Marshall B. Grossman, 1939 - 2023

Marshall B. Grossman, a legendary and pugnacious litigator who tried some of the biggest civil cases in Los Angeles, including several cutting-edge class actions, and was a founder of the Association of Business Trial Lawyers, died Saturday. He was 84.

"If you ever met Marshall, you would realize he was a force of nature. He had a rare combination of raw intelligence, oral skill, knowledge of law and ability to think outside of the box -- and to go for the jugular," said retired Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Burt T. Pines, who worked with Grossman for 18 years at Alschuler Grossman & Pines.

"If you were on the other side of a lawsuit with Marshall, you were in trouble," Pines said. "I think that was his reputation."

Michael A. Sherman of Stubbs Alderton & Markiles LLP went to work for the Alschuler Grossman firm straight out of law school in 1980 and was mentored by Grossman, whom he described as "a larger-than-life figure."

"The first year of law school proved to be a walk in the park compared to the paces that Marshall put us through as we learned to become lawyers," Sherman said.

Patricia L. Glaser, of Glaser Weil Fink Howard Jordan & Shapiro LLP, tried cases against and alongside Grossman. "He was contentious to the end but he was a worthy adversary," she said.

"Today, everybody feels like you have to send a confirming letter. If he said he was going to do it, you could take it to the bank. He did what he said, and I did what I said," Glaser said.

Grossman was born in Omaha, Nebraska, on March 24, 1939. His parents moved to Los Angeles when he was 4, after his father became director of the Hollywood USO.

He recalled in a 2010 interview with SuperLawyers that his family was denied an apartment because they were Jewish. "It's one of the first things I remember," he said.

Grossman graduated from the law school at USC in 1964. Many law firms in Los Angeles wouldn't hire Jews at that time and he wasn't interested in some of the ones that would. "I wanted a small firm with a quality practice with lawyers of great reputation with a litigation capacity where I'd be mentored and end up leading the firm," he told SuperLawyers.

He went to work for Weber, Schwartz & Alschuler, a small boutique in Beverly Hills that fit the bill but then he needed cases. He soon found one in himself -- one that would lead to a fundamental rethinking of consumer class actions in California.

Grossman had signed up for a membership to the Playboy Club for $25. But then he got a notice that members could no longer put charges on their Playboy card unless they paid an annual $5 account maintenance charge.

After Playboy refused his request to waive the fee, he persuaded the lawyers at the firm to allow him to file a class action on behalf of the Playboy Club's 500,000 members.

The complaint charged Playboy with violating the California Corporate Securities Law, alleging that the money was being used to finance a new facility for the club in Los Angeles. The case settled with the company agreeing to return $8 to members and rescind the $5 fee.

It was the first successful consumer class action in California, and the case landed him in the pages of Newsweek.

In the mid-1970s, he was named lead counsel in litigation against Equity Funding Corporation of America, which resold fraudulent life insurance policies to reinsurers. The litigation settled for $60 million in cash and $100 million in stock. It was the largest civil securities fraud settlement in history.

Grossman went on to wage many legal battles for major clients. He defended Arthur Andersen in a securities fraud lawsuit. He has defended Apple in patent infringement litigation, Blockbuster in consumer class action and patent infringement litigation filed by Netflix, and Packard Bell in a battle with Compaq. Other clients included J.K. Rowling, Steven Spielberg, Clint Eastwood and Larry King.

"Marshall was a pathbreaker in class actions and in every way -- ethically, professionally and personally, and was as good a lawyer as ever practiced in California," said Howard Miller, former State Bar president.

Grossman was a complicated figure. He sat on the Commission on Judicial Performance and chaired the body from 2001 to 2010 but also would drag out litigation for years in fierce combat. He was a champion of women lawyers and promoted some of the first women partners in Los Angeles but also could be belittling, attorneys said.

Karen Kaplowitz was the first woman partner at the Alschuler Grossman firm, and said that wasn't her experience. "He was funny. He was sarcastic. He had a way of interacting with people that was powerful," she recalled.

"He was particularly great at leading teams of people," Kaplowitz said. "I don't think that I appreciated that initially."

"Every step along the way, he was committed to how to build a law firm and to retain the law firm," she said. "He would say it's important to support other people. It's not your own candle burning bright. He said it in a different way but that was the gist of it."

Grossman was a supporter of Jewish causes, especially Refuseniks in the Soviet Union in the 1980s. He organized a group of American lawyers to travel to the Soviet Union to pressure officials to allow Natan Sharansky and Eda Nudel and others to emigrate.

As a member of the Coastal Commission from 1981 to 1986, he forced the Jonathan Club in Santa Monica to integrate as a condition of building facilities on the beach. Here's what he said during one hearing, according to a transcript of a public radio broadcast:

"Many of you are not members of minority groups, and you don't know the feeling of walking by an institution and knowing it is really a symbol, a vestige of racism, of social discrimination. While racism and social discrimination is not the same as genocide, they are the seeds of genocide. It is in clubs like this, which are lily-white, all-male bastions, free of the impure except for a chosen few, where prejudice is passed on from generation to generation," Grossman said.

"The kids grow up being served by Blacks, being served and babysat by Hispanics, having their food cooked by Asians, but yet knowing that these people may not join as members, as they inherit memberships of their parents," he continued.

"The Jonathan Club can discriminate if it wants, but not at my expense. It cannot take public, sandy beach and public parking lots and convert them to its own use at my expense and discriminate against my kids. Public access means access for everybody," Grossman concluded.

But, as president of the Broad Beach Homeowners Association in Malibu, he hired a backhoe in 2005 to scoop up sand from the public beach. The Coastal Commission accused him of trying to keep nonresidents off the beach. He maintained he was trying to prevent erosion.

The complexities of Grossman never overshadowed his talent, attorneys said.

"He was one of the best trial lawyers I've ever seen. And I've seen a lot of lawyers as a mediator and arbitrator," said Bruce Friedman, a neutral at JAMS. "He had a lot of talent. He was so prepared. Detailed preparation was what set him apart."

Friedman joined the Alschuler Grossman firm in 1995 and soon became its managing partner. "That was a pretty amazing experience," he said.

Grossman "was very loyal and fair and generous," Friedman said.

Richard Chernick, another friend of Grossman's who is now at JAMS, said "a lot of people didn't like him because he was pretty aggressive but I never heard anybody say anything other than Marshall was an effective and skilled litigator."

In 1999, the Alschuler Grossman firm joined with entertainment firm Stein & Kahan. It was a marriage made in hell.

A Daily Journal article about the tie-up entitled "Clash of the Titans" is still remembered by many of the lawyers, particularly for a comment that it was a good thing the Water Garden complex where the firm was housed had two towers because one tower would not fit the egos of Grossman and the entertainment lawyer Larry Stein.

The firm blew up in 2007. Many of the firm's lawyers went with Grossman to the Bingham firm. Seven years later, Grossman moved to Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, from which he retired.

Stein remembered his old friend-enemy more fondly on Monday.

"Marshall was clearly a leader in the Los Angeles legal community. He was feared and respected by other lawyers," Stein said. "It's a real loss that he won't be a part of the community any longer."

"We didn't always agree on our approach to everything but he was one of the brightest, most tactically clever men I ever met," Stein said.

Grossman is survived by his wife Marlene, a daughter who is an actress, a son who is an entrepreneur and several grandchildren.