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Google defense team left Willkie Farr for Cooley in June

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Moves followed Willkie deal with Trump

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Defense lawyers squared off against Boies, Susman, Morgan

&

Morgan

By David Thomas and Mike Scarcella

Sept 4 (Reuters) - (Billable Hours is Reuters' weekly

report on lawyers and money. Please send tips or suggestions to

[email protected].)

A law firm shakeup in California earlier this year put

Cooley in the driver's seat defending Google in a sprawling

consumer class action that culminated in a $425 million verdict

on Wednesday.

A Willkie Farr team led by Benedict Hur and Simona Agnolucci

had spearheaded Google's defense in the case for five years,

squaring off against David Boies and other lawyers for a class

of nearly 100 million Google users who alleged the tech giant

collected their data after they selected a setting on their

accounts that was supposed to keep it private.

In June, however, with just weeks to go before trial,

Willkie lawyers Hur and Agnolucci jumped ship to Cooley, taking

the case with them. Cooley had already counted Google as a

client in other cases, but it now inherited the sprawling

multibillion-dollar class action. It added more attorneys to the

case to work with Hur and Agnolucci's team.

The departures from Willkie - at least seven partners,

followed by additional associates from the firm's San Francisco

office - came after the law firm decided in April to strike a

deal with the White House to avert being caught up in President

Donald Trump's crackdown on law firms.

A source told Reuters when the group left Willkie that there

was widespread dissatisfaction in the office over the Trump deal

- one of nine similar accords in which major firms had agreed to

devote pro-bono work to causes approved by the administration

after the president issued a series of executive orders

targeting law firms' business.

Hur and Agnolucci did not immediately respond to requests

for comment, nor did spokespersons for Willkie and Cooley.

Before they left the firm, the Willkie lawyers previously

had represented Google in litigation led by the state of Texas

that led to a $1.375 billion settlement in May. They're

currently defending the company in another lawsuit over

allegations that Google unlawfully tracked users' private health

information.

After starting trial on Aug. 19, the case over Google's

privacy settings was finally in the hands of a San Francisco

federal jury on Tuesday. After two days of deliberations, the

jurors determined Google invaded the privacy of millions of

users who had disabled the data setting, but awarded a fraction

of the $31 billion in damages sought by the plaintiffs.

A Google spokesperson said the jury's decision

"misunderstands how our products work" and that the company will

appeal.

Morgan & Morgan attorney John Yanchunis, who represented the

plaintiffs alongside Boies of Boies Schiller Flexner and Bill

Carmody of Susman Godfrey, said in a statement they were

"pleased that the jury listened to the evidence and saw how

Google enriched itself by collecting information without its

users' consent."

Yanchunis did not respond to a question about legal fees the

plaintiffs' could seek in the case.

The three plaintiffs' firms have been waging other privacy

class actions against Google, including a 2020 lawsuit that

claimed Google collected data from users despite their use of

private-browsing in Chrome's "Incognito" mode. Google reached a

settlement in April that required it to destroy billions of data

records.

The firms in that case have asked a judge to award them $217

million in legal fees as part of the settlement. Google is

fighting the fee bid in that case, calling it "beyond the pale"

in a case where there was no settlement fund.

Boies Schiller, and Morgan & Morgan have separately filed

thousands of lawsuits against Google in state courts in

California, accusing the company of violating privacy rights and

seeking monetary damages.

- Plaintiffs' law firm Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann

in a court filing said it will ask a judge in New York to award

the firm up to $34.5 million in legal fees for its work on a

$115 million settlement resolving shareholder claims that poor

risk management at Credit Suisse caused significant losses in

2020 and 2021.

Nineteen former Credit Suisse executives and directors

reached the settlement in state court in New York. Law firms

representing the defendants included Gibson Dunn; Baker

McKenzie; Crowell & Moring; Blank Rome; and Cahill Gordon &

Reindel.

Swiss bank UBS took over Credit Suisse in 2023 in a

government-arranged rescue. A UBS spokesperson said they "are

pleased that this long-running litigation has been resolved by

settlement." The defendants have denied any wrongdoing.

- Baker Botts' special counsel David LaCerte reported

$550,000 in law firm pay on a financial disclosure form he filed

as part of his nomination by President Donald Trump to serve on

the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

The form, standard for executive branch nominees, showed

LaCerte has provided legal services to clients including BP

America, Halliburton Energy, Koch Industries, Georgia-Pacific,

Phillips 66 and Waste Management.

LaCerte served as an unpaid advisor last year to Trump's

transition team. LaCerte had no immediate comment.

FERC, which has a maximum of five members, regulates the

power grid, liquefied natural gas projects and interstate

transportation of oil and natural gas.

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