Elizabeth Pipkin 

When it comes to high-stakes legal matters, McManis Faulkner’s Elizabeth Pipkin is considered one of the premier go-to lawyers. She has a wealth of experience in handling complex technology cases, trade secrets and business-entangled family law. Her expertise in these areas has earned her a reputation as a legal heavyweight.

She was recently retained by Seagate for numerous confidential matters, bringing a new approach to a class action case revived by a Court of Appeal ruling. Pipkin’s team quickly analyzed the key issues and developed a strategy for moving to decertify the class, which had been certified in 2017.

On Aug. 10, 2022, the Court granted Seagate’s motion to decertify, ending litigation that had been pending since 2015. Pipkin and her team are currently defending the judgment on appeal. Pozar/Nalick v. Seagate Technology, CGC- 15-547787 (S.F. Super. Ct., filed Sept. 4, 2015).

“The case had already gone up on appeal once and was sent back to the trial court. Seagate wanted us to come in and look at it with fresh eyes,” Pipkin said. “We looked through years of material. The team quickly got up to speed and was able to identify the key issues. We filed a motion to decertify the class, which the Court had certified back in 2017.”

Pipkin said the unfair competition law claim was based on alleged omissions in Seagate marketing materials.

“We filed the decertification motion because the testing characteristics of these particular drives were inconsistent over time. Thankfully, the court agreed with us and decertified the class, which was the right result,” she added.

To remain competitive, Pipkin believes that lawyers must also evolve in order to keep up with technological advancements.

“The practice of law, in some ways, is now the practice of technology. Technology is constantly evolving,” she said. “It is important that as lawyers, and especially women lawyers, we are well versed in technology because sometimes it’s assumed we don’t know anything about that technology, and sometimes we have to prove that we do.”

— Douglas Saunders