Eric H. MacMichael

We represent Oregon State University in a lawsuit against the Pac-12 Conference to determine control of the Pac-12, in the wake of the announced departures of 10 Conference members. We achieved a temporary restraining order that prevents the 10 departing Conference members from wrongfully seizing control of the Pac-12.

We represent the PGA TOUR in an antitrust lawsuit filed by 11 professional golfers who left the PGA TOUR and joined LIV Golf. We defeated plaintiffs’ motion for a temporary restraining order seeking to force the PGA TOUR to allow them to play in the FedExCup Playoffs. We also recently won a motion to compel subpoena compliance from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and its Governor, Yassir Al-Rumayyan.

We defended biosimilar maker Coherus Biosciences against trade secret litigation brought by Amgen over its chemotherapy drug Neulasta. Through our defense of Coherus in this litigation, Coherus was able to introduce a biosimilar drug to the market to provide much needed competition and price savings to patients.

Following a week-long arbitration, we secured a complete defense verdict for our law firm client in a malpractice action arising from a $30 million unsuccessful real estate deal involving a large vineyard development and a sustainable community west of Sacramento. We defeated all of the plaintiffs’ asserted claims and the client was awarded $210,000 in unpaid attorney’s fees on its counterclaim.

Robin Antonick, programmer of the John Madden Football video game for the Apple II that was released in 1988, alleged that EA owed him royalties on sales of all Madden Football video games over the last twenty-two years. Antonick claimed that all Madden games since 1990 are derivative works of the game he programmed, and he was therefore owed royalties under a 1986 contract with EA. On behalf of EA, we contended that none of Antonick’s source code, which was written for a more primitive platform and was outdated by the time it was released, was ever used in any subsequent Madden game. Although the jury found in favor of Antonik, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer later entered judgment for EA, reversing the award and strongly discouraging similar suits based on additional versions of the game. Judge Breyer's ruling was affirmed on appeal.

We defended the former CEO of Fannie Mae in an SEC action filed in the Southern District of New York related to Fannie Mae’s disclosures regarding its exposure to “subprime” and “Alt-A” residential mortgages. We secured a favorable settlement for our client shortly before trial.

The Securities and Exchange Commission launched a securities fraud suit in California federal court against our client, a former vice president of sales. The SEC claimed he grossly inflated his company's revenue in order to raise additional capital from investors. We also defended him in a parallel criminal investigation. We were able to prevent any criminal charges from being filed, and resolved the SEC case for a small penalty.

We represented American cyclist and seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong in connection with the U.S. Department of Justice's investigation into professional cycling, which terminated on February 3, 2012 with the announcement that there would be no charges and the investigation was being closed.

We defended a high-ranking company official in one of the nation’s first criminal stock options backdating cases to go to trial. We obtained the dismissal of the majority of the charges. Our client was sentenced to 60 days imprisonment on the remaining charges.

We represented three individuals in a breach of contract and California corporations code action relating to terms of an investment contract. We settled the case favorably for our client before going to trial.

In this pro bono habeas corpus case, we overturned the unconstitutional conviction of Caramad Conley, who had been wrongly sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for a double homicide he did not commit. We discovered thousands of dollars of undisclosed payments and other benefits given to a the linchpin prosecution witness by the San Francisco police, none of which had ever been disclosed to Mr. Conley or his trial counsel. We used this evidence to convince California Superior Court Judge Marla Miller to vacate Mr. Conley’s conviction. The State elected not to appeal Judge Miller’s ruling or retry Mr. Conley, and instead released him from custody after 18 years of unlawful imprisonment. For his efforts on Mr. Conley’s behalf, lead trial counsel Dan Purcell was awarded the 2012 California Lawyer magazine Attorney of the Year Award for achievements in pro bono work.

We defended Comcast in a nine-patent case involving high-speed Internet and digital TV services. Rembrandt originally filed the case in the Eastern District of Texas, but in conjunction with other co-defendants, we obtained multi-district consolidation and transfer to the District of Delaware. Based upon claim construction rulings, Rembrandt conceded non-infringement of eight of the nine patents, preserving only its right to appeal the claim construction as to the ninth. The Federal Circuit then upheld the claim construction on that last patent, resulting in non-infringement. We also helped Comcast secure an exceptional-case determination and a resulting award of over $10 million in fees and costs.