Shingular Sensation Eugene Lee Vindicates Discharged Doctor With $500,000 Verdict in Employment Discrimination Case Against Kern County

Posted on July 13, 2009 by Carolyn Elefant

JADWIN v. COUNTY OF KERN, Docket No. 1:07-CV-00026 (ED Calif) may have been Los Angeles, California employment rights solo Eugene Lee's first jury trial (indeed, his first trial of any kind).  But the $500,000+ verdict that Lee won for his client, Dr. David Jadwin -- who'd been terminated from his position in retaliation for bringing patient care issues to the hospital's attention and in violation of disability and family medical leave laws -- can hardly be termed beginner's luck (for more on the case, see this television news coverage.  Rather, Lee's success resulted from three years of hard work and persistence during which he endured abusive discovery tactics by opposing counsel, dozens of motions and thousands of pages worth of summary judgment motions.  Lee's tenacity and his story of how he went from a newbie solo to a real-live trial attorney now fielding requests to co-counsel in other cases are inspiring and for that reason, he's our hands down choice for this installment of Shingular Sensations.

1.  Please share some information about your background and specialization.

I wandered around before starting my own firm. I worked as a mergers and acquisitions attorney on Wall Street, as a management consultant, as general counsel for a Silicon Valley dot-com, and as a foreign legal consultant in Asia. I spent my career working for Fortune 100 companies such as AT&T, General Electric, Philip Morris, and Coca Cola. Along the way, I decided I didn’t feel good about working for Big Business and in 2004, I started up my own firm in Los Angeles exclusively representing California employees in employment and civil rights matters. My firm’s focus is on employment-related harassment, discrimination, wrongful termination and retaliation claims. I love being a trial lawyer for the little guy.


2.   Now, you specialize in employment matters.  What made you choose that practice area and how much experience do you have in it?

My firm has been 100% focused on employment law since the day I opened my doors. I was attracted to employment law because it is intellectually challenging. I also appreciated the opportunity to make a direct and noticeable difference in the lives of employees who have suffered a life-altering termination or demotion. There is also the satisfaction of standing side-by-side with an underdog and battling the Goliath that employers invariably are.

I had done some pro bono work for employees in employment-related matters throughout my career and I had also defended employers against employee claims when working for Big Law. Once I hung a shingle, that was when I really rolled up my sleeves and went to work mastering plaintiff-side employment law.


3.    When did you first start representing Dr. Jadwin and how did he find you?

Dr. Jadwin contacted me while events were still unfolding at his workplace. He found me on the internet, though he never could recall which site.

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Shingular Sensation Scott Greenfield Wins Landmark Victory Protecting Lawyer Speech, With Help from the Blogosphere

Posted on June 15, 2009 by Carolyn Elefant

On June 9, 2009, New York solo and Simple Justice blogger Scott Greenfield won a unanimous, landmark ruling from the the New York Court of Appeals in Stern v. Bluestone, which ruled that unsolicited, informational faxes distributed by solo Andrew Lavoot Bluestone on legal malpractice issues do not violate the Telephone_Consumer_Protection_Act_of_1991 or the Junk Fax Protection Act of 2005.  The court's decision spares Greenfield's client $21,000 in damages.  But more importantly, by holding that communications such as newsletters which convey substantive information are not advertising, the decision lends credence to the position that blogs (which also convey substantive information) should not be subject to bar regulations on advertising.  For vindicating this important principle - and helping a fellow solo, Scott Greenfield is our pick for this installment of Shingular Sensations. 

In the interview below, Scott shares the back story of the appeal, including his strategy for overturning two adverse lower court rulings and how the blogosphere helped play a role in the victory.

