Joseph R. Saveri

San Francisco

Litigation

Traditional plaintiff-side antitrust cases remain prominently on the docket of Joseph Saveri Law Firm LLP, the shop Saveri founded in 2012 after leaving his managing partner position at Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP.

Yet the 20-attorney Saveri boutique also handles novel matters like its suit against OpenAI and Meta Platforms, Inc. for allegedly misappropriating copyrighted material to train their large language models to mimic human intelligence.

Among Saveri's clients in the new litigation: Comedian Sarah Silverman and authors Christopher Golden and Richard Kadrey. "It's critical that we recognize and protect the rights of artists such as these against unlawful theft and fraud," Saveri said. Kadrey et al., v. Meta Platforms Inc., 3:23-cv-03417 (N.D. Cal., filed July 7, 2023).

Saveri's legal DNA runs deep in San Francisco's history of pioneering attorneys. His father and uncle, Richard Saveri and Guido Saveri, founded Saveri & Saveri Inc. in 1959, renting space from legendary trustbuster Joseph L. Alioto. Richard Saveri wrote the briefs from which Alioto argued a 1962 U.S. Supreme Court plaintiff antitrust landmark, Continental Ore.

"Now Joe's son, Joseph M. Alioto, and I are partnering to represent gamers in the Microsoft-Activision deal," Saveri said. Demartini et al. v. Microsoft Corp., 22-cv-08991 (N.D. Cal., filed Dec. 20, 2022).

In late August, Saveri was in Las Vegas, where a trial judge formally certified a class of professional mixed martial arts fighters who are suing the sport's Ultimate Fighting Championship organization in a case with up to $5 billion in alleged damages. Le v. Zuffa LLC, 2:15-cv-01045 (D. Nev., filed June 3, 2015).

"We have trials set for next year in the MMA case and in the cheer case," Saveri said, referring to his class action for competitive cheer families against defendants who allegedly conspired to raise, fix and stabilize prices associated with the sport. Jones et al. v. Varsity Brands et al., 2:20-cv-02892 (W.D. Tenn., filed Aug. 20, 2020).

"These cases are a continuation and an outgrowth of what we have done from the beginning," Saveri said.

This year, in a traditional antitrust matter, he completed settlements totaling $604.55 million for direct purchasers of electronic components. In re Capacitors Antitrust Litigation, 3:14-cv-02801 (N.D. Cal., filed July 18, 2014).

The new cases build on the old. "We are always looking to identify areas where people have been hurt and the law hasn't previously been applied. It's like when we were first with our no-poach cases -- we were able to apply antitrust principles where no one had before," Saveri said.

--John Roemer