Mark Labaton

Partner

Mark Labaton manages the firm's burgeoning securities, corporate governance, and whistle-blower practices. He also litigates consumer class actions and other complex lawsuits.

He has litigated cases resulting in favorable settlements or judgments of hundreds of millions of dollars for his clients. He played the leading role in litigating Kline Hawkes et al. v. Gross et al. (settlement $138 million), Federal Reserve v. Shoaib (judgment $26 million), and United States v. Lange et al. (settlement $1.7 million), among others.

He played key roles in litigating United States ex rel. Baylor v. Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic (settlement $2.6 million), In Re Comerica Securities Litigation (settlement $15 million), In Re Heritage Bond Litigation (settlement $28 million), In Re Plug Power Securities Litigation (settlement $5 million), and Wingard v. Lowe's/Home Depot (settlement $4 million), among others.

In addition, cases Mark litigated in California and throughout the country have resulted in more than a dozen reported court decisions, many of precedential value.

A sampling of his current and recent clients include:

• shareholders, in securities class actions, who purchased stock in pharmaceutical, telecommunications, automobile, media, financial institutions, semiconductor, fiber optic, and investment banking companies as well as other large public and private companies. These include securities class actions against the largest sub-prime lender in the United States as well one of the largest pharmaceutical companies, one of the largest media companies, and one of the largest investment banks;
• shareholders, in a takeover case, of the company that owned the website myspace.com. Although that litigation is ongoing, Mark has already received a significant fee award from the trial court for a part of that case based on "the substantial-benefit doctrine";
• shareholders who invested more than $1 billion in an Internet incubator company;
• whistle-blowers pursuing actions on behalf of the United States against defense contractors, aerospace companies, healthcare providers, pharmaceutical companies, educational institutions, investment banks, and other government contractors. In one of these current cases, U.S. ex rel Rost v. Pfizer, 507 F.3d 720 (1st Cir. 2007), Mark won an important victory when the First Circuit held that the False Claims Act's public disclosure bar does not constitute grounds to dismiss a case when a disclosure is made in private to a government official and when the First Circuit also modified its pleading standards for certain False Claims Act cases;
• consumers who purchased approximately $4 billion of tools from a national department store chain based on allegedly false representations that the tools were "Made in the USA;"
• the CEO of a major telecommunications company in an action that resulted in a temporary restraining order, preliminary injunction, permanent injunction, civil judgment, criminal indictment, and conviction against a former employee of that company; and
• the CEO of a film distribution company in a securities fraud case.

Earlier in his career, Mark served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Central District of California, where he investigated, tried, and settled high-profile, white-collar fraud cases in Los Angeles, Orange, and Ventura Counties. These included cases, brought to successful conclusions, against officers and directors of banks, and whistle-blower cases involving healthcare, defense contracting, minority and women contracting, and other governmental programs. Mark also successfully defended the Immigration and Naturalization Service in a lengthy employment discrimination trial involving multiply plaintiffs.

He received awards and commendations from a United States Attorney General, several United States Attorneys, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and its Office of the Inspector General, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and the Small Business Administration.

Mark has been a featured speaker at conferences sponsored by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the U.S. Department of Education, and the National Association of Paralegals. Recently, he participated in a Securities Law Roundtable at Duke University, and was one of two panelists (along with a former United States Attorney) at a Beverly Hills Bar Association seminar dealing with the potential liability of lawyers and other third parties in securities and corporate governance cases.

He has been quoted on many topics in national magazines, daily and weekly newspapers, trade publications and blogs, and has appeared on television and radio broadcasts.

Mark is a columnist for the Los Angeles Daily Journal, the leading daily legal newspaper in California, and its sister publication, the San Francisco Daily Journal.

A selection of his legal publications include:

• "From "Rats' to Riches: Whistle-blowers Deserve Increased Protection," p.6, Los Angeles Daily Journal, February 7, 2008;
• "Word To The Wise: Language Is A Lawyer's Strongest Tool," p.6, Los Angeles Daily Journal, January 17, 2008;
• "Watching Waste," p. 6, Los Angeles Daily Journal, November 19, 2007;
• "Bursting the Pay Bubble," p.6, Los Angles Daily Journal, September 25, 2007;
• "Fraud-Busting Sarbanes-Oxley Act Is Too Important To Discontinue," p.6, Los Angeles Daily Journal, July 30, 2007;
• "On Being A Plaintiffs' Lawyer," pp.16-17, Los Angeles Daily Journal, May 30, 2007;
• "Gatekeeper Liability," Los Angeles Daily Journal, p.7, May 8, 2007;
• "Trying To Fix What Isn't Broken In Securities Law," Los Angeles Daily Journal, p.6, March 16, 2007;
• "Twenty Years Later, False Claims Amendments Keep Working," Los Angeles Daily Journal, p.6, October 20, 2006;
• "Whistle Shop: A Split Among Federal Courts Means That Chief Justice Roberts May Have An Opportunity To Revisit His 2004 Decision Limiting Whistle Blower Suits," Los Angeles Lawyer Magazine, pp.25-31, July/August 2006;
• "The Federal False Claims Act: A Primer For Lawyers Pursuing Actions On Behalf of Whistle Blowers," The Advocate Magazine, pp.54-58, March 2006;
• "The Heightened Pleading Standard of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 After Silicon Graphics, Press, Advanta, and Comshare," 1151 Practicing Law Institute 825, pp. 9-59, 1999;
• "Bankers Must Protect Themselves Against Costly Civil Money Penalties," Banking Law Review, Vol. 2., No. 4, pp. 22-25, 1990;
• "Discovery Reform for Informational Property: More Protection for Unwilling Non-party Experts," Legal Times, Vol. XII, No. 39, pp. 26-27, 1990;
• "Making Crime Pay — For the S & L Bailout," Legal Times, Vol. XII, No. 20, pp. 23-24, 1989;
• "Discovery and Testimony of Unretained Experts: Creating a Clear and Equitable Standard to Govern Compliance with Subpoenas," 1987 Duke Law Journal 140, pp. 140-56.

Mark has also written for daily local and national newspapers, and received funding from a Ford Foundation grant to write a series of articles for numerous leading European newspapers about human-rights issues throughout the world.

Mark has served as legal counsel on a D.C. mayoral transition team. Several years ago, inspired by a dare he performed stand-up comedy in his spare time in several popular L.A. nightclubs, including the Comedy Store and the Ice House. He has no illusions of quitting his day job.

He is a member of the National Association of Securities and Consumer Attorneys, the Los Angeles Bar Association, and other legal organizations.

Mark is a graduate of Duke University Law School, where he served between 1986 and 1988 as a staff member and later as an editorial board editor of the Duke Law Journal. At graduation, in 1988, he received the Hervey M. Johnson Writing Prize for the best law review article. The recommendations in his article led to an amendment to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure adopted by the United States Supreme Court, and his article has been cited in court opinions, legal treatises, law review articles, and the advisory notes of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

Mark also earned a master's degree from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, and a bachelor's degree, in history, from Oberlin College. Before college, he attended public schools in the borough of Brooklyn and in Nassau County, both in New York.