Waymaker LLP

01/16/2024

Waymaker Partner Teresa Huggins has become a member of the Board of Governors of the Association of Business Trial Lawyers (ABTL) Los Angeles.

ABTL was founded in Los Angeles to develop a forum for the discussion of business trials and an opportunity for litigators and judges to address issues important to the legal industry.

Huggins represents individual and corporate clients at all stages of complex commercial litigation in both state and federal trial and appellate courts and in private arbitrations, with an emphasis on intellectual property and fintech matters.

She has significant experience representing executives, entrepreneurs, investors and corporations in both plaintiff and defense side civil litigation, helping them to reach early, efficient resolution of business disputes.

01/12/2024

Waymaker Partners Ryan Baker, Brian Klein, Scott Malzahn, Jaime Marquart and Donald Pepperman have been named Southern California Super Lawyers 2024.

Baker was honored for Intellectual Property Litigation, Klein for Criminal Defense: White Collar, Malzahn for General Litigation, Marquart for Business Litigation, and Pepperman for Antitrust Litigation.

12/22/2023

Happy holidays to our colleagues, friends and clients.

12/08/2023

Keri Curtis Axel was quoted in The Messenger by sports reporter Christian Red concerning the fairness of the prosecution.

Emphasizing Puig’s life, educational challenges and cultural differences, Axel told The Messenger that there were “misunderstandings all around” but that’s “different from lying.”

Accused of lying to federal investigators as a witness in a sprawling illegal gambling investigation, Yasiel Puig will stand trial next month; his reps will argue it's unfair to charge him and not other high-profile sports figures.

12/07/2023

Waymaker welcomes Patricia Rojas-Castro as an associate at our firm.

Patricia has experience in general litigation and labor and employment litigation.

She is a graduate of Brown University and Columbia Law School.

Before going to law school, Patricia lived in Washington, D.C., where she worked to increase Latino voter participation in local and national elections.

12/05/2023

A onetime U.S. Olympic snowboarder was sentenced to six months in prison for obstructing a federal investigation into an airplane crash he deliberately arranged for a YouTube video.

Keri Curtis Axel represented Trevor Jacob who was spared a 12-month prison term prosecutors sought at his sentencing Monday in downtown Los Angeles.

"I apologize from the bottom of my heart," Jacob said in a tearful plea for leniency at the hearing. "I look back in complete shame on my conduct."

10/26/2023

Partner Ryan Baker urged a California judge yesterday to award nearly $46 million to Beverly Hills urologist Dr. James Elist and his company International Medical Devices (IMD) as a result of the firm's unanimous federal trial win in June.

In the contentious trade secrets case Baker told the court his client deserves $15 million in royalties that should be tripled for willful and malicious conduct.

Law360 reported on the case and Baker's arguments against the minimal damages theory presented by the defense.

“They can steal everything and walk out, do nothing with it, or they can get caught red-handedand be prevented from the court from doing anything, and if they get caught, they don't owe anything,” Baker said. “They can't lose. That's not how it works, Your Honor.”

A California federal jury in June this year found a Houston-based urologist and others stole trade secrets and infringed other intellectual property rights related to a cosmetic pe**le implant that Dr. Elist had developed over decades. After three years of litigation against Dr. Robert Cornell and others, the jury invalidated two patents and unanimously found for plaintiffs on nearly every single liability issue.

An attorney for a urologist who won a jury trial verdict over a competitor's theft of pe**le implant trade secrets urged a California federal judge Wednesday to award almost $46 million in damages, saying his client deserves $15 million in royalties that should be tripled for willful and malicious c...

10/25/2023

News came today that Sam Bankman-Fried has decided to testify to defend his actions in his own criminal trial.

While defendants often avoid testifying, a move that can easily cause more harm than good, it’s one of SBF’s final defense options after facing weeks of testimony from former members of his team.

“He couldn’t stop talking to press and wider world after FTX collapsed and before he was arrested and then while out on bail so no one should be surprised that he is choosing to take the stand,” said Brian Klein, a former federal prosecutor told Bloomberg.

Three of Bankman-Fried’s closest confidantes, Alameda Chief Executive Officer Caroline Ellison, FTX’s former head of engineering Nishad Singh, and Gary Wang, a co-founder of the crypto exchange, pleaded guilty to fraud and cooperated with prosecutors. On the stand, all three pointed at Bankman-Fried as the one calling the shots when customer funds were misused.

After those witnesses, SBF’s testimony will be like “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic,” said Klein.

Sam Bankman-Fried will take the stand to defend his actions in the lead-up to the collapse of his digital-asset empire, after taking a beating from former colleagues who described him as the mastermind of a years-long scheme to defraud FTX customers and investors.

10/17/2023

Juan Camacho, Vice President of Equality California Institute and Waymaker Partner and Equality California President Scott Malzahn welcomed California’s new Senator Laphonza Butler to Equality California's board meeting last week.

10/16/2023

Waymaker Partner Donald R. Pepperman was with Matt Harrison and Fiona A. Chaney and Omni Bridgeway at the 49th American Business Trial Lawyers Association seminar in Kona, Hawaii.

Pepperman is a former member of the group's Board of Governors.

10/11/2023

On October 4, 2023, the California federal judge overseeing the Yasiel Puig case refused to reconsider its previous order barring prosecutors from using a retracted plea deal by the former Major League Baseball star in his upcoming trial on charges of obstruction of justice and making false statements.

Puig's lawyer Keri Curtis Axel told Law360 that she was “pleased that Puig will receive a trial on the merits” after U.S. District Judge Dolly M. Gee said in her order that she will not “further address” federal prosecutors’ claim that Puig waived the argument that the plea’s factual statement is inadmissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 410.

The judge previously found the plea agreement unenforceable and its factual statement inadmissible, and she reaffirmed that ruling extending it to bar use of the factual statement on impeachment in response to Waymaker’s arguments.

The case is USA v. Puig Valdes in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California and Puig is represented by Curtis Axel as well as Jose Nuño, Emily Stierwalt and Riley Smith.

The matter is set for trial January 16, 2024.

A California federal judge refused to reconsider a previous order that barred prosecutors from using a retracted plea deal by former Los Angeles Dodgers star Yasiel Puig as evidence at his upcoming trial on charges of obstruction of justice and making false statements.

10/11/2023

Waymaker is seeking a junior/or mid-level litigation associate with 1-6 years of experience to join the trial boutique’s downtown Los Angeles office.

The ideal candidate is passionate about trial advocacy, has strong writing skills and is eager to work in a fast-paced, team oriented environment.

Please visit our Careers page on our firm's website for more details.