Meet the SoCal Litigator Behind the Stormy-Trump Drama
Michael Avenatti claims that "there is a considerable amount of information that has not been disclosed" about his porn star client's former relationship with the president.
March 08, 2018 at 07:16 PM
5 minute read
Michael Avenatti, no stranger to high-profile skirmishes, is bracing for another battle after filing a suit this week against President Donald Trump in Los Angeles Superior Court.
The St. Louis transplant, who now runs his own litigation shop in Newport Beach, California, predicts that his latest courtroom contest will be no cakewalk.
“No. 1, you better be prepared for a street fight,” said Avenatti, who has sued Trump before. “No. 2, you better be prepared to be aggressive. And No. 3, you better be prepared for punches along the way.”
Avenatti is now representing Stephanie Clifford, an adult entertainment star better known as Stormy Daniels, who has alleged that she and Trump engaged in a consensual intimate affair that began in 2006 and continued into the following year. Trump has denied the allegations through White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
In her suit, Daniels claims she should be free to talk about her alleged affair with the president because Trump never signed a confidentiality agreement negotiated by Trump's personal lawyer and former Phillips Nizer partner Michael Cohen, which was finalized just prior to the 2016 U.S. presidential election. (Cohen's $130,000 payment to Daniels for her silence is the subject of a Federal Election Commission complaint.)
Also in 2006, another Avenatti client, Velocity Entertainment Group, settled for an undisclosed sum another suit filed against Trump and television producer Mark Burnett. Velocity had claimed Trump and Burnett lifted the idea for the hit show “The Apprentice,” which spawned myriad spin-offs.
Given the potential political consequences of Daniels' battle with Trump, plenty of lawyers and journalists have offered suggestions for Avenatti's legal strategy, including one by The New York Times columnist Charles Blow, who tweeted: “Can some benevolent billionaire who loves this country just pay the $1 million dollar penalty keeping Stormy Daniels from sharing her story, including the text messages and photos. Pleaseeeeee …”
Avenatti nixed that scenario, citing the specific terms of Daniels' contract.
“It doesn't work like that,” said Avenatti, who began his legal career at O'Melveny & Myers.
And why not?
Daniels' contract calls for her to pay a fine of $1 million per incident, although it doesn't clearly define what one incident might be, so she could be facing a fine of up to $100 million if she talks, Avenatti said. But if Daniels does win her legal right to share her story, part of which In Touch Weekly published in January as a result of a previously unpublished 2011 interview, Avenatti expects that the nation will be grateful.
“There is a considerable amount of information that has not been disclosed,” he said. “The American people are going to find her credible and they are going to be interested in it. Let them decide who is telling the truth.”
Asked how he came to represent Daniels, Avenatti said that there is only “a small subset of firms” that have the resources and skillset to cope with the deluge of media attention that such a matter as this requires.
Avenatti and Eagan Avenatti, a previous firm he formed in 2007, according to his current firm's website, have won big cases. In 2015, he beat the National Football League after a two-week jury trial in Dallas, obtaining an order getting Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones to the witness stand in a dispute over Super Bowl tickets.
In April 2017, Avenatti prevailed against Kimberly-Clark Corp., spin-off Halyard Health Inc. and their lawyers from King & Spalding when he secured a $454 million fraud verdict in a Los Angeles federal court. The class action suit, which was featured on CBS's “60 Minutes,” involved surgical gowns that allegedly failed to protect medical personnel from infection.
One month before that big verdict, in March 2017, an alleged creditor named Gerald Tobin, later purported in court documents to be a private investigator, filed an involuntary bankruptcy petition against Eagan Avenatti over a claim for payment worth less than $30,000.
In January, Eagan Avenatti filed a motion with the Los Angeles Bankruptcy Court to approve a settlement and dismissal of that involuntary case. The motion is pending. In it, Eagan Avenatti argues that, as a class action and contingency fee plaintiffs firm, it does “not pay out fees and costs until litigation is concluded or settled, which often takes several years during which the [the firm] routinely invests millions of dollars in investigating claims, conducting discovery, hiring experts, and preparing for trial.”
Eagan Avenatti's revenue stream is “chunky,” the firm said in its motion to the Bankruptcy Court, but “it is very profitable over time.”
The firm's primary dispute was not with the petitioning creditor “but with three former attorney employees” of the firm, the motion stated. The former employees and Eagan Avenatti disagreed about sunken costs and claims to settlements, according to the motion.
