Alumni Network Newsletter
Table of Contents
-
Celebrating Our Inaugural Issue by Hailyn Chen and Malcolm Heinicke
-
An Author Among Us: World Citizen, Journeys of a Humanitarian by Jane Olson
A Welcome from Brad Brian
.jpg) |
| Brad Brian |
As Chair of MTO, I am thrilled to welcome all of you to this premier edition of the MTO Alumni Network Newsletter, one of several ways we hope to reconnect and stay in touch through our new alumni network initiative.
This new initiative is very meaningful to me. I have had the pleasure of practicing at MTO for several decades, and I have served as chair of the firm for four years. Throughout that time, I have had the satisfaction of working on the toughest matters of an amazing array of clients with some of the most remarkable lawyers in the country.
Many of those lawyers have remained at the firm throughout their careers and have flourished here. Others moved on to varied and distinguished careers in all areas of the law: private practice, in-house counsel, public service organizations, and government positions. Still others of you chose to follow pursuits outside the law, in business, journalism, and the arts, or personal endeavors in retirement. That fluidity and flexibility, combined with the diverse talents and interests of our lawyers, has been a defining attribute of our firm since its founding in 1962. It is one of the reasons I joined the firm, and it is a core value that continues to guide us into the future.
As the firm just celebrated its 60th anniversary last Fall, this could not be a more appropriate time to bring together all of us who have had the privilege of working as a lawyer at MTO, whether for a few months or for many years. The firm is, after all, the sum of all of us. As I have often said, I view everyone who has ever worked here as part of the MTO Family.
We should take advantage of the opportunity to continue to learn from one another, to share information about our professional lives and interests, to recognize our shared values and common history, and to enjoy one another’s company, both in person and virtually. There is no better way to recognize the fact that, as MTO faces the coming decades as one of the nation’s premier law firms, it does so as a result of the efforts, collaboration and contributions of everyone who worked here and the cumulative accomplishments of several generations of lawyers.
We are delighted to be reconnecting with you, and I am confident we will all benefit immeasurably from the interaction.
Thank you!
Sincerely,
Brad Brian
MTO Chair
Celebrating Our Inaugural Issue by Hailyn Chen and Malcolm Heinicke
 |
||
| Hailyn Chen | Malcolm Heinicke | |
As the firm’s Co-Managing Partners, we would like to echo Brad’s welcome, and we join in his excitement at reconnecting with our MTO alumni. We hope the MTO alumni network, our dedicated LinkedIn page, our upcoming CLE meetings and events, and this newsletter will allow us to keep you informed about the firm, our terrific people, and our recent activities. It will also provide a valuable forum for all of us to stay in touch and learn about what our extraordinary alumni have been doing since leaving the firm.
As we begin 2023, the seventh decade of our history, MTO is thriving. For the eighth time, we ranked number one on The American Lawyer’s 2022 A-List – the highest total number one rankings of any firm in the country. We ranked among the top 100 law firms on the Law360 Pulse Leaderboard list, its Social Impact Leaders list, and its Prestige Leaders list (one of only two firms of our size to receive this honor).
Our Tech Law litigation work, Appellate Practice, and Commercial Litigation Practice have all been individually recognized, and 35 of our lawyers and 16 of our departments are Chambers ranked. MTO has been recognized nationally in 20 practice areas and regionally in 33 practice areas in U.S. News & World Report and Best Lawyers’ 2023 “Best Law Firms” guide.
Our lawyers continue to garner individual accolades, with our Chair Brad Brian recently receiving recognition as one of the Daily Journal’s 2023 Leading Commercial Litigators. The firm is acknowledged not only for the quality of its lawyering but also for our diversity efforts – with our fifth consecutive Mansfield Certification Plus status from Diversity Lab, and a top five U.S. law firm ranking on The American Lawyer’s 2022 Annual Diversity Scorecard. And the best metric of our success – we continue to attract and retain the absolute best young lawyers, filling our classes with a diverse group of top law students and judicial clerks from around the country.
