If there's one thing I've learned in my four-and-a-half years as editor of Litigation Daily, it's this: Lawyers really like being named Litigator of Week.

Turns out, the award is good for more than just bragging rights and congratulatory emails. A judge in New York state court cited the LOTW win by Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan partners Maaren Shah and Luke Nikas as grounds to grant the firm's entire legal fee request. 

The duo oversaw a team in prevailing on behalf of up-and-coming artist Lala Abaddon in a fight with an art gallery for allegedly stealing her catalog of work and threatening to burn it unless she acceded to their demands.

Quinn Emanuel took the case pro bono (no decision yet on what they'll do with fees). Associate Nathan Goralnik, who knows Abaddon (real name Allison Clark) personally, brought her case to the firm and played a leading role in the litigation. Associate Neil Phillips worked on the matter as well.

In a 2015 feature about emerging artists, The New York Times wrote that Abaddon creates artwork by "deconstructing large-format photos and painstakingly weaving them into bright, fabriclike canvases."  Her bigger pieces take hundreds of hours to make. 

Abaddon got her first solo show in 2015 at the Castor Gallery in New York's Lower East Side. The deal was, the gallery would frame, exhibit and sell her works—priced from $500 to $15,000—in exchange for a 50% commission on any sale proceeds, with all unsold works to be returned to the artist. 

Abaddon spent thousands of hours to create 18 pieces for the show, which ran from Feb. 26 2015 to March 29, 2015.

When the show ended, Abaddon asked for the 15 unsold works to be returned—she'd been invited to display one called "Liminal Dwelling" (pictured above) that she regarded as her masterpiece at an exhibition in Brooklyn.

"However, defendants reneged on their promise" and didn't hand over the piece, dropping off a smaller, less valuable one instead, wrote now-retired Justice Charles Ramos, serving as special referee.

More opportunities arose for Abaddon. MTV was filming a video feature in her studio, for example, and she needed her artwork. According to Ramos, the gallery again refused to give it up.

"Finally, the plaintiff was informed by the defendants that she and they needed to agree on what pieces she was going to leave with them before they would return any of her work," Ramos wrote. "This was the first time defendants had ever suggested to Ms. Clark that she might be required to relinquish her artworks to them, which was contrary to her agreement and course of dealing with defendants."

The gallery claimed it should get three of her pieces to recoup the costs of the solo show. Abaddon protested she never agreed to let them keep any of her art.

The gallery's curator, Justin DeDemko, then told her they'd only return the pieces after they were taken out of the frames—"in fact a threat to damage the works because removing the frames would cause irreparable damage to the artworks, while rendering the custom frames unusable," Ramos wrote. "Removing the frames would serve no purpose except to reduce the value of the artworks."

Things kept escalating. Abaddon terminated the gallery's authority to act on her behalf and demanded that they remove anything affiliated with her or her work from their online listings.

They didn't. 

DeDemko then informed her that the gallery was keeping not just three pieces, but all of her works. Moreover, he "threatened to burn the work or sell it all," Ramos wrote.

Enter Quinn Emanuel.

Shah and Nikas are veteran art litigators. Last year, they won Litigator of the Week for back-to-back wins on behalf of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts in a copyright fight with photographer Lynn Goldsmith and The Morgan Art Foundation in a battle with the estate of Robert Indiana—famous for his "LOVE" sculpture.

Those were high-profile fights with millions of dollars on the line. The monetary stakes here were of course much lower, but the principle—defending the rights of artists against abusive dealers—was big. 

In taking Abaddon's case pro bono, Shah said the firm recognized that her complaint was "very worthy," and that while her career as an artist is certainly promising, "she's not necessarily in the position to pay the fees of Quinn Emanuel."

According to the firm, as the team of lawyers dug into the case, they "uncovered a widespread pattern of fraud and abuse of Castor Gallery's artists," as well as model and "Gone Girl" actress Emily Ratajkowski, who protested that the gallery was using racy photos of her in an exhibit without her permission.

The Quinn Emanuel litigators attacked Castor with 20 causes of action, including claims for breach of contract, punitive damages and legal fees. They also managed to get nearly all of Abaddon's artworks back, including "Liminal Dwelling."

 Their pleadings "provided a rallying cry for other aggrieved artists, who proceeded against Castor by filing papers that copied [Abaddon's] claims," according to Quinn Emanuel.

Abaddon prevailed across the board—and Ramos savaged the gallery for its "outrageous conduct, which undermines the core values of the art market," as well as its "brazen theft of her property."

The defendants were represented by Russell Woods of New Jersey's Bramnick, Rodriguez, Grabas, Arnold & Mangan, who did not respond to a request for comment.

New York has an Arts and Cultural Affairs law that specifically makes it a crime for art dealers to misappropriate artworks entrusted to their care. The law also gives the court discretion to award attorneys' fees.

Ramos gave Quinn Emanuel every penny it asked for—$79,082—on top of $241,000 in punitive and other damages.

The firm deliberately limited its fee request to less than 100 hours— "A small fraction of the time [Abaddon's] counsel actually incurred in this matter, as reflected in Quinn Emanuel's exceptionally detailed and high quality submissions," the judge wrote.

He continued, "Counsel's experience, ability and reputation further supports the requested fees."

And how does he know this? "Ms. Clark's attorneys were guided by Maaren Shah and Luke Nikas, recently recognized as The American Lawyer's 'Litigators of the Week' for a 'pair of wins in the rarefied world of art litigation.'"

You're welcome.