Patricia L. Glaser

LOS ANGELES - As lead name partner and chair of the litigation department, Patricia L. Glaser said she and her colleagues at Glaser Weil Fink Howard Avchen & Shapiro LLP are ready to try almost any kind of business dispute.

But that doesn't mean she can discuss them all. "There are a lot of high-profile people I can't talk about," she said. "Beyond that, there are a lot of people who aren't well known who have legal problems, too."

One current client with a boldface name: Swedish-American actor Joel Kinnaman, who starred in "Suicide Squad" and "House of Cards," retained Glaser to get him a temporary restraining order against Swedish model Gabriella Magnusson, known professionally as Bella Davis, in connection with an alleged extortion attempt over claims of sexual assault. Kinnaman v. Magnusson, 21STRO04127 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Aug. 6, 2021).

Kinnaman asserted in published reports that he had "a brief romantic relationship" with Magnusson in 2018 and that she later "resorted to threatening to publicize false information about me--including that I had sex with her against her will--unless I capitulated to her demands." Mangnusson, who alleged that Kinnaman raped her, denied having threatened Kinnaman or asked for money.

Glaser said she and her firm had mounted a multi-faceted defense that required coordination with counsel in Sweden, where Magnusson lives. The TRO, which Glaser successfully petitioned the court to make permanent in March 2022, prohibits Magnusson from contacting or coming within 100 yards of Kinnaman.

Kinnaman is just one of a Walk of Fame's worth of Hollywood figures who have sought help from Glaser, from Paula Deen to Republic Records president Charlie Walk to Conan O'Brien to former Universal Pictures executive Josh Goldstine.

That's not all she does, of course. "I am blessed with an eclectic business practice," she said. "The bottom line is that from banks to movie stars to TV stars to many, many others, whether a case has pizzaz or not is not how we decide which cases to handle."

She even gets involved in bankruptcy law, as she did for billionaire client Ron Burkle's private equity firm, Yucaipa Companies, LLC, in defense of claims by the trustee for debtor Allied Systems. ASHINC Corp. Debtor, 1:12-bk-11564 (Del. Bankr. Ct., filed May 17, 2012).

Glaser worked with more experienced colleagues, but found her status as a generalist useful. "I'm not a bankruptcy lawyer, so I'm entitled to ask all the stupid questions," she said, adding that about half her queries proved useful to the litigation. "I don't care about looking stupid if I get to the right result.