/EINPresswire.com/ -- LOS ANGELES, CA--(Marketwired - Dec 8, 2016) -

• Business trial firm opens second office, leasing the 30^th floor of the Figueroa at Wilshire Building in downtown Los Angeles
• Associates to receive year-end bonuses that exceed Cravath scale
• Acclaimed securities trial lawyer to serve as office managing partner
• Star litigator from Milbank Tweed joins firm as partner in charge of hiring
• Former top assistant United States attorney joins firm as senior counsel specializing in False Claims Act litigation
• Founding partners have offices in both Los Angeles and Orange County
• Firm's focus is on high-stakes business cases across the United States
  
  

Greenberg Gross LLP announces that it has leased the 30^th floor of the Figueroa at Wilshire building in downtown Los Angeles, and will open its new headquarters there as soon as extensive renovations are complete. The firm will commence operations in Los Angeles in January 2017, utilizing temporary space on the 31^st floor of the same building, located at 601 South Figueroa Street. When completed, the new headquarters will occupy approximately 23,000 square feet and will include a state of the art conference center and a mock courtroom.

The firm also announces that its 2016 associate bonuses will exceed the scale established last week by Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP.

Launched in a Costa Mesa high-rise in 2013 by attorneys Alan Greenberg and Wayne Gross, who won a $50-million verdict on a countersuit against the nation's largest nonprofit investment fund, Greenberg Gross has quickly emerged as an elite business litigation firm that handles high-stakes business cases and white-collar defense matters across the country. U.S. News Media Group named the firm among its "Best Law Firms" for commercial litigation and white-collar defense in 2014, 2015 and 2016.

Both Greenberg and Gross will split time between the Los Angeles and Orange County offices. Greenberg, the managing partner, attributes the firm's remarkable success and rapid expansion to its unrelenting commitment to excellence.

"Our mission has been to build a team of the smartest, wisest, most ethical, most thorough, and most dedicated litigators and trial lawyers, enabling clients to count on the firm to pursue justice at the highest level in their most significant cases," Greenberg said. "From day one, we have paid top-of-the-market compensation. This year, to reward our associates for their tremendous contributions to the success of the firm and its clients, and to continue to attract the best talent to the firm, we have decided to provide year-end bonuses that exceed the scale established by Cravath."

Howard Privette, an acclaimed securities trial lawyer who joined Greenberg Gross in February 2016, will manage the new Los Angeles office. Privette, who graduated with honors from Stanford Law School and holds bachelor's and master's degrees in economics from Yale, was a partner at Paul Hastings before joining Greenberg Gross. He specialized in securities litigation there and launched successful, groundbreaking defenses that the Financial Times twice listed as the top 10 in the United States in its annual "Innovative Lawyers" report.

Privette said Greenberg Gross' expansion into downtown Los Angeles "reflects the firm's natural evolution as an elite law firm that represents blue chip clients in their most important matters across the country."

His role as the Los Angeles managing partner also strikes a personal chord by returning Privette "to my professional roots in the courtrooms of Los Angeles, where I first won my spurs as a business trial lawyer."

Privette will be joined in Los Angeles by new Greenberg Gross partner Aluyah Imoisili, who spent the past decade as a star litigator in the Los Angeles and New York offices of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy.

A graduate of UCLA Law School, Imoisili's trial victories include a $40 million jury verdict in federal court in 2007, which was recognized by the Daily Journal as one of the top plaintiff verdicts. He said his departure from Big Law presents unprecedented career opportunities.

"I am exceedingly grateful to Milbank Tweed for affording me the opportunity to learn from its traditional way of practicing law," Imoisili said. "But it was time for me to join a high-stakes litigation-only firm that is on the cutting edge of the legal field, both in how it trains and utilizes its attorneys, and in its exciting client base."

Imoisili's high-profile cases include the representation of SpaceX engineers in a trade secret dispute with Broadcom, their former employer.

In addition to litigating complex cases, Imoisili will oversee attorney recruiting and hiring in Los Angeles. He said the firm is creating a new paradigm for high-stakes business litigation.

"Big firms have not succeeded in recruiting or promoting top minorities and females, which is to the great detriment of not just members of those groups but the business communities we serve," Imoisili said. "Greenberg Gross will seek members of those underrepresented groups while recruiting the country's top legal talent to ensure that we are providing our increasingly diverse business community with the finest and most representative lawyers in the country." 

Also joining the office is Susan Hershman, a Harvard College and Berkeley Law School graduate who will be senior counsel. Hershman recently left the United States Attorney's office in Los Angeles after serving there for more than twenty years as one of the most accomplished False Claims Act lawyers in the country. She will lead Greenberg Gross' False Claims Act practice group.

"The culture of Greenberg Gross is strikingly similar to the best traditions of the U.S. Attorney's Office, which at its best is known as a place where well-trained, highly motivated attorneys want to make a difference and are able to do just that." 

Rounding out the highly talented Los Angeles roster are counsel Bret Hembd, who joined Greenberg Gross from Irell & Manella's Century City office in 2014, and associate Jaya Gupta, who worked for several years in Sidley & Austin's Los Angeles and Chicago offices. Hembd earned his juris doctorate from Yale Law School and holds degrees in music from both UCLA and USC. Gupta graduated with honors from Northwestern Law School and UCLA.

Greenberg Gross' numerous significant, multi-million dollar wins in its short history has brought an unexpected benefit: A growing appellate practice that started first as a complement to the firm's trial court practice and has grown into a robust practice of its own.

The appellate work started with cases won in trial court but has expanded greatly, noted co-founding partner Gross, former chief of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Santa Ana.

"Unlike many firms that brand themselves as trial firms, we focus as much on our written advocacy as we do on our oral advocacy," Gross said. "Our secret in defeating the most fearsome of opponents is to first win with the pen, then with our oratory skills. It is that combination of attributes that enables a lawyer, whether at trial or on appeal, to be of the greatest service to clients."

The firm's commitment to excellence has enabled it to secure blue-chip clients in their most significant matters, including the New York-based insurance giant AIG in California-based litigation against PIMCO. The firm also represents Frontline Corporate Services, a London-based manager of billions in worldwide assets, in New York-based litigation against a private equity fund that is alleged to have concealed the role of the infamous Raj Rajaratnam, as well as Amphastar Pharmaceuticals, a NASDAQ-listed company that has sued Sanofi Aventis in a multi-billion dollar False Claims Act case. 

"As I have said in the past, we have no desire to be the largest law firm measured by number of offices or lawyers," Greenberg said. "We simply desire to be the firm of choice for plaintiffs and defendants in their most significant and challenging business cases."

About Greenberg Gross
Greenberg Gross LLP, an elite law firm that specializes in high-stakes business litigation, represents public and private companies, prominent law firms, nonprofit organizations, high-level executives and others in their most significant cases. It is regularly ranked as a "Best Law Firm" by U.S. News Media Group and Best Lawyers® for the metropolitan area of Orange County.

For additional information, please visit www.GGTrialLaw.com, or contact Alan A. Greenberg: (949) 383-2820 / AGreenberg@GGTrialLaw.com. 

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