These accomplishments are a testament to the efforts of all the lawyers who have worked at MTO over the years. Those of us now at the firm recognize that we stand on the shoulders of the many who preceded us and those who worked with us to get us to where we are today. We want to celebrate that with you.
We also want to celebrate the strong sense of community that MTO fosters and has managed to retain. It has grown from a handful of founding partners gathered around a Los Angeles conference table in 1962 with the aim of creating the best law firm in the country to the 205 lawyers across three offices we are today, including San Francisco and, under the leadership of Don Verrilli, our newest and very successful office in Washington, D.C.
That sense of community does not end when lawyers leave MTO for other opportunities. We hope a part of MTO stays with you as you move through your career, that the lawyers you learned from, the values you shared, the friendships you made, stick to you with whatever you may be doing now. We certainly feel that way. And we look forward to being in closer touch in the coming years through the activities of the new MTO Alumni Network.
Thank you!
All the best,
Hailyn Chen and Malcolm Heinicke
MTO Co-Managing Partners
Interview of Sarah Boyce
 |
| Sarah Boyce |
Sarah Boyce is the Deputy Attorney General and General Counsel of North Carolina. She was an associate in the D.C. office from 2017 to 2020 before leaving the firm to join the North Carolina Department of Justice. The MTO Alumni Network Newsletter had the chance to learn more about Sarah’s role and recent work.
What roles and responsibilities have you had since joining the North Carolina Department of Justice?
When I first started at NCDOJ, I was a Deputy Solicitor General. In that role, I was mostly focused on appellate work in the state and federal courts, though I also handled some litigation at the trial court level, particularly antitrust and elections matters. About six weeks ago, I became the Deputy Attorney General and General Counsel. My job now is to serve as the chief legal advisor and strategist to Attorney General Josh Stein and to help oversee all of the Department's civil and criminal litigation.
You recently spoke at MTO about NC’s three Supreme Court cases in the span of nine months, including one with MTO. Can you briefly tell us about those cases?
The first of the three (NAACP v. Berger) was a case that was nominally about Rule 24 intervention, but was really about the separation of powers under the North Carolina Constitution. Our legislature had moved to intervene to defend a state law, and the case was about the standard that should apply under Rule 24 when one arm of the state government is already a party to the case.
The second (Students for Fair Admissions v. UNC) was the latest in a long line of cases about race-conscious admissions at higher education institutions throughout the country. SFFA sued both UNC, the oldest public university, and Harvard, the oldest private university, accusing them of discriminating against white applicants. SFFA has specifically asked the Court to overturn its longstanding precedents approving the narrowly tailored use of race in university admissions.
Lastly, we were fortunate enough to work with MTO on Moore v. Harper, a case that was argued this past December. Moore is about the Elections Clause, a provision of the U.S. Constitution that delegates authority over federal elections to the "Legislature" of a given state. The plaintiff legislators in Moore argued that the Elections Clause authorizes state legislatures to pass redistricting laws that need not comply with the state constitution and that cannot be subjected to judicial review. We argued that that position ran counter to the text and structure of the U.S. Constitution, foundational principles of state sovereignty and federalism, and historical and legal precedent.
Did your work at MTO prepare you for your work at the NCDOJ?
Absolutely. I could identify so many different ways, but three in particular stand out. First, MTO allowed me to be a generalist. As Deputy AG, I have to be able to get up to speed quickly on cases in any number of subject areas – consumer protection, environmental, health care, and so on – and working on a wide range of diverse matters at MTO helped make that feel comfortable. Second, so many law firms boast that they give associates responsibility early on, but MTO really means it. The roles that I played in my cases at MTO empowered me to hit the ground running in my senior roles at NCDOJ without feeling too intimidated. Finally, many of my closest mentors at MTO always preached the importance of good judgment. It's a skill that can seem incredibly nebulous, but it's probably the single most valuable attribute I can have in my current role. My boss trusts my judgment in large part because I learned from watching folks like Don Verrilli, Glenn Pomerantz, and Greg Stone in action and now try to emulate them in everything I do.
