 IN THIS NEWSLETTER  AZA’s Current Hot Cases: International, National and Texas Litigation  AZA is a true trial boutique. We average one trial a month and have already had 14 this year. We may yet have another one or two before the year ends. It’s not unusual for the firm to have a case overseas and certainly normal for trials to be held in other states. Below are Ben & Jerry’s brand integrity and social mission litigation AZA represents the Vermont-based ice cream maker Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc. Our client is in a dispute against its parent company, Conopco/Unilever, about the fundamental corporate governance of the global, billion-dollar ice cream brand. After over a year of negotiations, Ben & Jerry’s merged with Unilever in 2000. That merger The dispute, which has garnered a great deal of international media attention, centers on the independent board’s explicit and unique authority under the merger agreement. Specifically, the board objects to Unilever’s attempts to transfer Ben & Jerry’s intellectual property rights, enabling the sale of their ice cream in their name in the West Bank. Harvard Law professor Jesse Fried said of our client’s one-of-a-kind rights under the merger agreement: “It’s not just that I haven’t seen it, it’s that I don’t think it exists anywhere in the world except Ben & Jerry’s.” Following mediation, an injunction hearing, and settlement discussions this summer, Ben & Jerry’s filed an amended complaint to broaden its claims under a corresponding licensing agreement. The case is Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Holdings Inc., vs. Conopco, Inc., in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. AZA’s Appellate Group Celebrates Wins  When AZA hired former District Judge Daryl Moore, they knew he was a stellar appellate lawyer. They did not know he could argue two appeals in one day and win both handily. Judge Moore argued two back-to-back governmental immunity cases for the City of San Antonio before the Texas Supreme Court. In early 2022, the court ruled in favor of San Antonio, reversing the intermediate appellate court, and dismissing both cases that dealt with police officers and their police vehicles under the Texas Tort Claims Act. The cases are City of San Antonio v. Armando D. Rioja and the City of San Antonio v. Jimmy Maspero. “Back-to-back Supreme Court arguments may not be the easiest place to dust the rust off from four years on the bench, so it’s especially gratifying to see our client prevail,” he said. The AZA appellate practice group has gotten so busy that in late October lawyers Jane Langdell Robinson and Kelsi Stayart White argued cases to the Texas 14th Court of Appeals on two consecutive days. One was an insurance case, the other Joe Ahmad’s Been Blogging About C-Suite Issues for More Than A Decade  Eleven years ago, after AZA co-founder Joe Ahmad turned his practice to representing executives, he noticed that even these high-paid folks had a lot of misconceptions about the law. He decided to do something about it. He started his blog Legal Issues in the Executive Suite. He shares his knowledge about issues like clawback provisions, compensation, fiduciary duties, non-competes, severance packages, trade secrets and whistleblowers. “I saw my executive clients making the same mistakes over and over and having the same wrong ideas about the law whether they came from rumor mills or what they gathered from the media,” Joe said. “I saw a need and an opportunity to educate.” AZA partner Monica Uddin, daughter of Bangladeshi immigrants, has harnessed both her storytelling skills and her empathy, enabling her to see complex legal entanglements through the lens of the people involved and translating that to something that can enthrall jurors. By seeing the human element in each case, Monica sets the tone, frames the story, and persuades juries and judges to see it her way by showing them the world through the eyes of her clients.  “There is always a person, a human being who is accused,” Monica said. Her clients, even corporations, appreciate her ability to get juries to see their side of the argument. Just ask LyondellBasell, Plains, and Chevron. Or ask her smaller clients, like the heir of a fisherman whose valuable fishing rights were stolen by a predatory seafood company. Or the students of Magnolia ISD, where Monica and other colleagues helped the ACLU win protection against a gender-based hair-length policy. Monica grew up in San Antonio where few of her acquaintances had We are proud of our new crop of lawyers. The team includes a lot of expertise in IP and trial work, of course. Some are experienced like Lila B. Glaser, a former in-house counsel who taught at Yale. Some are newer lawyers from law schools like Harvard and the University of Texas, and quite a few of those are law review types. We welcome them all to our trial-ready and diverse team.  Thomas Cooke is a trial lawyer and University of Texas School of Law honors graduate who was an editor at the Texas Law Review and the Texas Review of Law and Politics. Read more here. Chun Deng focuses on intellectual property litigation and commercial litigation. He was managing editor at the Arizona Law Review at the University of Arizona Law School, where he graduated summa cum laude. Read more here.   Lila B. Glaser focuses on patent litigation and has been an expert/consulting economist, and a university professor for more than 20 years. She is a former assistant attorney general in Texas and an in-house counsel. Read more here. Michael Gorrell is a Harvard Law School graduate who focuses on trial work and has been active in veterans’ legal issues. He served on active duty in the U.S. Air Force as an acquisitions officer directing weapons systems development and test programs. Read more here.   Ab Henry is a trial lawyer and graduate of Harvard Law School. He has experience working as a legal advisor for the Houston Dynamo soccer club and for the UCFB Wembley at Wembley Stadium in London. Read more here. Sujeeth Rajavolu focuses on intellectual property litigation and commercial litigation. He represents both patent holders and challengers. His practice includes inter partes review, commercial litigation, and trademark disputes. Read more   Not only was AZA once again named a #1 litigation boutique by Texas Lawyer, but the firm and its lawyers won several elite national awards.
Here are some of the other awards the firm garnered this year:  Why You Need an AZA IP Trial Lawyer  When you need to defend or attack a patent, you need someone who is more than just a smart engineer-type with a law degree. You need experienced, courtroom-savvy lawyers like AZA’s IP team. What in the Word? You may already be addicted to an online word guessing game. Here you guess legal words with 4, 5 and 6 letters. Nothing too hard like the word “gypsy” in this lot. Play on!  |
