Bill Logan has over thirty years of commercial litigation experience in federal and state court on both the plaintiff and defense side, including misappropriation of trade secrets, unfair competition, trademark and copyright, corporate/partnership control, trustee and fiduciary liability, accountants’ professional liability, construction defect, employment, partnership, embezzlement, real estate, fraud, negotiable instruments, title insurance, water rights and financial institution liability. Bill has had numerous trials, including jury trials, court trials and arbitrations. Bill also has extensive experience with mediation and other alternative dispute resolution forums.

In recent years, Bill has devoted substantial attention to embezzlement cases, including working closely with law enforcement and prosecuting agencies on behalf of his clients, as well as complex trust and real estate related matters, defense of employment claims, including class actions, partnership/LLC disputes, professional liability of accountants and construction disputes. A few of examples of recent matters include:

• Represented limited liability company that provides investment advisory services in lawsuit by a member who withdrew from the company and sought to dissolve the LLC. Defending the LLC and its remaining members required litigating the claimed interests of a dissociated member and his status as a transferee of a membership interest. In addition, represented the LLC and its members on their counterclaim against the former member for breaching his fiduciary duties while still a member. After defeating former member’s dissolution claim on a motion for summary adjudication, the action was successfully settled.
• Represented one of the nation’s largest Toyota dealers in an action against other dealers alleging aiding and abetting the theft of the dealer’s pre-production inventory during a period of inventory shortages. After initial discovery and investigation, followed by a ruling that out-of-state dealer defendants were subject to the personal jurisdiction of a federal court in California, the dealer defendants collectively settled the litigation for more the plaintiff dealership sought in the complaint.
• Represented a San Francisco Bay Area real estate brokerage and property management firm in an action seeking to recover losses for embezzlements orchestrated by a trusted key employee and her husband, which the employee and her husband tried to defend as having been taken with the consent of the owner. After a month-long trial, the Court awarded the brokerage firm the full amount of its losses, and further awarded treble damages and attorney’s fees.
• Represented a mid-west based commercial flooring contractor which had been the subcontractor on a billion dollar state prison construction project, and successfully settled its claims for substantial additional compensation against the general contractor.
• Defended a specialty food manufacturer and retailer in an action alleging trademark infringement by a national food entertainment company, and successfully secured insurance coverage for defense and later a nominal settlement of the plaintiff’s claims.
• Represented a Florida based investment firm and its principal in a fraud and embezzlement case against its former Florida attorney, and secured a judgment against the attorney after trial for the full amount of the investment firm’s claimed losses, as well as substantial prejudgment interest and attorney’s fees.
• Represented an auto dealership embezzlement victim against its former CPA firm seeking to recover its embezzlement losses attributed to the CPA firm’s failure to discover them in the course of its annual reviews, and successfully settled the case for a multiple of what had initially been offered.
• Represented an employer in a California ADA action alleging failure to accommodate and settled the claim for a fraction of defense costs after an initial round of discovery.
• Represented a beneficiary of a $40 million dollar trust in connection with multiple disputes arising out of the institutional trustee’s handling of the estate, and successfully recovered in settlement excessive fees charged by the institution and losses to the trust, as well as a Court ordered modification of the trust that eased undue restrictions on the beneficiary’s right to access income and principal from the trust.
• Represented technology company in an unfair competition and misappropriation of trade secrets action against former employee who in leaving her employment to work for a competitor misappropriated the client’s trade secrets and breached her employment contract. Following trial, judgment was entered against the employee and her new employer for unfair competition and misappropriation of trade secrets.