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EDUCATION University of Southern California Gould School of Law, Los Angeles, California, J.D., 1978 University of Hawaii, B.Ed., 1974 ADMITTED California Hawaii |
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Sidney Kanazawa
Partner 
1800 Century Park East
skanazawa@mcguirewoods.com8th Floor Los Angeles, California 90067 F: 310.315.8210 |
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In 2007, Mr. Kanazawa was selected by the publishers of Los Angeles magazine as one of Southern California's "Super Lawyers." He has extensive experience maximizing the opportunities and minimizing the dangers of products liability, environmental, intellectual property (including patents), regulatory, white collar crime, construction, commercial, class actions, employment, banking, and other disputes.
- Obtained a unanimous and complete defense verdict in a sexual harassment jury trial on behalf of a major Hollywood studio and thereby avoided a judgment, attorneys fees, and embarrassing publicity for the client.
- Negotiated a $49 million class action settlement on behalf of the class in a very acrimonious antitrust matter that tested the character of everyone involved.
- Settled an extremely acrimonious multimillion-dollar case a day before trial that involved a huge realignment of the parties, but allowed all sides to walk away with a more just and positive resolution than they could have achieved through trial.
- Resolved a series of highly complex multimillion-dollar partnership, building management, and practice management lawsuits on behalf of a world-renown medical group against two major publicly traded companies, without formal discovery.
- Reduced a multibillion-dollar California Business and Professions Code Section 17200 claim, that was prosecuted by the district attorneys of nine counties against several manufacturers, to a low six-figure administrative fine and reimbursement. This result was achieved over three years through a series of meetings and correspondence that extensively explored constitutional limitations on government fines and penalties, case law interpretations of Section 17200, the admissibility of extrapolation evidence, and the likely impact of expected trial presentations. The complaint and stipulated final consent judgment were filed the same day and received no press coverage.
- Engaged in a series of meetings and presentations that resulted in the amicable settlement of an intellectual property matter involving the misappropriation of the name and likeness of a high profile individual within three months of the filing of the complaint and before any significant discovery.
- Removed his product manufacturer client and a distributor co-defendant from a 30-party construction defect case with severe personal injury allegations, by actively engaging with co-defendants to minimize disputes among defendants, reducing costs through the use of electronic filing, and promoting extensive settlement discussions with plaintiffs' counsel.
- Terminated the major portion of an employment case before trial on behalf of an entertainment industry studio through the development of a theme and storyline, and apt analogies in a summary adjudication motion.
- Presented a series of lectures on the ethics and persuasion to the Los Angeles County Bar Association and a variety of other groups that explained why lawyers have fallen into disrepute, and how selfless compassion can help them regain the stature and respect of Atticus Finch (To Kill a Mockingbird).
- Investigated and developed compelling "user friendly" themes for complex patent case that favorably settled before trial.
- Developed motivating story and tried portions of patent related computer development case.
- Settled a business tort and intellectual property case in the middle of trial, and had the opportunity to learn much of the jurors' thinking in a subsequent lunch with several of the jurors that reinforced much of the trial strategies he has shared with colleagues in NITA and other programs.
- Used talks and letters "from the heart" to quell a significant labor strike that threatened to cripple a client company.
- Used a series of informal lunches and meetings to resolve a major employment dispute within one month of the filing of the complaint.
- Used a variety of legal and interpersonal strategies to stop an attempted takeover of a company, including the filing of a TRO.
- Provided a quick, interpersonal response to a class action that resulted in an early favorable resolution of the class action on his client's behalf before any significant expenditure of fees or expenses in the defense of the class action.
- Recovered a seven-figure settlement in a major homeowners' association's action, without taking any depositions, and with virtually no other discovery by any party.
- Dissuaded a client from immediately filing a lawsuit and instead resolved a multimillion-dollar dispute through informal meetings in a matter of months, saving a valuable business relationship that his client thought was unsalvageable.
- After a month-long trial virtually no one thought he could win, Mr. Kanazawa successfully defended a grocery chain against a highly contentious contempt action by the California attorney general and several private environmental groups over an alleged breach of a Proposition 65 consent judgment. With simple themes and graphic cross-examinations of plaintiffs’ witnesses, Mr. Kanazawa subdued plaintiffs’ populist cause and turned the spotlight on plaintiffs’ and the government’s less-than-honest conduct in attempting to enforce the consent judgment.
- In actions brought in California and Nevada, Mr. Kanazawa recovered 100% of his clients’ original investment (after attorneys’ fees and costs) and assisted a Receiver in recovering more than $40 million for a medical device company when improper cash transfers of private placement funds reduced the company’s available cash from more than $30 million to less than $100,000 by the time his clients initiated a shareholders’ derivative lawsuit that eventually led to the appointment of the Receiver and this recovery.
- Helped a homeowners association recover $2 million from its insurer in an earthquake damage dispute.
- Defended a client manufacturer in a breach of contract lawsuit by an exclusive distributor and ultimately resolved the matter by recovering for the manufacturer more from the distributor than the distributor originally claimed in damages.
- Recovered $8 million for a homeowners association in a construction defect case involving more than 50 parties, even though the defendants' cost-of-repair estimates were less than $3 million.
- Saved a client from arrest and brought closure to a series of criminal, administrative, and civil actions that arose from a high publicity oil spill, by using his own openness and a public agency’s unjust press releases to calm suspicions and turn the emotional tide against the agency. Later, he subtly used a civil opponent's "truth stretching" to bring that matter to a sudden close at a mediation.