What are the primary differences between your current work and your previous work at the firm?
The biggest difference, at least in my new role, is that I have to take a wide – as opposed to a deep – approach to the cases I am involved in. At MTO, and in my role in the SG's office, I prided myself on knowing all there was to know about my cases. I knew the record, all of the key precedents – you name it. Now, that's just not possible, because of the breadth of matters that I touch each week. I need to know enough to be able to add value and advise the AG, but not get so in the weeds that I'm wasting time that would be better spent elsewhere. It's been fun to approach cases in a different way these last few months.
Interview of Martin Estrada
 |
| Martin Estrada |
We had a chance to catch up with MTO Alumnus Martin Estrada, the new U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California. Martin had been an associate at the firm from 2003-2007, left to serve as an AUSA in the Central District for seven years, and returned to MTO as of counsel in 2014, becoming a partner the following year. Last year he was nominated by President Biden to serve as the U.S. Attorney in the Central District, and he was sworn in on September 19, 2022.
Martin, it’s so great to hear your voice again. We’re all so proud of your position as U.S. Attorney for the Central District. Tell us, what is the new position like?
Well, truthfully, it’s been phenomenal. It’s a dream job for me. I had loved my time as an AUSA, as well as in private practice, and in this role I feel as though I’m getting to combine the best of both. I know that may sound strange but I get to focus not only on criminal matters and civil matters, but also on management, just as I enjoyed supervising younger attorneys and serving on the Management Committee at MTO. My prior experience has served me very well here, where I’m managing what is tantamount to a large law firm, with some 300 attorneys and even more staff members. The added benefit is I get to combine those skill sets with the aim of furthering our critical mission of serving and protecting our community. It has been fantastic!
That sounds terrific. Tell us some of the things you hope to accomplish in this position.
Well, one reason I wanted the position was that while the Office had been doing well in many areas, I believed it could bring better and stronger cases of national interest. I’ve been doing a lot of work in this area, and we will be accomplishing this goal. Also, when I sought this position, I had the impression the Office was not as forward-facing as it could be. By that, I mean engagement towards the legal community and toward the public more broadly.
In the legal community, I have been trying to work closely with bar organizations, the legal media, and law schools and students to recruit and tell people about the important work we do. I’ve had 10 or so different speaking engagements in that area already and there will be more.
But the Office also wasn’t as forward-facing with regard to the public, so I have been focused on doing media work, speaking engagements, and similar activities in communities around the district, with a particular focus on communities that have been historically disadvantaged: Latino and African American communities. For example, I have spoken several times with Spanish-language media, which is where many in the Latino community still get their news, through television broadcast, rather than social media as in many other communities.
I’ve also tried to engage with the community on issues of environmental justice for communities of color as well as other types of affirmative civil rights work. One case that we recently resolved was against City National Bank, which had been engaged in “redlining” – that is, discriminating against part of the population based on race, color, or national origin. We had evidence that the vast majority of City National’s branches were placed in affluent white areas, with almost no branches in minority neighborhoods, yet the bank purported to be a lender for the entire community.
We showed that comparable banks received an average of 46% of their home loan applications from majority Latino and Black neighborhoods, but City National received only 8% from those same neighborhoods. So there was a clear disparate impact. The case resulted in the DOJ’s largest ever redlining settlement. That kind of case is very meaningful to me.
In fact, one reason I love civil rights work is that it feels like a continuation of the pro bono work I was doing at MTO, like our trial victory against the state of New Mexico based on its violations of the state constitution by failing to provide students, especially those who were disadvantaged, with an adequate public education.
