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Noah Hagey

| Sep. 21, 2022

Sep. 21, 2022

Noah Hagey

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BraunHagey & Borden LLP

SAN FRANCISCO - Noah Hagey said he and the bicoastal litigation and transactions boutique he founded don't think much of pushing young lawyers to specialize in a narrow area of practice. It's becoming increasingly common at large firms that new associates "are told from a very early age that they should learn a particular sub-sub-specialty and only do that," he said. "We think there's something evil and pernicious about that."

Litigating cases in different areas encourages cross-fertilization of ideas and techniques, he said. But if attorneys have become "cogs in a wheel," they may be blinded "to other options and alternatives and opportunities."

So when Hagey recently won one of the largest jury verdicts ever in a trademark case, $56 million, for craft brewer Stone Brewing Co., he used ideas and methods from other types of cases he'd litigated. His client accused Molson Coors of rebranding its Keystone beer by separating the word "key" from "stone" and using a smaller font for "key" in order to capitalize on Stone Brewing beers' success. Stone Brewing Co. LLC v Molson Coors Brewing Co., 3:18-cv- 00331 (S.D. Cal., filed Feb. 12, 2018).

When he wanted to explain to the jury his client's challenges developing and investing in its brand, he borrowed from the many trade secrets cases the firm litigates. Then, when quantifying damages, "we used modeling and ways of articulating that borrowed from a hedge fund fraud case we had several years back," he said.

Despite the favorable verdict, the jury decided that the infringement wasn't willful.

Last month, he and his firm brought a class action against cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase for allegedly allowing customers' accounts to be hacked and their crypto wallets drained. Aggrawal v. Coinbase Inc., 3:22-cv-04829 (N.D. Cal., filed Aug. 23, 2022).

In addition to commercial litigation and corporate transactions, Hagey said his firm also engages in impact litigation. Currently, attorneys from the firm are representing librarians and others fighting book banning in Texas. And the firm represents immigration groups suing a facial recognition company to prevent it from working with law enforcement.

"We have put a lot of resources and emphasis into ... [trying] to do leveraged good in society," he said.

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