Another Round of Litigator of the Week Runners-Up and Shout Outs

 Also getting a runner-up spot this week is Adam Cashman, the founder of Singer Cashman. After a one-week trial twice rescheduled because of COVID, a federal jury in San Francisco sided with Cashman’s client, Eventbrite, and hit Canada-based concert promoter MRG Concerts Ltd with an $11 million damages verdict. Jurors found MRG breached its contract with the live event promotion and ticketing company and rejected counterclaims based on Eventbrite’s April 2020 decision to decline to advance millions of dollars set aside for event promotion. Eventbrite cited a “material adverse change” in the market for live events due to COVID when refusing to advance the funds.

 Weil, Gotshal & Manges associate Robert Niles-Weed gets a runner-up spot for scoring a landmark ruling on behalf of the Reverend John Udo-Okon, a pastor in the South Bronx, and Upsolve, a financial education and civil rights nonprofit. U.S. District Judge Paul Crotty in Manhattan this week granted a preliminary injunction barring New York prosecutors from enforcing the state’s unauthorized law practice rules against the nonprofit in its efforts to train people who are not lawyers, such as Rev. Udo-Okon, to provide free legal advice in debt-collection lawsuits. The judge found the program “would help alleviate an avalanche of unanswered debt collection cases, while mitigating the risk of consumer or ethical harm.” The Weil team on the matter also includes appellate co-heads Greg Silbert and Zack Tripp, as well as associates Elena De Santis, Liz Grefrath and Sara Weiss.

 Runners-up honors also go to a Winston & Strawn trial team led by Chuck Klein. After a three-day bench trial, Chief U.S. District Judge Colm Connolly in Delaware issued an 80-page opinion last week siding with Winston client Pfizer finding that its subsidiary Hospira does not directly or indirectly infringe three Gilead patents covering Astellas’ Lexiscan, a pharmaceutical agent used in a type of cardiac stress test for patients unable to exercise adequately. The Winston team on the matter included partner Jovial Wong, associates Claire Fundakowski and Alison King, paralegal Alissa Hodgson, trial support specialists Dave Pennel and Erika Mastro, and practice coordinator Somchay Chinyavong.