Mr Kevin John Leichter | Attorney

Litigation Partner Kevin J. Leichter is the Chair of the Firm's Intellectual Property, New Media and Technology Practice Group. He has been a lawyer since 1988 and has been practicing with the Firm since 1995.

A seasoned litigator and trial lawyer, Mr. Leichter's practice spans a wide variety of business, entertainment and bankruptcy litigation matters for individual and corporate clients in federal and state courts. His experience includes serving as lead counsel in jury trials, bench trials, arbitrations, mediations and appellate matters, and he has represented clients in virtually every type of dispute confronting companies in diverse business sectors. Aggressive and creative, Mr. Leichter has achieved hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements and judgments on behalf of his clients, including net recoveries in matters in which the client was initially named as a defendant.

As Chair of the Firm's Intellectual Property, New Media and Technology Practice Group, Mr. Leichter leads a group of attorneys skilled in advising businesses and individuals on a wide variety of IP-related issues and litigating IP-related disputes in a broad range of industries. He has personally handled and supervised cases spanning the full range of IP-related legal issues, including copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret, unfair competition, right of publicity, idea misappropriation and defamation - often in high-profile, bet-the-company settings. Armed with an understanding of scientific and technology issues, he is able to understand and translate client problems and needs and bring his litigation and courtroom expertise to bear in the analysis and presentation of complex issues facing companies in the 21st Century. His IP-related representations have included clients in entertainment, publishing, gaming/hospitality, apparel, telecom, advertising, and technology, among others.

Among other honors, Mr. Leichter has been named a Southern California "Super Lawyer" in each of the last five years by Los Angeles Magazine, based on its independent survey of top attorneys in Southern California taken annually since 2004. He is an active speaker to bar and industry groups on litigation-related topics, a contributing member of several bar organizations and committees, and a founding member of the Justice Carlos Moreno Trial Practice Inn of Court.

Mr. Leichter's notable representations include:

• Partner Kevin Leichter represents Barbara Davis in multiparty litigation
• Defending a major motion picture studio in a high-profile dispute with a reporter for a nationally recognized newspaper, in connection with claims of libel and contract interference.
• Advising another major studio in its dispute with an intellectual property licensor, regarding the exploitation of character rights generating in excess of $1 billion.
• Representing yet another major motion picture studio in federal and state litigation in connection with the rights to its summer "tentpole" feature film and its underlying rights to a 1970's hit television series.
• Representing a maker of mass storage devices in litigation against a software developer for breach of contract.
• Representing the acquirer in litigation over the attempted purchase of a Las Vegas hotel and casino.
• Representing and advising officers and directors of an independent motion picture studio in litigation relating to failed motion picture production finance facilities.
• Representing minority shareholders and venture capitalists in complex, multi-court litigation relating to the management and dissolution of an international fiber-optic cable company.
• Prosecuting claims against the nation's largest dental-practice management chain for accounting fraud and breach of contract arising out of its purchase of a competing chain;
• Litigating to clear the rights to the patent for beverages containing nicotine.
• Representing the head of a major talent agency in the prosecution of right of publicity claims.
• Prosecuting, on behalf of a software developer, trade secret misappropriation and breach of fiduciary duty claims against a group of officers and employees who left to form a competing venture.
• Handling litigation on behalf of the country's largest manufacturer of high-end women's jeans regarding claims for partnership dissolution, theft of trade secrets, and breach of contract.
• Defending the City of Beverly Hills and its senior officials in class-action and other litigation accusing the City of racial profiling.
• Representing the world's largest media company in litigation involving title to its convertible preferred securities.
• Representing the widow and the estate of a deceased billionaire in multiparty, multivenue litigation relating to division of the family fortune and the sale of the family's oil company.

Mr. Leichter is a 1988 graduate of the Boston University School of Law in Boston, Massachusetts. Following law school, Mr. Leichter served as judicial law clerk to the Honorable Conrad K. Cyr of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and, subsequently, to the Honorable D. Brock Hornby, United States District Judge for the District of Maine.

Mr. Leichter was graduated from Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., receiving his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1983. He then pursued graduate studies at Columbia University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, with the degree of Master of Arts being conferred in 1985.

Mr. Leichter is admitted to practice in New York and California, as well as being a member of the bar of various federal and bankruptcy courts and the United States Supreme Court. A native New Yorker, Mr. Leichter is forty-eight years old and lives in Studio City with his wife Tamera and their two daughters.