On Feb. 23, Eagan Avenatti also filed an objection to an application for $36,000 in fees and expenses filed by Baker & Hostetler, its initial debtor counsel. The firm was replaced a year ago after the bankruptcy case was moved from Florida to Los Angeles. (Pachulski Stang Ziehl & Jones, which in late January filed an application with the court seeking almost $1.5 million in legal fees and expenses, is now representing Eagan Avenatti.)
Avenatti declined to discuss his former firm's involuntary bankruptcy proceedings. Of course, in facing off against Trump, Avenatti has an adversary well-versed in the machinations of Chapter 11. The Washington Post has reported that Trump's companies have filed for bankruptcy six separate times.
This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.
To view this content, please continue to their sites.
Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
NOT FOR REPRINT
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
You Might Like
View AllDog Gone It, Target: Provider of Retailer's Mascot Dog Sues Over Contract Cancellation
4 minute readBaker McKenzie, Ex-Client Embroiled In Litigation Over Retainer Agreement Breach
Keker Secures Defense Win for EDA Software Company Real Intent in Synopsys Copyright Infringement Case
Trending Stories
- 1Gibson Dunn Sued By Crypto Client After Lateral Hire Causes Conflict of Interest
- 2Trump's Solicitor General Expected to 'Flip' Prelogar's Positions at Supreme Court
- 3Pharmacy Lawyers See Promise in NY Regulator's Curbs on PBM Industry
- 4Outgoing USPTO Director Kathi Vidal: ‘We All Want the Country to Be in a Better Place’
- 5Supreme Court Will Review Constitutionality Of FCC's Universal Service Fund
Who Got The Work
Michael G. Bongiorno, Andrew Scott Dulberg and Elizabeth E. Driscoll from Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr have stepped in to represent Symbotic Inc., an A.I.-enabled technology platform that focuses on increasing supply chain efficiency, and other defendants in a pending shareholder derivative lawsuit. The case, filed Oct. 2 in Massachusetts District Court by the Brown Law Firm on behalf of Stephen Austen, accuses certain officers and directors of misleading investors in regard to Symbotic's potential for margin growth by failing to disclose that the company was not equipped to timely deploy its systems or manage expenses through project delays. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton, is 1:24-cv-12522, Austen v. Cohen et al.
Who Got The Work
Edmund Polubinski and Marie Killmond of Davis Polk & Wardwell have entered appearances for data platform software development company MongoDB and other defendants in a pending shareholder derivative lawsuit. The action, filed Oct. 7 in New York Southern District Court by the Brown Law Firm, accuses the company's directors and/or officers of falsely expressing confidence in the company’s restructuring of its sales incentive plan and downplaying the severity of decreases in its upfront commitments. The case is 1:24-cv-07594, Roy v. Ittycheria et al.
Who Got The Work
Amy O. Bruchs and Kurt F. Ellison of Michael Best & Friedrich have entered appearances for Epic Systems Corp. in a pending employment discrimination lawsuit. The suit was filed Sept. 7 in Wisconsin Western District Court by Levine Eisberner LLC and Siri & Glimstad on behalf of a project manager who claims that he was wrongfully terminated after applying for a religious exemption to the defendant's COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The case, assigned to U.S. Magistrate Judge Anita Marie Boor, is 3:24-cv-00630, Secker, Nathan v. Epic Systems Corporation.
Who Got The Work
David X. Sullivan, Thomas J. Finn and Gregory A. Hall from McCarter & English have entered appearances for Sunrun Installation Services in a pending civil rights lawsuit. The complaint was filed Sept. 4 in Connecticut District Court by attorney Robert M. Berke on behalf of former employee George Edward Steins, who was arrested and charged with employing an unregistered home improvement salesperson. The complaint alleges that had Sunrun informed the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection that the plaintiff's employment had ended in 2017 and that he no longer held Sunrun's home improvement contractor license, he would not have been hit with charges, which were dismissed in May 2024. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Jeffrey A. Meyer, is 3:24-cv-01423, Steins v. Sunrun, Inc. et al.
Who Got The Work
Greenberg Traurig shareholder Joshua L. Raskin has entered an appearance for boohoo.com UK Ltd. in a pending patent infringement lawsuit. The suit, filed Sept. 3 in Texas Eastern District Court by Rozier Hardt McDonough on behalf of Alto Dynamics, asserts five patents related to an online shopping platform. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap, is 2:24-cv-00719, Alto Dynamics, LLC v. boohoo.com UK Limited.
Featured Firms
Law Offices of Gary Martin Hays & Associates, P.C.
(470) 294-1674
Law Offices of Mark E. Salomone
(857) 444-6468
Smith & Hassler
(713) 739-1250