Cooley Trial Win Named a "Top Verdict of 2012" by the Daily Journal

San Diego, Calif. – February 15, 2013 – Cooley LLP announced today that Bee-Dee Investments Ltd. v. Rady has been selected to the Daily Journal's "Top Verdicts of 2012" list in the Top Defense Verdicts category. To be selected to the list, cases had to have larger significance than just a win for the attorney and client, they had to have a broader impact on the law, an industry or society.

In 2009, Ernest Rady, a prominent San Diego business leader and philanthropist, faced a lawsuit filed by several family members seeking $272 million in damages over a purported contract to buy out their shares in American Assets, Inc., a family-owned corporation based in San Diego. In March 2012, following a two-week trial, the jury found that Ernest Rady did not enter into a contract and returned a complete defense verdict in his favor. Cooley Partner and lead trial counsel Steve Strauss was quoted in the Daily Journal article saying: "They used to say that blood is thicker than water, but it looks like in this case, money was thicker than blood."

Among Ernest Rady's and American Assets' many philanthropic endeavors was $60 million donation in support of Children's Hospital San Diego, at the time the second-largest naming gift to any hospital in the United States.

The Cooley team was led by partners Steve Strauss and Patrick Gunn, and included special counsel Dennis Crovella, senior associate Summer Wynn and associate Megan Donohue. Steve Strauss has an unbeaten trial record that stretches over more than 30 years of practice in high-stakes litigation work.

Around 325 of Cooley's 700 attorneys are litigators. Cooley's litigators advocate on behalf of clients across myriad areas of law, including securities, white collar crime, class action, employment, intellectual property, venture capital, real estate and hospitality, and environmental. Steve Strauss and Patrick Gunn, who prevailed in this trial, are among its most well-known litigators. It has recently been reported that Strauss is currently representing the family of Junior Seau in a major wrongful death claim against the NFL and others. Gunn is the partner-in-charge of Cooley's San Francisco office. He is currently defending a group of the leading venture capitalists and technology entrepreneurs in China in a defamation case filed by a notorious Los Angeles-based short seller of Chinese stocks.

View a copy of the Daily Journal article here.

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