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For a decade, HP battled a Taiwan-based CD-ROM maker in courts from Texas to California over allegations of price fixing. HP senior counsel Brad Hartz and his team worked several thousand hours on objections, motions to dismiss, depositions and intense fights over discovery. It all paid off on June 5, 2020, when a federal appeals court handed Hartz and outside counsel at Beck Redden a $438 million victory, one of the biggest judgments upheld by the Fifth Circuit in a decade.
In a Q&A with The Lawbook, Hartz elaborated on other significant achievements at HP, what he looks for in outside counsel and why he takes special pride in resolving disputes without litigation.
Texas Lawbook: Other than Quanta Storage, what has been your biggest success during your eight years at HP?
Brad Hartz: Tough to answer directly because my biggest success involves a confidential matter that was not litigated. Generally, my biggest successes involve helping HP’s executives resolve disputes without turning to litigation – I often need to manage the preservation of important relationships while resolving contentious legal disputes. As far as trials go, successes within the last few years that I am proud of include: (1) a bench trial win in a dispute with a former video card supplier that had been litigated for 20 years!, (2) a defense verdict in an employment jury trial — one of, if not the — last case to be tried in SDNY before the full Covid shutdown – it was tumultuous, (3) a jury trial win in California state court involving a breach of contract dispute with a former channel partner that included counterclaims against HP. Within the last few months, no trial wins, but my team prevailed in an affirmative summary judgment against a local Houston business that refused to return over $1 million paid to it by mistake. Jackie Furlow of Beck Redden secured this win for HP (They’re really on a roll over there!); and my team secured a motion to dismiss in a RICO case filed against HP in Florida.
For Mark Curriden’s full profile of Brad Hartz Click Here.
Lawbook: What do you look for in hiring outside counsel?
Hartz: I look at how they’re doing on the diversity mandates that HP has laid out, the quality of effort they deliver (correlated with but not always tied to results), cost/how well they do with managing budgets and the quality of collaboration with the people at all levels with whom they work.
Lawbook: How important is diversity within your legal department in in determining your outside counsel?
Hartz: Diversity and inclusion is an urgent priority. For example, HP’s legal department was one of the first to give financial teeth to diversity requests for outside counsel. The company’s initiative, implemented in phases starting in 2017, required most of HP’s firms to meet diversity goals or face a cut in fees.
Lawbook: How important is pro bono?
Hartz: I enjoy partnering with firms on pro bono efforts (for example, one of many: NVLSP, a veterans legal services program). Pro bono is personally important to me. I try to have at least one live active pro bono matter going. Currently, I’m representing members of a nonprofit corporation bringing claims on behalf of the corporation against its former officers and directors for alleged self-dealing – I recently argued and won an appeal to the 14th Court in that case.
Lawbook: What does outside counsel need to know about you?
Hartz: First, I take seriously our obligations to our great judicial system. I see a direct connection between the success of our system of government and the work done by lawyers to resolve civil disputes. For those lawyers that uphold these ideals, I’m thankful for their service – I recognize civil litigation is at heart the just reallocation of resources (without bloodshed, heaven forbid) – a uniquely stressful and demanding job.
And second, almost daily at my in-house job, I’m reminded of two lessons from the military that followed me into the practice of law. First, accurate understanding of risk is paramount. And second, acceptance of risk (and the possibility of failure) is the price of admission. We’ll work together to understand the risk. And together we can help HP successfully manage the risk.