Michael L. Lavetter
Associate
Let's Connect
Michael focuses his practice on complex commercial litigation, delivering pragmatic solutions to clients’ business and legal challenges. He understands clients are looking for thoughtful and skilled guidance at all stages of litigation. Whether advocating for a client as first-chair trial counsel, or working to stave off litigation when possible, Michael has successfully resolved commercial and contract disputes, as well as environmental, products liability, intellectual property, and internet litigation.
Key Matters
Some of the experience represented below may have been handled at a previous firm.
- Secured summary judgment for a financial guaranty company in a lawsuit brought by issuers of US$130M in Select Auction Variable Rate Securities, alleging fraud in connection with the purchase of the bonds and swaps
- Successfully tried a breach of contract dispute concerning the sale of rights to collect revenues from a billboard and secured an award of attorneys’ fees
- Regained control of a client’s website within days utilizing the dispute protocols of ICANN and domain hosts after foreign hackers hijacked the client's URL
- Recovered a multimillion-dollar settlement in a dispute between U.S., Japanese, and Russian parties over failure to repay financing for a fishing fleet
- Represented employees of an asset management firm relating to an investigation by the U.S Attorney’s office, SIGTARP (Special Inspector General of the Troubled Asset Relief Program), and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), concluding with no adverse actions taken
- Obtained a favorable settlement for an owner of music venues and a concert promoter in a suit over the ownership of a popular music festival
- Obtained an eve-of-trial favorable settlement for a hazardous waste remediation and demolition company in a breach of contract suit brought by a subcontractor
- Negotiated an end to all infringing conduct and obtained a favorable settlement for a nightclub owner in a suit for trademark infringement and related intellectual property claims against a celebrity, her manager and business partners, and a competing club owner
- Obtained a favorable settlement immediately after filing a complaint over payment owed to a supplier of ingredients to a major cosmetics manufacturer after computer hackers intercepted and misdirected the original payment
- Obtained dismissal with prejudice in a suit against a luxury real estate agent alleging breach of a termination agreement and misappropriation of trade secrets
- Secured dismissals for a group of potentially responsible parties in an ongoing CERCLA litigation
- Represented a large pharmaceutical company in a nationwide class action lawsuit, including as part of a team implementing and administering a multibillion-dollar settlement of more than 50,000 individual plaintiffs’ claims
Pro Bono Matters
- Successfully secured the return of a kidnapped child to her parents under the Hague Convention after she was wrongfully removed from the United States by a relative
- Represented a shelter for battered women relating to an inquiry by the County of Los Angeles and during corporate restructuring