Our Latest Work. Our Most Recent Victories.

In 2002, The City of San Francisco and San Francisco International Airport entered into an Exclusive Negotiation Agreement (ENA) with Airis Holdings LLC to design and build a customized air cargo solution. Midway through the ENA, after Airis Holdings had invested millions in developing the project, the City and the Airport violated the terms of the contract and began pursuing alternative plans to develop the cargo facility. In response, The Focal Point’s client, Airis Holdings, sued The City and County of San Francisco claiming the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing during the Exclusive Negotiation Agreement had been violated, and won a unanimous verdict of $1million.

After working with lead attorney Steven Thomas of the Los Angeles office of Sullivan & Cromwell LLP for more than a year, The Focal Point played a major role in the verdict against accounting firm BDO Seidman in a gross negligence case brought by Portuguese bank Banco Espirito Santo. The jury awarded over $533 million to Banco Espirito--$170 million in compensation and $351.7 million in punitive damages.

The Focal Point provided pro bono trial strategy and graphic services to the San Francisco Public Defender on behalf of LaShuan Harris, the mentally ill mother who drowned her three children in San Francisco Bay, resulting in a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.

A San Diego judge awarded Starbucks baristas over $100 million in a California class action suit against the retail coffee chain.

The Focal Point teamed up again with the attorneys at Fulbright & Jaworski and local counsel to attain favorable results in a patent infringement suit against a host of large high tech companies such as Nortel, Nokia, Cisco Systems, and Ericsson.

A Los Angeles jury sided with The Focal Point's client and rejected the majority of the plaintiff's claims related to the alleged stealing of employees. The jurors awarded the plaintiff only $8 million, far less than was being sought. The court subsequently ordered the plaintiff to pay the defendant's attorneys fees.

This is a securities fraud class action that included all persons who purchased Motorola common stock and five classes of registered Motorola debt securities during the period February 3, 2000, through May 14, 2001. Motorola agreed to pay $190 million to the Class (represented by The Focal Point's client).

The Focal Point, as part of its ongoing pro bono commitment, collaborated on this case in which Judge Sydney H. Stein of the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York found in favor of Jane Does I, II, and III and ordered Emmanuel Constant to pay $19 million in compensatory and punitive damages. Ivor Samson of Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal and Moira Feeney of The Center for Justice and Accountability both received the California Trial Lawyer of the Year award.

The Focal Point worked with Reed Smith and the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund to defend the right of children with diabetes to have access to medical treatment while at school. As a result of this important settlement, California schools will now be required to provide medical assistance during the school day to children with diabetes.

The Focal Point worked with counsel to clarify case themes and theories and to create a cohesive, easily understood storyline that resulted in an award of $838 million in damages to German truck manufacturer, MAN AG.

A jury in the Northern District of Texas finds that Glycobiotics willfully infringed a patent owned by Mannatech.

Accused infringer, Bridge Medical, recently prevailed in a long-standing patent infringement dispute brought by McKesson Information Systems.

The Focal Point worked with trial teams from Cooley Godward Kronish and Latham & Watkins to develop graphics that helped MPS win a full-defense verdict in a patent infringement suit brought against them by O2 Micro International Limited. The jury determined that MPS did not literally infringe the asserted patent claims, and that O2 Micro's patent is invalid.

The Focal Point worked with attorneys from the law firm Fulbright & Jaworski to defend Motorola, Inc. in a bad faith contracts claim. Using an interactive Flash presentation developed by The Focal Point, the lawyers successfully conveyed to the American Arbitration Association the key themes that established Motorola had not engaged in any bad faith activity. As a result, the Plaintiffs received no damages.

Residential Warranty Corp. was awarded $1,164,880 in damages for intentional misrepresentation, false promise, and concealment on the part of the defendants who applied for a home warranty to cover vast construction defects on a home built by its company.

The Focal Point helped the County of Alameda avoid up to $30 million in damages when the Redwood Christian School claimed the County had violated the First Amendment by not allowing the multi-denominational Christian school to build a new campus in Castro Valley for 650 junior and senior high school students.

A Chicago jury found James Koenig, former CFO of Waste Management, Inc., liable for falsifying accounts while engaging in "massive financial fraud" totaling $1.7 billion between 1992 and 1997.

Blue Shield of California won an important victory after a 4-week jury trial in Southern California. The plaintiff, a 40-year-old mother of two, accused Blue Shield of breach of contract and insurance bad faith related to her HMO coverage. In a clear defense verdict, the jury awarded the plaintiff a mere $65.