And I’ve been able to leverage a lot of my contacts from my days at MTO, for example with Legal Aid, Public Counsel, and other similar organizations. I’ve tried to make clear to community organizations and to members of under-served communities that we are allies, that we want to work with them. I want the community to know that “we are open for business” and that we want to hear from them.
In addition to that, I enjoy supporting the cases we bring in important substantive areas like environmental violations, public corruption and criminal civil rights issues.
Thanks, Martin. Can you tell us how your day differs at the U.S. Attorney’s Office from what it was like at MTO?
Well, the biggest difference is due to the pandemic. At the U.S. Attorney’s Office, we do very little remotely, almost everything is in person. During my last few years at MTO, I remember I’d go into the office about three days a week, and that was at the high end of what most people were doing. In fact, I rarely saw anyone in the office, apart from Brad [Brian]. Here it’s very different. People are required to come in at least 3 times per week and management is here every day. I have to say I’ve enjoyed that. There are important social benefits you miss when you’re remote. I do understand the plusses to remote work, especially for families and working parents, but we have to remain cognizant that we also lose a lot, the impromptu brainstorming, and even just friendly chatting among colleagues.
In terms of things I miss from my time at MTO, it would be my colleagues. I built great relationships there over the years with so many of my partners and associates. I was recently texting with Brad [Brian] about a preliminary hearing he and the MTO team were handling in Northern California, and it made me miss the fun of working with a high-powered team to achieve great results. And I really miss trying cases. I try to make it a point to support our AUSAs by watching a lot of trials, but not actually doing trial work is difficult for me.
One aspect where I see a continuation from MTO to this position, though, is the extraordinarily high-quality people I get to work with, and the idea of working with a lean team to accomplish amazing results. Just like at MTO, very smart people come here to this office and are eager to do the work. And we have one, two, sometimes three-person teams doing absolutely huge cases against better-staffed adversaries. We did the exact same thing at MTO. Our teams were almost always leaner than our competition, but we achieved impressive victories.
Lastly, let me say to the MTO community: If anyone is in the neighborhood, passing by 312 N. Spring Street, you are more than welcome to stop in and say hello.
Interview of Andrew Rubenstein
 |
|
| Jeff Bleich | Andrew Rubenstein |
We interviewed MTO Alumnus Andrew Rubenstein, Supervising Principal Counsel at Cruise, an autonomous vehicle company founded in 2013. Andrew was an associate at the firm from 2014-2021 before leaving to join Cruise.
Andrew, thank you so much for agreeing to be interviewed for the first edition of the MTO Alumni Network Newsletter. Could you remind us of your professional path?
Like many MTO lawyers, I was a summer associate at MTO and clerked for a year after law school for a wonderful judge on the Ninth Circuit, Judge Wallace Tashima. I worked at MTO
for about six or seven years until I moved on to my current job at Cruise.
You were recruited to Cruise by Jeff Bleich?
I talked with him; there was a conversation that it would be exciting to work together again. I loved my years at MTO. But I found that over my time at MTO, I was gravitating more toward advice type of work and feeling less drawn to litigation work. I was enjoying getting to work with clients on non-dispute related issues.
When the Cruise opportunity came up, I talked with Jeff, researched the industry, and saw the kind of moment in time that autonomous vehicles were in. It was really taking off, turning more from a garage project and research and development to an actual commercial service that people were going to be riding in around San Francisco. It seemed like an exciting industry to jump into. It was a hard decision to leave the firm, but I’m loving the new role.
What was your position that you went into and are you still in that same position at Cruise?
Yes, it's still substantively the same position. I'm within our legal team that deals with regulatory, compliance and safety issues – a sundry bucket. My primary work is on regulatory matters, interpreting regulations – usually not written for AVs – and trying to figure out how those regulations apply to us and what constraints they may put on our business.
