Mark C. Holscher

Los Angeles

Litigation

Mark C. Holscher has a history of winning big cases from both the defense and plaintiff sides, with awards totaling more than $1.5 billion during the past five years.

The former federal prosecutor takes on the nation's biggest cases, ranging from entertainment to environmental disasters to social issues.

"We're lucky in the sense we have lots of different cases in different areas," said Holscher, a partner at Kirkland & Ellis. "I've been doing educational civil rights cases for about 15, 20 years and yeah, it's been a huge deal."

One of his most high-profile cases is a civil rights class action against the Los Angeles Unified School District for adopting a distance learning policy during the yearlong COVID-19 shutdown that allegedly put minority and low-income children at a disadvantage because many had no internet access.

"It's a case we're really committed to," Holscher said. "Statistics indicate that the scores for black, Latino and poor students dropped during the remote learning materially, and they didn't have enough classroom hours. They didn't have the technology, they didn't have the outreach."

Another case that recently wrapped up involved civil and criminal charges against Amplify Energy, which owns an oil pipeline off the coast of Orange County where a massive spill shut down an international air show in 2021. Holscher showed that the breach was caused by ship anchors and Amplify was reimbursed $96.5 million for lost business.

"It's an interesting practice that ranges from plaintiff's contingency work to corporate criminal defense and SEC and everything in between and False Claim Act cases," he said.

--Tori Richards