Chase A. Scolnick

Irvine

Complex Commercial Litigation & Business Trials

From celebrity assault cases to doll disputes and billionaire bond kings behaving badly, Chase A. Scolnick enjoys trying a wide variety of cases.

As a partner at Keller/Anderle LLP in Irvine, Scolnick practices complex civil and criminal litigation, though he began his career as a federal public defender in California and New York, where his reputation for trying and winning cases garnered him challenging charges such as drug smuggling, gang crimes, terrorism and organized crime of all stripes.

"I was more aggressive than my colleagues as far as taking cases to trial," he said. "If there was justice to be done, I mean real justice, it had to come from a jury."

More recently, he was co-lead counsel with Jennifer Keller as they defended Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey in the Southern District of New York against sexual assault charges, which had derailed the actor's career. The jury unanimously found Spacey not liable, and the transcripts of Scolnick's cross-examination of a famous psychologist have been used to impeach her in a number of other cases.

"She was forced to admit on the stand that in her many years as a forensic psychologist and counselor, that she had never seen an alleged abuse victim that she did not believe, which was devastating to her credibility," he said.

A very different set of circumstances led Scolnick to serve as lead counsel defending technology entrepreneur Mark Towfiq and his wife Carol Nakahara in a dispute with their next-door neighbor, PIMCO founder Bill Gross.

After Gross erected a large netted art installation that violated Laguna Beach's city code, Towfiq submitted a complaint to the city. In retaliation, Gross began blasting television theme songs from shows such as "Gilligan's Island" on a loop at extremely high volume.

"Mr. Gross's response was, in essence, if you drop your complaint with the city, then I'll turn it down. Otherwise, get used to the loud music," Scolnick said.

After restraining orders and a highly publicized bench trial, which involved psychoacoustic witnesses from NASA, the judge found Gross and his girlfriend guilty and sentenced them to five days in jail, also requiring them to remove the netting and limit the lighting surrounding the glass sculpture.

-Kathryn Stelmach Artuso