In the early days of the firm, Kurt and Jason represented a man who had his dream stolen from him. We went to Hawaii to face a bank and one of the largest law firms in the country, walking away with a $41 million verdict.
When Kurt and I started the firm, one of the promises we made each other was that if it was a righteous cause, if it was a case that needed to be taken, it didn’t matter where the case was—we would go and do our best to help our client.
That promise was put to the test when, early on in the firm, we took a case on behalf of an individual against a large bank who had stolen not just a business he wanted to buy, but a dream he’d set up.
He had had an opportunity and a contractual right to buy a giant lumber company in Hawaii. He had brought some financing partners to the deal and they got greedy and took the whole thing. So Jason and I spent an unbelievable amount of time. I think we put at risk everything that we had in the case at that point.
Ultimately, we went to mediation and they said that they weren’t going to offer anything. So we tried a case against one of the largest law firms in the country.
Jason and I and our client versus a whole courtroom of lawyers. We tried the case for weeks. There’s nothing better than when the jury read $41 million and actually found punitive damages against the partner who’d cut him out.
The jury saw right through it.
So when other companies look and know that we were willing to take on KeyBank all the way in Hawaii and they see that we’re on the other side of them, whether it be in New Mexico, Louisiana, Texas, or New York, wherever we may be, they know that it’s not a bluff. We will come to them, to their hometown, and we will beat them if they have done something wrong to our clients.
