Moez M. Kaba

Los Angeles

Trials & Complex Civil Litigation

Moez M. Kaba is a co-founder and a courtroom star at Hueston Hennigan LLP. This year, in the wake of his $293 million false advertising win for Monster Energy and other high-profile triumphs in 2022, he was voted managing partner of the firm.

More work? "The prize for winning a pie-eating contest is you get more pie," Kaba laughed.

The son of working-class Pakistani immigrants, Kaba was born in Chicago after his parents overstayed their visas and later attained legal status in President Ronald Reagan's 1986 amnesty grant. His father drove a taxi; his mother cleaned factory floors. Kaba is the first in his family to attend college.

He won an award in tort law at Columbia Law School, then clerked for Judge Raymond C. Fisher of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Kaba's success for his commercial clients parallels his pro bono work. As an out gay man, he helps with LGBTQ+ advocacy. As a Muslim, he fought off a threatened ban on an anti-Islamophobia program in San Diego schools. And when authorities shut down a hotline for persons in immigration detention, he sued ICE and got the hotline restored.

"My great professional joy is to take complex cases all the way through trial," Kaba said. "My great personal joy is to represent causes near to my heart."

Not every case makes it through trial when Kaba is at work. He and his Hueston Hennigan colleagues parachuted in, replacing a major law firm, on the eve of jury selection as their financial institution client faced a $50 million claim of fraudulent inducement and breach of contract in a credit card partnership agreement. But after Kaba's opening statement and his cross-examination of the plaintiff's corporate representative, the plaintiff significantly lowered its settlement demand. The matter settled for even less than that. RevPAR Collective, Inc. et al. v. Synchrony Financial, CGC-18-56687 (S.F. Super. Ct., filed May 10, 2018).

"We later learned from the jury that my opening and cross provided a compelling defense for our client," Kaba said. "Our theme was that our client had acted properly in our relationship and had been deceived."

He obtained a similar outcome mid-trial for his health care client as it faced demands for hundreds of millions of dollars in alleged underpayments. Again replacing another firm, Kaba made an opening statement, cross-examined several witnesses and obtained a favorable settlement. Los Robles Regional Medical Center v. Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc., RG17880285 (Alameda Co. Super. Ct., filed Oct. 26, 2017).

"My aim always is to tell our story through their witnesses and to keep impeachment very tight," Kaba said. "It only works because of our amazing colleagues and staff. I'm the conductor, but they drive the train."

--John Roemer