Daniel M. Petrocelli

LOS ANGELES - Daniel M. Petrocelli's first job after college was as an internal auditor for a bank. "It's what inspired me in part to seek a different profession," he said. So about 45 years ago, he enrolled in Southwestern University's evening law school.

Today, he is vice chair of O'Melveny and the chair of its trial practice, and he insists on handling a wide variety of litigation. In the past year, his work has ranged from insurance coverage cases to white-collar criminal matters and from antitrust issues to family trust litigation, plus "all manner of disputes in the entertainment industry," he said.

Even the entertainment cases run the gamut "from a defamation case involving a national news broadcast to claims for profitparticipation" and allegations of executive poaching, Petrocelli said.

He also has cases all over the country, several of them followed closely in the press.

Last spring, he defended a Chubb entity in a jury trial that concluded two decades of litigation over insurance coverage for a Brooklyn gas company's remediation of soil contamination dating back to the early turn of the previous century. Soon after, he was in Washington, D.C., representing the company that owns Penguin/Random House in a trial about whether the Justice Department could block its $2.2 billion purchase of Simon & Schuster. U.S. v. Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA, 1:21-cv-02886 (D. D.C., filed Nov. 2, 2021).

In a very high-profile case in New York scheduled to go to trial in July, he represents the singer Kesha against a defamation action by her former record producer Dr. Luke, who she claims sexually assaulted her. She has counterclaimed under the state's anti-SLAPP statute. Petrocelli said several issues in the case are currently on appeal in New York's highest court, the Court of Appeals.

He is the lead trial counsel defending rap star Travis Scott in hundreds of injury lawsuits filed in state court in Houston over the crowd crush at Scott's 2021 Astroworld Festival in which 10 people died.

In Maryland, he was recently brought in to represent a party in a family dispute over the estate of the ailing Peter Angelos, the owner of the Baltimore Orioles and the mid-Atlantic Sports Network.

Petrocelli has a trial set for March in Houston representing another Chubb entity against a real estate business seeking payment for losses it suffered during the pandemic. "There are disputes about whether such claims are covered by insurance policies, and our firm is very much involved in representing Chubb in these cases," he said.

And he will represent NBCUniversal in a new jury trial set for September over profit participation in the classic TV show "Columbo." Foxcroft Productions Inc. v. Universal City Studios LLC, BC683206 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Nov. 14, 2017).

"I have a full caseload of trials and arbitrations this year that are going to keep me extremely occupied," Petrocelli said.