Camille M. Vasquez 

Camille M. Vasquez is a partner in Brown Rudnick LLP’s litigation and arbitration practice group and co-chair of the firm’s brand and reputation management group. She joined the firm in 2018 as an associate.

She focuses on high-stakes disputes, often involving marquee show business names, that include defamation cases, contract issues, business-related torts and employment claims. The Daily Journal named her to its Top Forty Under 40 list in 2022.

Vasquez skyrocketed to prominence — and was promoted to partner — by helping Brown Rudnick obtain a $15 million jury verdict for actor Johnny Depp in June 2022 in his defamation trial against his ex-wife Amber Heard.

Vasquez met Depp as the only female member of his legal team in an earlier dispute with his former business manager; Depp then asked Vasquez to join the defamation team. Vasquez’ cross-examination of Heard in the live-streamed case won her accolades. Depp v. Heard, 2019-02911 (Cir. Ct. of Fairfax Cty., Va., filed March 1, 2019).

Both sides appealed and the matter settled on confidential terms. “Ms. Heard paid Mr. Depp, and Mr. Depp couldn’t be more pleased,” Vasquez said.

The case earned Vasquez a Wikipedia entry that noted a hashtag of her name received more than 980 million impressions on TikTok.

Big cases continue to come her way. In mid-May, Vasquez launched her defense of Mexican pop star Gloria Trevi, newly accused in a sex cult matter dating from the 1990s under California’s “look-back” window for filing otherwise time-barred claims. Jane Doe K.C. et al. v. Gloria De Los Angeles Trevino Ruiz aka Gloria Trevi et al., 22GDCV01128 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Dec. 30, 2022).

Vasquez’s motion to strike the complaint asserts that Trevi was a victim 30 years ago of “one of the world’s true monsters,” her former manager, Sergio Andrade, who is also named in the lawsuit and who has been convicted in Mexico of rape and other crimes.

“It is regrettable that plaintiffs have chosen to target a woman who suffered the very abuses they allege instead of focusing on the actual abuser,” Vasquez wrote.

Earlier this year, Vasquez won dismissal of all charges before trial for actress Q’orianka Kilcher, accused of workers’ compensation insurance fraud after she was injured in Australia during the filming of “Dora and the Lost City of Gold.” Kilcher collected about $96,000 in disability benefits; officials said she had filmed scenes for the television series “Yellowstone” before receiving the money.

“The Department of Insurance decided to make an example of her, but she retained us and we presented our defense to the D.A. and they saw the error of their ways,” Vasquez said.

— John Roemer