After Rob Vartabedian brought on Marc Katz and his labor and employment team from DLA Piper in February, he told The Texas Lawbook he was “a little exhausted by expansion.”
But that was six months ago. On Monday, Vartabedian Katz Hester & Haynes announced it is launching an intellectual property litigation practice with the addition of a trio of partners from McKool Smith.
Gary Cruciani, Travis DeArman, and Scott Hejny bring decades of experience handling high-stakes commercial and IP litigation. Cruciani will co-lead the Vartabedian Katz commercial litigation practice with Daniella Main; DeArman steps in as the leader of the new IP group.
Vartabedian said this is “too good a fit and too desirable a practice.” Katz added “this group could have gone anywhere they wanted to.”
“This puts us in the top tier in IP and commercial litigation and signals where we are going,” Katz said.
DeArman, who was the recruiting chair at McKool Smith, said Vartabedian’s firm got on his radar last year as he increasingly found himself recruiting against them.
“I admire what they’re building and how they treat their associates and clients,” he said.
The firm has grown more than four-fold since launching at the beginning of 2024. It is that “unprecedented growth” that impressed Cruciani and gave him visions of McKool Smith in the early aughts.
“They’re obviously doing something right,” said Cruciani, who was the last remaining of the 12 founding lawyers of McKool Smith. “I have nothing but deep respect for McKool Smith. It was an extremely difficult decision. But it reflects my confidence in [Vartabedian Katz Hester & Haynes].”
Cruciani said their team does hourly and contingency plaintiff and defense work, which aligned well with a desire at Vartabedian Katz for more plaintiff contingency work.
Significant successes the DeArman, Cruciani, Hejny trio have achieved over the last few years include:
— A week-and-a-half ago, DeArman obtained a “decisive victory” for his client Apex Trader Funding in a two-year, bet-the-company battle between Apex and a former contractor. Judge Alan Albright on Aug. 20 entered a take-nothing judgment on all claims asserted by the plaintiffs and in Apex’s favor on its counterclaims for breach of contract.
— In a high-profile case in the Central District of California filed by the rapper “TI,” a prior jury found for the plaintiffs (TI and his wife Tameka Harris) on claims for trade dress infringement and misappropriation of name, image, and likeness and awarded actual damages of $17 million and punitive damages of $52 million. The court granted a new trial on punitive damages and Cruciani was hired by MGA Entertainment to defend it in a retrial of punitive damages. After a seven-day jury trial in June in which the plaintiffs sought $125 million in punitive damages, the jury rendered a defense verdict and awarded no punitive damages.
— DeArman and Cruciani won a multi-million dollar verdict and judgment for six former Zimmer Biomet salesmen for breach of their retirement contracts. DeArman successfully defended the judgment through appeal at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
— Cruciani and Hejny represented OSGHD, a computer software company, in state court in Dallas for a claim for breach of a software license agreement used in Covid-19 testing. The jury returned a verdict for their client for $4 million, which also led to the confidential settlement of a larger copyright infringement lawsuit filed by OSGHD against Nomi Health in Dallas federal court.
Another key “pull” to Vartabedian Katz that Cruciani, DeArman and Hejny each highlighted was the intimacy of a law practice on a smaller platform.
“When I started at McKool Smith 20 years ago, the firm was the size Vartabedian is now,” Hejny said. “I’m excited to be at a smaller, more nimble firm.”
Cruciani, noting McKool Smith has expanded to seven offices, said in his “heart of hearts” he missed being somewhere where you know all of your partners’ kids and what is going on in their lives.
So what’s next at Vartabedian Katz? Vartabedian once again told The Lawbook, outside of the firm’s ongoing interest in beefing up its associate ranks, that he’s ready for a pause on major growth moves.
Watch this space.