Camille M. Vasquez

IRVINE - Camille M. Vasquez is a freshly minted Brown Rudnick LLP partner in the firm's litigation and arbitration practice group. She was elevated in June 2022, not long after she and the Brown Rudnick team won a $15 million jury verdict for actor Johnny Depp in his defamation trial against ex-wife and actress Amber Heard.

Vasquez focuses on high-stakes disputes, including defamation cases, contract issues, business-related torts and employment claims.

She is the American-born daughter of immigrants from Columbia and Cuba. "It's a cliché, but my sister became a doctor and I became the lawyer because my mother always said I was a mouthy little child," she laughed. "But it's working out. Mom's always right."

While the parties in the Depp case are engaged in post-verdict jousting, Vasquez is proceeding with another major matter: a $250 million libel and slander case on behalf of a Venezuelan businessman against Fox News Network, LLC, political commentator Lou Dobbs and attorney Sidney Powell. The complaint alleges the defendants falsely and "xenophobically" linked her client to voter fraud claims in the 2020 U.S. presidential election involving Smartmatic and Dominion voting machines. Khalil v. Fox Corp. et al., 1:21-cv-10248 (S.D. N.Y., filed Dec. 2, 2021).

The defendants claimed that plaintiff Majed Khalil was the "COO" of an alleged Venezuelan election scam using the voting machines to siphon off votes from then-President Donald J. Trump.

"Plaintiffs submit that the Defendants' conduct... reflected xenophobia in its worst and most dangerous form; that his name was, regrettably, selected because he was Venezuelan and had a foreign-sounding name which would be a nice addition to the Fox defendants' already over-the-top bogus claims about the election designed to drive ire, viewership and profits," Vasquez and her team wrote in court papers.

"This is a fascinating case," Vasquez said. "Our client has been defamed--I don't care who you voted for. He was dragged into accusations of what amounts to domestic terrorism." Fox's dismissal motion is pending.

In the Depp case, she worked long associate's hours--billing 400 hours in one of the months leading up to trial. There were 50 motions in limine and more than 1,500 exhibits. "It was the most intense three months of my life," she said.

In mid-July, the judge in the case rejected Heard's motion to set aside the verdict. It was Vasquez' work that persuaded the jury to largely side with Depp, according to a legal expert quoted by Newsweek, who cited Vasquez' "quickfire objections and unrelenting cross-examination of Heard."

Vasquez said Heard "refused to take responsibility for anything." And even though "Johnny Depp isn't everyone's cup of tea, he did not do the things he was accused of. I try to pick clients where a wrong has been committed. I'm about the truth," Vasquez said.