I often work with our business partners, our engineers, and I try to explain to them what the regulatory requirements are and how that should impact how we design our products. I also handle interactions with regulators around either incidents on the road or potentially filing for permits.
Since I joined, my role has changed somewhat. When I first came to Cruise, I was also doing a fair amount of compliance work, which was something that I was most prepared for, coming from Munger and all the internal investigations work I had done with Miriam Kim and others. We'd often have to understand the clients’ policies and the relevant legal regimes and advise them on risks, how to modify policies, how to restructure organizations, and so on. That work prepared me for a business compliance role at Cruise. Since then, I have transitioned more fully to the regulatory work.
Can you compare your life in-house today with your work at MTO, and tell us whether and how MTO prepared you for this new role?
It definitely did. It was also a whole new skill set and I had to learn a lot on the fly, but in terms of foundational lawyering skills, it prepared me very well.
At Cruise, I'm in and out of meetings all day with engineers, product people, and operations people. And there's much less time for researching legal issues and writing briefs. I enjoy being on my feet and providing my judgment that often isn't as thoroughly researched as it was at Munger. That is fun. But I do often miss digging into a meaty legal issue and writing the best argument that I can.
At Munger, I worked primarily with other lawyers. Now I'm predominantly working with non-lawyers. We all get together on an issue, and everyone contributes their expertise in a forward-looking way to solve an issue before it becomes a problem, rather than once the company is already in some sort of dispute.
So it’s definitely different. But the foundational skills are similar in a lot of ways and that's something I definitely took away from Munger: thinking about issues with a lot of complexity and not simply taking the first answer that comes to mind. Really thinking it through, pressure-testing it, and making sure you thought of all the ways in which something could go wrong, thinking about the risks. Having litigated cases and seeing how disputes play out, I think much more practically about risk.
I think also there was a much less tangible quality I took away from Munger, the most distinguishing feature of the attorneys I worked with – their good judgment. People at the firm were able to look at issues and really see what the core of the problem was. And I tried to bring that judgment to my work at Cruise. I sometimes have a sort of Greek chorus of MTO lawyers in my head – what would they do – when I’m approaching an issue and it helps me bring perspective.
And is there anything you miss from your time at MTO?
The opportunity to dig deeply into an issue. It's pretty rare that I have an uninterrupted chunk of time to run an issue down to ground.
Also I feel a lot of community at Cruise, but I started during the pandemic. We’ve all gone into the office a fair amount, but I’m probably 95% at home.
So all these meetings you were talking about are Zoom meetings?
All Zoom meetings, which honestly makes it more harried because you can stack so many meetings back-to-back. In real life, I assume you’d have more time between meetings because you’d at least have to walk to another floor. So I do miss the closeness of the Munger family, particularly the San Francisco office family. I don’t know people’s significant others as well here, and that was such a special part about Munger. I mean MTO invited them to retreats and even to sherry sips, if y’all still call them sherry sips.
They are still called sherry sips, but I have to admit I attribute your use of “y’all” there to your wife Lucy [from Texas]! And to finish up, Andrew, what do you like in particular about Cruise as a company?
Well, as I said, it is really fun working on self-driving cars right now because it is at a pivotal moment turning from research and development to giving rides to the public in San Francisco and other cities. This might be the moment when self-driving cars take off after years of always being five or ten years away.
Are there Cruise cars on the streets in SF right now?
Yes, there's a wait list to the public. But for Cruisers, which is what we call ourselves, and the folks who are off the wait list, you can open an app on your phone and call a car, and the car will pull up with no human in it, and it will take you to your destination. It's basically a ride-sharing service, but with no driver.
Wow, that is cool. Andrew, thanks so much for talking with us. We want to be on that Cruise waiting list – maybe if we include a nice picture of you with the interview, we could jump ahead?
We’ll see! Thank you, and please say hello to everyone at MTO for me.
