Jennifer L. Keller  

Jennifer L. Keller describes her firm’s practice as one that will take cases to trial. All sorts of cases.

“We just have such an interesting practice because we try anything that might go to a trial,” she said. She and her colleagues are currently handling trade secrets, probate and legal malpractice matters. And she recently successfully defended two well-known celebrities in sexual battery cases.

“It’s what keeps me so interested,” Keller said. “I think we have as varied a practice as anybody you’re ever going to find.”

Formerly a top Orange County criminal defense attorney, she gained fame in civil litigation when she successfully defended toy maker MGA’s Bratz Dolls in drawn-out litigation against Mattel.

Late last month, she brought in a defense jury verdict for the company again, this time against a much less well-known opponent. MGA Entertainment Inc. v. Harris, 2:20-cv-11548 (C.D. Cal., filed Dec. 22, 2020).

Rapper Clifford “T.I.” Harris and his wife Tameka “Tiny” Harris alleged MGA’s successful L.O.L. Surprise! O.M.G. fashion doll line infringed trademarks and trade dress of the Atlanta-based trio OMG Girlz that the couple manages. One big problem with the case, according to Keller, is that outside of Atlanta, no one has heard of the group.

“In jury selection, when people were asked if anybody had heard of T.I. and Tiny, a number of hands went up.” But when asked who had heard of OMG Girlz, “not a single hand went up,” she said.

Although the jury deliberated less than a day, the trial had complications, including a mistrial in January. “The case has illustrated the decline of civility among lawyers, I think,” Keller said.

What she describes as her most interesting current case is a very different sort of intellectual property dispute. She represents the two founders of Guardant Health in a trade secrets and patent suit brought by Illumina. Illumina, Inc. v. Guardant Health, Inc., 1:22-cv-00334 (D.Del., March 17, 2022).

Keller said her clients developed the first liquid biopsy to detect colon cancer. So the case is exciting to her because their technology “is so critical to just about everybody on earth. They’re in the vanguard … of targeted medicine.”

In October, Keller won a defense jury verdict for actor Kevin Spacey against years-old sexual battery allegations. Rapp v. Fowler, 1:20-cv-09586 (S.D. N.Y., filed Sept. 9, 2020).

Last month, she successfully defended Snoop Dogg against a similar claim when the accuser failed to file an amended complaint.

Currently, she is defending a New York-based Arnold & Porter partner in a trusts and estates lawsuit in San Mateo Superior Court. Keller said a son of the late real estate billionaire Sanford Diller alleges the lawyer “helped deprive him of this massive fortune he was supposedly getting instead of the $5.5 million he actually got.”

The couple left the bulk of their fortune to charity “exactly where the Dillers always told all three of their children it would go.” Diller v. Richardson, 18-PRO-001127 (San Mateo Super. Ct., filed Oct. 12, 2018).

— Don DeBenedictis