Julia L. Allen

We successfully defended Google against putative class action claims that YouTube is rife with copyright infringement and encourages the piracy of uploaded videos by removing copyright management information. The plaintiff, Maria Schneider, was an American composer and jazz orchestra leader, and the class challenged YouTube’s right to immunity under the safe harbor of the DMCA. We were hired three months before the case’s June 2023 trial date. After Judge Donato denied class certification, the KVP team prevailed in two very successful pretrial hearings, which dramatically limited the plaintiffs’ case, excluded their liability expert, and preserved strong licensing defenses for YouTube.

We represented former Oakland Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick in a wrongful termination and retaliation lawsuit following her termination by the City of Oakland. For nearly three years, Chief Kirkpatrick raised a series of alarms about misconduct by the Oakland Police Commission. Following a two-week trial, a San Francisco federal jury found that Chief Kirkpatrick was wrongfully terminated for blowing the whistle on the Police Commission’s misconduct.

We defended Varian Medical Systems, a world leader in radiotherapy medical devices for the treatment of cancer, in the District of Delaware against patent-infringement claims brought by Best Medical International.

On behalf of Instacart, we have successfully defended against numerous class and collective actions across the country alleging that that shoppers who use Instacart’s technology platform should be classified as employees rather than independent contractors. We have won a number of early dispositive motions in these cases, including motions to compel individual arbitration and to enforce class and collective action bars.

We defended a mobile gaming company and its founders in a dispute with former investors who complained that they were denied their equity stake in the company. The plaintiffs brought claims for breach of contract, fraudulent concealment, conversion, libel, intentional interference with contract and breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing. On the eve of trial, we obtained summary judgment on all claims.

We represent non-profit Wetlands Preservation Foundation, based in Stockton, California, in litigation against the California Department of Water Resources and The Nature Conservancy concerning gross mismanagement of Staten Island—an island in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta that is a critical wildlife habitat for migratory birds as well as an important agricultural resource. Following a ten-day bench trial, the Court issued a writ of mandate against the Department of Water Resources and held that it had failed to comply with its public trust obligations on Staten Island.

We won a complete defense verdict for our multinational law firm client, and three individual law firm partners, in a malpractice claim arising out of patent litigation in the ITC and Delaware. The plaintiffs had alleged more than a dozen individual acts of malpractice and sought $60+ million in damages. After a hard-fought two-week arbitration before a retired federal judge in New York, the arbitrator issued an award in our clients’ favor.

We represented a prisoner who was the victim of a series of coerced sexual acts taking place in San Quentin State Prison in a civil rights case brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Following a six-day federal jury trial, the jury returned a verdict in our client’s favor and awarded him $15,414 in compensatory damages and $50,000 in punitive damages.