc. over claims the tech giant disabled its FaceTime app on earlier phone models to force users to upgrade. Grace v. Apple Inc., 5:17-cv-00551 (N.D. Cal., filed Feb. 2, 2017).

In April, two defendants agreed to pay $107 million to settle similar claims against pork producers. Five defendants remain in the case. In re: Pork Antitrust Litigation, 18-cv-01776 (D. Minn., filed June 28, 2018).

In June, Pearson and colleagues settled for $31 million an antitrust suit against a leading beverage brewing system maker for engineering its machines to lock out unlicensed beverage pods. In re: Keurig Green Mountain Single-Serve Coffee Antitrust Litigation, 1:14-cv-04391 (S.D. N.Y., filed June 5. 2014).

Still on his docket are possible trials or settlements with remaining defendants in the pork and poultry cases and an upcoming trial date in another case over class action claims that Major League Baseball pays its minor leaguers less than minimum wage. Senne v. Office of the Commissioner of Baseball, 3:14-cv-00608 (N.D. Cal., filed Feb. 7, 2014).

Pearson said he couldn’t get far without the support of the lawyers in his firm. “Kudos to the young attorneys. I just happen to be the guy whose name is first here.”

- John Roemer