A federal jury trial with high-profile witnesses on both sides, a complicated factual record, and a client whose ownership of his own creative work was on the line. We built the story the facts supported and put it in front of twelve people the right way.
Our client was an independent visual artist and apparel designer whose creative output had built a recognizable aesthetic over several years. The opposing party, a corporate entity tied to a former business partner, filed a federal complaint in the Central District of California alleging infringement and asserting broad rights over the creative work our client had personally conceived, drawn, and produced.
A separate consolidated action was filed. The combined record ran across several years of contested facts, signed documents whose authenticity was disputed, business relationships that had shifted over time, and a list of prominent industry witnesses whose calendars did not line up easily.
The most important question for our client was not corporate or transactional. It was whether the art he had made would remain his. He needed counsel that would prioritize that question and tell the story to a jury in a way that twelve people could understand and believe.
We worked the case from the jury back. We identified the handful of facts that would actually decide the copyright question: who sat down with the pencil, who authored the expressive choices, who controlled the creative process, and what the documentary record actually showed rather than what opposing counsel characterized it as. We built a trial narrative around those facts. Every exhibit, every witness examination, and every closing theme was calibrated to carry that narrative cleanly to twelve people who had never heard of any of the witnesses before walking into the courtroom.
We coordinated witness availability across multiple jurisdictions and competing schedules, working through months of logistical friction to get the right witnesses in the right order on the right days. We prepared our client for testimony that would be cross-examined aggressively on documents whose legitimacy was contested. We prepared our experts to explain authorship in terms a non-specialist juror would find clear and memorable. We trial-tested key segments with mock jurors and adjusted based on what landed and what did not.
At trial, we presented the case the record actually supported. The jury came back with the verdict our client had retained us to achieve on the question that mattered most to him: he kept the copyright to the art he had made.
"The case was about whether the work I made was mine. Brandon made sure the jury knew the answer."
— Client
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