Steven Weisburd

Florida-based Carlton Fields Jorden Burt has hired trial and appellate veteran Steven Weisburd to expand its practice in Southern California.

Weisburd will officially join the firm Friday as a partner in the Am Law 200 firm's Los Angeles office, which is located near Century City. The California native, who has been taking some time off to focus on his interest in the hospitality sector, said he is excited to be “back to litigating.”

Before returning to a full-time law practice, Weisburd had been splitting time between the Golden State and Austin, Texas, where he was most recently president and CEO of Penumbral Strategic Ventures, a now-defunct private equity firm that has developed and managed a variety of hospitality projects.

In Los Angeles, Weisburd's new venture, Midnight Hospitality Group, counts as its first project a trendy new speakeasy that the litigator co-owns with entrepreneur Tom Sopit. The establishment, whose opening made Hollywood headlines earlier this year, is called Employees Only LA, an offshoot of the popular New York cocktail bar.

“The principal focus of my time is going to be litigation,” Weisburd said. “In terms of Employees Only, I am the principal owner of the company … but they have a general manager and a full staff. … There is a very little amount of my time that will be required.”

Weisburd's last full-time legal position was at Dechert in Austin, where he was a partner from 2006 to 2016. Before that, Weisburd worked in the downtown Los Angeles office of Munger, Tolles & Olson, a firm he first joined as an associate in 1994 before being promoted to partner in 1999. He moved to Austin along with his ex-wife, Kathy Valentine, who grew up in the area and is known for her role as the bassist for the Go-Go's. (The all-female band recently reunited.)

The couple split up in 2012, but have remained friends and shared parenting duties for their daughter. Weisburd and Valentine are also co-owners of The Townsend, a popular Austin cocktail bar that opened in 2015.

“I have always been planning, with the right opportunity, at some point going back to the practice of law, and really was thinking of Los Angeles, because my daughter wants to study at UCLA and my mom and dad are in Los Angeles,” said Weisburd, noting that he started paying attention to Carlton Fields when the firm set up shop in Los Angeles in early 2014.

Weisburd added that the location of Carlton Fields' office was also appealing to him due to the growing large law firm business in Century City.

“I have always liked Century City a lot,” Weisburd said. “One of my core thoughts is if I am going to come back, Century City was more appealing for an office instead of downtown.”

According to the firm, Carlton Fields has about 13 lawyers in Century City. In a statement, Carlton Fields' Los Angeles managing partner (and self-described “Cheesehead“) Mark Neubauer said that the firm expects Weisburd to help them “continue to expand Carlton Fields' nationally recognized class action and civil litigation practice.”

During his 20 years litigating business and entertainment disputes, as well as complex class actions and mass tort cases, Weisburd has successfully represented many major corporate clients and product manufacturers across the county, including AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP, Google LLC, Philip Morris International Inc. and Time Warner Cable Inc.

He argued and won Daubert and summary judgment motions for AstraZeneca in multidistrict litigation over the drug Seroquel in Delaware and New Jersey, as well as scoring a related win for the drug giant before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Weisburd also obtained the dismissal of two consumer fraud class actions against Google in California.

Besides his products liability expertise, Weisburd, a former musician, also represents artists, film and television producers, record companies, talent agencies and major media companies in federal and state courts. Weisburd comes to Carlton Fields, which merged four years ago with Miami-based Jorden Burt, two months after the firm saw tax partner Menasche Nass in Los Angeles leave to start his own shop. Nass joined Carlton Fields last summer.

(L-R) Tom Sopit and Steven Weisburd of the Midnight Hospitality Group.