LEADING BUSINESSES TRUST NESS WITH THEIR MOST SIGNIFICANT LEGAL MATTERS.
Main Areas of Practice
Commercial Disputes
At Ness PLLC, we have successfully litigated, tried and arbitrated a wide range of complex commercial disputes in various industries and jurisdictions. These include breaches of services agreements, conflicts arising from mergers or acquisitions, disputes among former business partners, sale of goods transactions, complex commercial real estate and construction disputes . Our deep understanding of the law of contracts as well as our experience litigating and trying business disputes involving sophisticated technologies and highly complex financial arrangements make us a formidable advocate to have on your side.
IP and Technology
We protect and exploit the IP for companies that have developed some of the most valuable IP in the world. We have mastered the art of explaining often complex technologies to judges and juries that do not have technical backgrounds. We have litigated cutting-edge issues in patent, trade secret, copyright and privacy law, including around data collection and database maintenance, deep learning and neural networks, protecting AI’s insights and creative byproducts, and digital assets and blockchain-based technologies. We love technology and love helping companies and inventors protect and monetize it.
Fiduciary Litigation
We have successfully litigated and resolved numerous disputes involving the internal dynamics of businesses, including disputes between co-founders and former business partners, disputes between shareholders and directors/officers, and other disputes where fiduciaries—directors, majority shareholders, managing members, or general partners—have abused or abdicated their fiduciary role to the detriment of the companies they represent, their partners and/or shareholders. We are adept at pursuing direct or derivative claims on behalf of beneficiaries in courts across the country, and in defending fiduciaries against such claims where appropriate.
Judgment Enforcement
As many clients learn the hard way, judgments are great to win but, sadly, not self-executing. Many judgment debtors must be compelled to pay judgments, including by levying assets and separate lawsuits on the judgment. Many judgment debtors think they can outsmart the system by finding creative ways to hide assets, using shell companies, “insider” transfers, and other maneuvers to make themselves “judgment proof.” We pursue a judgment debtor’s assets, including working to pierce through shell alter egos and setting aside fraudulent transfers of assets, and will not stop until the judgment has been satisfied. We are committed to realizing the value in judgments we have obtained and to getting to a debtor’s assets before other creditors do.
“Eli Ness is relentless in pursuit of his clients’ interests.”
Eli’s clients uniformly consider him their most trusted advocate and routinely entrust him with their most complicated and highest stakes legal problems . Eli has successfully prosecuted and defended billions of dollars worth of legal claims in varied industries and legal landscapes and, with his team of skilled attorneys, can drive matters of any level of complexity to successful resolution.
Aside from abilities, as a man of deep faith and commitment (Eli and his wife Michal are parents to seven children) Eli’s other hallmarks are integrity and honesty. Eli leads the firm with these values and only those attorneys willing to take on the firm’s commitments to excellence, diligence and integrity are permitted to represent Ness clients and the Ness name.
REPRESENTATIVE MATTERS
Defended group of real estate investors and developers in series of federal cases across the U.S. where they were exposed to $60 million in potential liability to a lender, employing aggressive counterstrategy to compel an extremely favorable settlement against all odds.
Represented renewable energy developer in bet-the-company litigation against former majority shareholder for breach of fiduciary duty and fraud.
Represented creators of 3D video technology against the largest developer of virtual reality headsets in the world in a case involving trade secret misappropriation and breach of contract.
Represented AI innovator against former executive who misappropriated client’s core technology and started a competing business.
Defended pharmaceutical company against one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world in fraud case related to a merger and acquisition.
Represented major real estate developer in dispute with major metropolitan area regarding breach of a multi-billion-dollar development agreement.
PRIOR ASSOCIATIONS
Quinn, Emanuel, Urquhart & Sullivan LLP
Lynn Pinker Hurst & Schwegmann LLP
Perkins Coie LLP
Diamonds International, Head of Litigation
Chambers of Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald, U.S. District Court for the Central District of California
EDUCATION
JD, University of California, Berkeley (Boalt Hall) School of Law
First-in-class awards for Civil Procedure, Civil Trial Practice and Copyright, Competition and Technology
Law & Technology Certificate, Berkeley Center for Law and Technology
Berkeley Technology Law Journal, Article Submissions
Co-President, Boalt Hall Jewish Students Association
BA, University of California, Berkeley
***Admitted to practice in state and federal courts of California and Texas and appearing pro hac vice across the U.S.***
Combining the best of human and artificial intelligence.
Ness PLLC is working exclusively with technology developer MatterMind.AI to create and deploy litigation tools and processes that make our lawyers more effective and more efficient at every step. We believe that an integration of the best of human and artificial intelligence will deliver the most value to our clients in the long run. From case initiation through trial—we practice at the cutting edge of law and technology.