Jennifer L. Keller

Jennifer L. Keller is a managing partner at Keller/Anderle LLP and one of the country’s most successful trial lawyers with two high-profile jury trial wins in recent months — for MGA Entertainment Inc. and for actor Kevin Spacey — and a big new $100 million trial over a cancer test upcoming.

In her current work, Keller teams up with Keller/Anderle partner Chase A. Scolnick, who joined the firm in 2017 after working as a federal defender for a dozen years. “I asked some federal judges who was the brightest young defense lawyer and they all said Chase, so I recruited him,” Keller said.

In March, the Keller-Scolnick team will represent the maker of a cancer-detecting test as the plaintiff in a $100 million lawsuit against a rival test-maker that allegedly sought to undercut the plaintiff with an ad campaign. Guardant Health Inc. v. Natera, Inc., 3:21-cv-04062 (N.D. Cal., filed May 27, 2021).

“Natera saw [Guardant’s test] Reveal as a mortal threat, so Natera blanketed the oncology market with negative and false comparative ads,” Keller said. “So we sued them. This litigation is necessary to set the record straight.”

In early January, Keller said she was immersed in the technology involved in the case. “This is one of the top reasons I wanted to be a lawyer: You’re paid to learn fascinating science. The other side tried to destroy the marketability of our product. We look forward to vindicating it.”

In May 2023, Keller, Scolnick and colleagues persuaded jurors to return a plaintiff verdict in about two hours for client MGA Entertainment after it sued for a declaration that its line of fashion dolls does not infringe on the defendants’ trademark rights.

The plaintiffs, rapper T.I. Harris and the OMG Girlz, had asked for more than $300 million in damages and a percentage of future sales. MGA Entertainment Inc. v. Harris et al., 2:20-cv-11548 (C.D. Cal., filed Dec. 22, 2020).

After MGA’s chief executive mentioned on the witness stand that it had cost the company a lot of money to litigate the matter, jurors began deliberations by sending out a note asking the judge whether they could award attorney fees. “That’s the kind of note you like to see,” Keller said.

Some weeks after the trial, the judge ruled that the case must be retried due to an intervening U.S. Supreme Court case.

“We have withdrawn, but I expect new counsel will have a very good result, as did we,” Keller said.

—John Roemer