1.  Describe how and at what stage of the proceeding you became involved in this case.

Andrew Lavoott Bluestone came to me when the action was commenced, recognizing that it was wise to seek a detached perspective on the proceeding.  We work together, with Andrew doing much of the heavy lifting.  At the first level appeal, Andrew prepared the brief and I handled the oral argument, where we were met with some judges who demonstrated little familiarity with First Amendment issues, and even less sympathy toward constitutional rights. At the Court of Appeals, Andrew again prepared the brief, which I then edited to conform to the arguments I intended to raise.  While it was killing Andrew, as an attorney, to place his case in someone else's hands, he realized that he couldn't represent himself and thus placed himself in my hands.
2.  What kind of experience did you have with this specific issues or in appellate matters prior to taking the case?
I've been enjoying the First Amendment my whole life, but it's never been the primary focus of my practice.  Rather, it was my background and experience in trial and appellate work that Andrew sought.  The substantive area of law was not difficult to learn, but I brought the skills developed over 25 years of practicing law to the well of the courtroom.  It's far, far easier to learn substantive law than lawyering, and I was brought into the case because of my background as a litigator rather than as a First Amendment lawyer.
3. As you may know, since the passage of the Telecom Protection Act of 1991, filing suit against distributors of "junk faxes" has become a bit of a cottage industry - ( for example, see www.keytlaw.com/faxes/junkfaxlaw.htm or www.junkfaxes.org/news/faxcom_cb_suit.html.) Given the many suits where litigants successfully prevailed against junk faxers, how did you assess your client's chances in this matter?  What did you believe distinguished this case from others?
The junk fax cases suffer from a few internal problems; zealously defending often involves a greater cost than settling or acquiescing, so many litigants are unwilling to fight, or fight hard and competently.  Also, many of these cases involved defendants who deserved to lose.  The problem with junk faxes is real, and the law prohibiting them serves a very important purpose.
 
However, Andrew's case was markedly different from many others, in that there was nothing about his faxes that fell within the law.  His New York Attorney Malpractice Report was by no means an advertisement, except by the most cynical manipulation of reality.  Ironically, some lawyers asked to be removed from the fax list, and they were.  Far more called to be added to the list, seeking his Report.  Go figure.

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Shingular Sensation Warren Caswell Has Mandatory Life Sentence Declared Unconstitutional and Reverses Conviction Based Solely on Hearsay

Posted on April 25, 2008 by Carolyn Elefant
Back in January, I created the Shingular Sensations series, intended to spotlight a significant victory or accomplishment by a solo.  Shingular Sensation posts are not vanity pieces, but rather, interviews that I carefully design to glean lessons to help other lawyers. 

This installment of the Shingular Sensation series belongs to Georgia solo, Warren Caswell.   Just five years out of law school and a solo for his entire career, Caswell received what at the time must have seemed like an impossible case: post-conviction representation of an indigent defendant found guilty by a jury of his second failure to register as a sex offender.   Based largely on hearsay, the jury concluded that the defendant had moved to a new residence when in fact, he was simply visiting his mother in the next county.   And as if Caswell wasn't under enough pressure to reverse a jury verdict, the stakes were raised even further by draconian sentencing laws that resulted in a mandatory life sentence because of a failure to fill out necessary paperwork!   

After reviewing the transcript, Caswell initially intended to attack the verdict as insufficient due to admission of hearsay.  But an interesting conversation with jurors post-verdict lead Caswell to consider a constitutional argument that the duration of the sentence was so utterly shocking and contrary to societal notions of proportionality that it violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.  In the end, both the hearsay and the constitutional arguments carried the day.

Read this interview to learn what it was like for Caswell to represent a criminal defendant in his most desperate hour and to see the amazing process that lead to the development of the constitutional argument. 
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Shingular Sensations Series: Small Firm Lawyer Andy Simpson Wins Half Million Dollar Verdict Against Nation's Biggest Law Firm, USDOJ

Posted on January 21, 2008 by Carolyn Elefant
With this post, I'm inaugurating MyShingle's new "Shingular Sensations" series.  Every week or two, I hope to interview a solo or a small firm lawyer who in one way or another represents the best that this genre has to offer.   But let me be clear - Singular Sensations is not a "self-promotional" series -- through my interviews, I intend to glean solid advice from my subjects that will benefit all lawyers.  I'll explain the concept a little more in subsequent posts, but for now, here's our first Shingular Sensation, Andy Simpson who heads a two lawyer firm in Christiansted, St. Croix, in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Late last week, Andy Simpson made national headlines winning a $500,000 jury verdict against the U.S. Marshals Service for discriminating against his client Deputy U.S. Marshal Linda Valerino, known locally for hosting a TV show on fugitives in the Virgin Islands.  During a 4 day trial, Simpson showed  that Valerino's male colleagues did not want to be supervised by a woman, and over a two year period, filed a series of false misconduct claims against Valerino to block her promotion. Under applicable federal law, the jury's $500,000 award for emotion stress will be capped at $300,000 but Valerino will also receive $92,000 in back pay.  

In this e-mail interview, Simpson shares the backstory on his headline-making verdict and his experience as a solo going up against one of the biggest law firms in the country - the United States Department of Justice.  Whether you're an employment lawyer, an attorney who deals with law enforcement, a solo who goes up against the big guys (or a large firm lawyer who underestimates the small fry), you'll want to read the entire interview, below the jump. Continue Reading...
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