- Helped a client reinstate its state-issued administrative letter of authorization when it was revoked by the state agency on questionable grounds, by encouraging the client to take a "high road" in the media and to work behind the scenes in direct meetings and actions with the agency to reestablish its credibility with the agency. The letter was reinstated and relations with the agency improved (which would probably not have been the case if more formal legal remedies were employed).
- Used creative graphics and a focused theme (fish spit) to prepare a major Proposition 65 diesel exhaust environmental case for trial on behalf of several major grocery chains in California. This approach precipitated a favorable resolution of the matter before trial.
- Took a series of video depositions of an opponent’s executives, edited snippets of these videos into a tight juxtaposition of conflicting stories (Liar’s Tape), and created other storyboard graphics in preparation for trial. On the first day of trial, the opponent corporation paid his clients more than 100 times the opponent’s "maximum" offer.
- Was called one morning at home, changed his morning plans, and arrived on scene just as the OSHA and district attorney investigators were arriving to interview witnesses about a death in a sand silo that had occurred the night before. Mr. Kanazawa helped the client set up a crisis team, and helped the team confidently move the company forward. Using unique persuasive techniques, Mr. Kanazawa reached out to the union representatives, the decedent’s family, and the government agencies involved, which in turn, curtailed adverse publicity about this event, induced favorable resolutions of all potential criminal, administrative, and civil actions, and eliminated criminal prosecution of all of the individuals involved.
- Stepped into a major landslide case, sharpened the issues and themes, developed key facts, created cogent supporting evidence from thousands of documents, and recovered nearly $20 million for his clients.
- Concluded a civil trial in which he proved another vessel spilled 92% of the oil in the largest oil spill ever in the Port of Los Angeles, despite U.S. Coast Guard oil "fingerprinting" test results that ostensibly only matched oil from Mr. Kanazawa’s client’s vessel. At the time of the spill, Mr. Kanazawa was called in the middle of the night, and for the next three months, took charge of the entire crisis on behalf of a Korean shipping company. He personally directed four major contractors and hundreds of laborers in the multimillion-dollar clean-up, handled all regulatory and media communications, and set up a claims office to resolve the more than 2,000 claims that arose from the spill. The spill shut down the main channel of the Port of Los Angeles for five days and required seven miles of boom to contain the oil while it was being cleaned off thousands of pilings and rocks for the next three months. This was the first major oil spill under the then new California and Federal Oil Pollution Acts and prompted a felony prosecution by City of Los Angeles and the State of California. Significantly, Mr. Kanazawa’s approach to this crisis:
- Has been hailed as a "model" clean up by the Coast Guard
- Generated virtually no adverse publicity
- Resolved 600 of the 2,000+ claims within two weeks of the spill and all 2,000+ within three months of the spill (experts hired by the other vessel that spilled 92% of the oil later conceded they could find no fault with the amounts paid or the administrative costs employed to resolve these claims)
- Derailed the felony prosecution in the midst of the preliminary hearing
- In civil discovery proceedings, uncovered facts and evidence, unknown at the time of the spill, that eventually led to the successful civil prosecution of another vessel for 92% of the oil spilled
- Eventually allowed recovery by the shipowner client of virtually all of its costs and expenses for this spill from others
- Used a general verdict, openness, and a contrasting precise style to minimize adverse facts and obtain a verdict in a difficult case that was a fraction of the lowest demand before trial and a fraction of his opponent’s costs.
- Used risk assessment decision trees, and created graphs and statistics from actual jury trial data to persuade a client and an opponent to settle a case within a few months of its commencement, even though both sides fully expected the case would proceed to trial 2-3 years later.
- Obtained a defense verdict in a huge punitive damage case dripping with emotion that no one thought he could win. The demands in the case began in the millions, and continued to climb throughout the preparation of the case and up until the beginning of trial. At trial, Mr. Kanazawa’s opening statement embraced plaintiffs’ best facts as his own and weaved a compassionate theme around those facts to win.
- Obtained a unanimous product liability design defect defense verdict for a manufacturer despite previous and subsequent punitive damage plaintiff verdicts against the same manufacturer for the same product.
- Using computer graphics (sustained before the 9th Circuit), obtained a 100% favorable judgment for client against another ship despite arctic clear visibility conditions, his ship's lack of a bow lookout and vigilant radar watch, his ship's port (normally yielding) position in the collision, and a previous case where the same law firms were representing opposite-positioned ships in the same area (entrance to Port of Los Angeles) and Mr. Kanazawa's law firm prevailed in that case as well.
- Using video depositions in a federal trial, put on five witnesses in less than an hour and learned that even poor video can be extremely powerful in unexpected ways.
- Using video telephone testimony in a federal trial, learned the value of seeing and not smelling a witness.
- Product & Consumer Litigation
- Electronic Discovery & Records Management
- Japan Practice Group
- Accountants Defense Team
- Named a "Southern California Super Lawyer," Law & Politics Magazine, 2007, 2008
- Recipient, G. Duffield Smith Outstanding Publication Award, Defense Research Institute, 2007
- Partner, Van Etten Suzumoto & Becket LLP
- Partner, Pillsbury Winthrop LLP
- Partner, Lillick McHose LLP
- Representing Asian Clients in High-Stakes U.S. Jury Trials, Inter-Pacific Bar Association, 18th Annual Conference, April 27-30, 2008
- American Law Institute
- Product Liability Advisory Council
- Maritime Law Association
- Japanese American Bar Association
- National Asian Pacific American Bar Association