How Mark Helps Clients

Mark Kressel helps clients by first understanding their business needs and goals and how litigation can play a part in solving their problems, whether by winning on appeal, developing a multi-forum litigation or settlement strategy, or identifying vehicles to change the legal landscape. Major studios and government entities rely on Mark Kressel for his extensive multi-forum strategy and appellate advocacy capabilities. He has handled appellate matters in a wide range of areas, including the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the anti-SLAPP statute, the First Amendment, punitive damages, elder abuse, wrongful death and catastrophic injury, general business litigation, premises liability, and patent infringement litigation.

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Mark joined the firm as an associate and was invited to join the partnership in 2018. Before joining the firm, Mark was a litigation associate with Irell & Manella LLP. In addition to his bar admissions, he has practiced before the U.S. International Trade Commission.

In 2021-2022, Mark was the Chair of the ABA’s Council of Appellate Lawyers. In 2021-2022, he was Vice President of the Los Angeles County Bar Association, and in 2013-2014 he was the President of the Barristers Section of the Los Angeles County Bar Association. He was formerly co-director of the Pepperdine Caruso School of Law's Ninth Circuit Appellate Advocacy Clinic from 2016 to 2022, and is active in diversity and inclusion organizations including the LGBTQ+ Bar Association of Los Angeles and the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity.

Prior to law school, Mark worked as a Broadway musician.

Representative Matters

Turrieta v. Lyft, Inc. (2024)
California Supreme Court holds that plaintiffs cannot intervene in overlapping PAGA cases to challenge settlements based on their status as the State’s deputized private attorneys general.

Always Smiling Productions, LLC v. Chubb National Insurance Company (2024)
Ninth Circuit affirms judgment for insurer in $35 million COVID-19 business interruption coverage dispute concerning production of the Apple TV+ series The Morning Show.

Perez v. Oakdale Irrigation District (2024)
California Court of Appeal affirms summary judgment in a published opinion preserving “canal immunity” for public entities in a wrongful death action.

Boermeester v. Carry (II) (2024)
California Court of Appeal holds that private universities disciplining students for sexual assault or intimate partner violence may employ an investigatory model in which the same university official acts as investigator and factfinder.

Boermeester v. Carry (2023)
California Supreme Court holds that universities disciplining students for sexual assault or intimate partner violence do not need to provide the accused student with an opportunity for real-time cross-examination of witnesses.

Colonial Van & Storage v. Superior Court (2022)
California Court of Appeal grants Horvitz & Levy’s writ petition, holding that employer had no duty to protect its employee and her invitees from mass shooting inside the employee’s home.

Oroville Hospital v. The Superior Court of Butte County (2022)
California Court of Appeal grants writ petition and orders judgment for the defense in elder abuse lawsuit.

Flores v. Liu (2021)
Secured an affirmance of a jury verdict, despite a finding of instructional error in the jury instructions, in a professional negligence action against a surgeon.

Riley v. Kernan (2020)
Ninth Circuit reinstates prisoner’s civil rights lawsuit on religious liberty grounds.

Bennett v. Rancho California Water District (2019)
Successfully won client a new trial after a jury found the public entity liable for over $800,000 for alleged employee whistleblower retaliation claimed by a plaintiff who took over a procurement contract from another vendor and then claimed he was actually a misclassified employee.

Taulbee v. EJ Distribution Corp. et al. (2019)
Successfully defended a jury’s finding that our client’s truck driver was not negligent when he parked inside the freeway’s “gore point,” avoiding millions of dollars in exposure for the plaintiff’s debilitating injuries

Olivia de Havilland v. FX Networks, et al. (2018)
Successfully represented the Motion Picture Association of America and Netflix, Inc. in the California Court of Appeal in an industry-critical appeal threatening the future of docudramas and other fictionalized motion pictures about or inspired by real people or events.

Ortiz v. WMC-A, Inc. (2017)
Represented a hospital in the California Court of Appeal under the Elder Abuse and Dependent Adult Civil Protection Act, and successfully defended a complete defense judgment from a multi-million dollar claim.

Hoang v. IMDb.com (2015)
Represented actress in the Ninth Circuit in suit against IMDb.com for publishing her age without her consent in violation of web site terms of service and privacy agreement.

Raef v. Superior Court (2015)
Represented celebrity photographer in California Supreme Court and Court of Appeal in first ever criminal prosecution under California’s new anti-paparazzi driving statute, raising First Amendment defense.

Santos M. v. Superior Court (2015)
Won petition for writ of mandamus in favor of juvenile immigrant entitled to relief from deportation proceedings under Special Immigrant Juvenile Status program. Represented petition pro bono in California Court of Appeal, in coordination with Immigrant Defenders Law Center.

Education

• Yale Law School
  J.D., 2007
• Yale University
  B.A., cum laude, 1996

Clerkships

• Hon. Jay S. Bybee, U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit (2007-2008)

Bar Admissions

• California
• U.S. Supreme Court
• U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit
• U.S. Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit
• U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
• U.S. Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit
• U.S. Court of Appeals, for the Federal Circuit
• U.S. District Court, Northern District of California

Professional Associations

• American Bar Association: Chair of the American Bar Association's Council of Appellate Lawyers (CAL) and 2018 CAL Chair of the Appellate Judges Education Institute Summit
• Association of Southern California Defense Counsel
• California Society for Healthcare Attorneys
• Leadership Council on Legal Diversity (LCLD), 2015 Fellow, annual participant in 1L Summer Scholar Program. 
• Los Angeles County Bar Association, Vice President, 2021-2022; Barristers Section: President 2013-2014
• LGBTQ+ Bar Association of Los Angeles, Member

Awards

• CLAY award (California Lawyer Attorney of the Year) by Daily Journal (2024)
• Top Verdicts by Daily Journal (2023)
• Super Lawyers (2020-2025)
• Super Lawyers "Rising Star" (2013-2017)
• The Recorder’s Lawyers on the Fast Track (2013)

Publications

• When the Appeal Party Is Over: Paying the Judgment (2021) Vol. 2, ASCDC Verdict Magazine
• Supreme Court Changing Where You Can Be Sued (Summer 2019), Vol. 16, No. 2, Today's General Counsel, p. 57
• Breaking Up (The 9th) Is Hard To Do (July 31, 2017) Law360
• Make the Barristers a First Step toward Professional Achievement (July/Aug. 2013) Los Angeles Lawyer, p. 12
• Review at the U.S. International Trade Commission, American Bar Association, Appellate Practice, Spring 2012, Vol. 31, No. 3 (June 28, 2012)
• Protecting Intellectual Property Rights with the ITC (Dec. 2011) Los Angeles Lawyer Magazine, p. 10
• University Inventions, Stanford v. Roche, IPEG.com (Nov. 2010)
• The Proposition 8 Challenge: Is There Jurisdiction For Appellate Review? Century City Lawyer (Sept. 2010)
• Note, Contractual Waiver of Corporate Attorney-Client Privilege, 116 Yale L.J. 412 (2006)