An Author Among Us: World Citizen, Journeys of a Humanitarian by Jane Olson
We could not be more excited about the extraordinary memoir – World Citizen: Journeys of a Humanitarian – recently published by Jane Olson, detailing her remarkable career as a leading international human rights advocate.
As many alumni know, Jane has worked for many decades as a volunteer promoting international peace, justice and humanitarian work. She chaired the International Board of Trustees of Human Rights Watch, the largest U.S.-based international human rights organization, from 2004 to 2010, having worked on behalf of HRW since 1988. She served as co-chair of the Women’s Refugee Commission in New York and continues to support the WRC as a commissioner. As the founding chair of the board of Landmine Survivors Network/Survivor Corps, Jane served as chair for 12 years. (LSN and HRW were among the five organizations to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for the International Landmine Ban Treaty.)
The book, which is widely available and has attracted nationwide praise, describes with riveting detail Jane’s often harrowing travels on behalf of various human rights and humanitarian organizations, including to Nicaragua and El Salvador during the Contra Wars, the former Yugoslavia during the 1990’s ethnic cleansing of Bosnia, and the former Soviet Union, especially the conflict-torn countries of Azerbaijan and Armenia in the 1990s. During missions to countries in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America, she focused on issues such as human rights abuse and refugee conditions, HIV/AIDS, landmines, and other calamities caused by conflict and extreme poverty.
Jane is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a board member of both the National World War II Museum in New Orleans and Direct Relief, which is based in Santa Barbara, CA.
She is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Pacific Council on International Policy, and the International Women’s Forum.
The firm, and needless to say, Ron Olson, could not be more proud of Jane’s accomplishments, and we know you will find World Citizen a fascinating read. Ron’s support of her work is also an important reminder of the awe-inspiring careers of many of our alumni’s spouses and significant others, and the sacrifices they have made over many decades while contributing to the diversity and vitality of the firm.
Case Spotlight
Munger, Tolles & Olson Secures Complete Defense Verdict on Behalf of FIGS and its Co-founders
Picking a single recent MTO success to share with alumni is difficult. But one outstanding trial result was particularly gratifying. After four years of litigation in the Central District of California, a crackerjack MTO team led by Jake Kreilkamp and Adam Weiss, working with co-counsel at Bird, Marella, obtained a complete defense jury verdict in favor of MTO client FIGS and its co-founders. FIGS is an innovative medical apparel company shaking up the scrubs industry, and it was accused by a competitor of Lanham Act false advertising and intentional interference with prospective economic relations.
On November 3, 2022, following a nearly three week trial, the Orange County jury rejected all of the plaintiff’s claims outright, finding for FIGS on the Lanham Act counts and concluding that the plaintiff had not even succeeded in showing falsity. In rejecting the state law intentional interference claims, the jury found the plaintiff failed to establish any false advertising whatsoever. On top of that, the jury returned a special interrogatory finding the plaintiff had unclean hands by virtue of its having made its own marketing claims similar to the ones it was challenging in the litigation.
The verdict fully vindicating FIGS and its co-founders followed a years-long campaign by the plaintiff—in the courtroom and the press—to discredit and undermine FIGS. That effort, and the resulting verdict, received a great deal of attention in the press as a stark example of the increasing trend of “competition-by-litigation.” All of us can share in MTO’s pride at Jake, Adam and the MTO team’s terrific work.
Read more about the FIGS case and two other top verdicts from 2022.
A Fireside Chat with Carla Hills
At last Fall’s firm retreat, Firm Chair Brad Brian had the chance to interview firm founder Carla Hills in a Fireside Chat in front of the retreat participants. The MTO Alumni Network Newsletter is delighted to be able to share the video of Brad and Carla’s discussion. Carla is, of course, one of our most important alumni, and she and Brad covered her extraordinary career (including her stints as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and as United States Trade Representative – the first woman to hold either position); the founding of the firm; and Carla’s unvarnished impressions of where things stand today – at MTO, in Washington, and beyond.