Jan N. Little

Little is a highly regarded attorney representing businesses and executives in high-stakes criminal matters and in complex civil litigation.

Currently, she is defending several individuals and businesses in a wide variety of matters being investigated by federal prosecutors and regulators. Two clients are being looked at regarding possible political corruption while another faces potential criminal tax charges. A fourth client was an executive at a national financial institution that is now under criminal and regulatory investigation. And she is representing a national distributor in a regulatory probe.

Several large, complex cases she has been working on for several years largely wrapped up in 2021.

In January, she settled six years of tangled, multi-state litigation against billionaire venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, the co-founder of Sun Microsystems Inc., with no finding of liability. The state of Mississippi and other investors in a clean-energy biofuels startup called KiOR Inc. had sued him and other insiders when the company failed. Hood ex rel State of Mississippi v Cannon, 1:15-cv-17, (Hinds Circ. Ct., filed Jan. 13, 2015). She had persuaded a Texas court to dismiss a related lawsuit in 2016.

Last year, Florida’s appellate courts affirmed her summary judgment victories defending a major liquor distributor in antitrust litigation. This summer, she obtained a costs judgment of $750,626 in the seven-year-old case, and she now is litigating to get necessary financial documents from the plaintiff. Weisman v. Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits, 50-2014-CA-010213-XXXX-MB AD (Palm Beach Co Circ. Ct., filed Aug. 19, 2014).

“Complicated cases do tend to last over many years,” Little said about those two cases.

In a new matter, she and partner John W. Keker are representing real estate magnate Victor Markas. He is charged with allegedly conspiring with Harlan Kelly, the former head of San Francisco’s Public Utilities Commission, to submit a false loan application for the refinancing of his house. U.S. v. Kelly, 3:21-cr-00402 (N.D. Cal., filed Oct. 19, 2021).

In September, she took part in an in-person trial. All participants wore masks, jurors sat socially distanced in the gallery and witnesses testified from behind a plexiglass barrier. “It was very surreal,” said Little, who was local counsel in the dispute over some Seattle real estate. The case settled during jury deliberations. Ceadaigh IV v. Mayfield Investment Co., 20-CIV-02850 (S. Mateo Super Ct., filed July 13, 2020).

Little said she continues to enjoy her work. “Every case is different. You get to learn a new industry and learn a different area of law,” she said. “It’s what keeps it fresh and interesting even after all these years.”

- Don DeBenedictis