Wayne R. Gross

Los Angeles & Costa Mesa

Bet-the-Company Litigation & Trial

Before co-founding his firm with Alan A. Greenberg in 2013, Wayne R. Gross joined the Central District U.S. attorney's office and stayed for almost 18 years, eventually heading the Orange County office. He developed an ethos of seeing cases as a matter of good versus evil.

"And once you've been a prosecutor, you carry that with you for the rest of your career," he said. "It informs your narratives in civil litigation, too."

Today, the Greenberg Gross shop is up to 20-plus lawyers. It has opened outposts in New York and Las Vegas and pushed beyond business cases into work with broader social implications.

That work started with Gross' determination to force city officials in San Francisco to clean up the Tenderloin neighborhood surrounding his old law school, formerly known as Hastings College of the Law.

The resulting lawsuit settled with a stipulated injunction requiring the city to reduce homeless tent camps and provide free COVID testing for residents. Hastings College of the Law et al., v. City and County of San Francisco, 4:20-cv-03033 (N.D. Cal., filed May 4, 2020).

In March 2023, Gross' client, the musical artist Phoebe Bridgers, was awarded $496,000 in attorney fees and costs and dismissal of a defamation suit against her. Gross' successful anti-SLAPP motion resulted in one of the largest such fee awards by a California court. Nelson v. Bridgers, 21STCV35635 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Sept. 28, 2021).

In a more traditional case, Gross represented a business client who was the victim of a massive fraud; the perpetrator sued for an alleged earned payout of $50 million. After three years of litigation and a 15-day arbitration, a retired judge awarded Gross' client $48 million in damages plus $22 million in costs. Petruss Media Group LLC v. Advantage Sales & Marketing LLC et al., 01-19-0002-7532 (AAA, filed Sept. 3, 2019).

"It's a good case to illustrate what this firm brings to the table -- an ability to use our prosecutorial skills to good effect in a civil case with wrongdoing on the other side," Gross said.

--John Roemer