Practice Focus
Catastrophic Loss, Wrongful Death, Aviation, Government Entity Liability, Fraud and Wrongful Termination
Recent successes include multiple settlements of 57 claims for victims of the 737 MAX crashes caused by The Boeing Company, an 8 digit settlement in the high profile Apple campus fatality case (Vargas v. Level 10 et al.), and 7 digit settlement of the Hickman toddler double fatality cases (Hickman v. Los Angeles County et al.) against Los Angeles County.
Current active cases or recent cases include:
Altadena / Eaton Fire / Los Angeles Fires (Jan 2025-present): SNS now represents victims of the Los Angeles fires of 2025, specifically focusing on claims currently against Southern California Edison in connection with the Eaton / Altadena fire. SNS is investigating all aspects of liability including the core cause of the fire and also failures to notify different parts of the community impacted.
County, PG&E and Private Airport (2024-present): Pending admin complaints for wrongful death (and state court complaints about to be filed) against utility and related defendants in connection with hazardous overhead utility lines allegedly causing crash of plane attempting to land at private airport.
American Airlines Severely Injured Passenger (2023-present): SNS is co-counsel who identified a case of egregious alleged negligence by American Airlines which resulted in severe injury to a passenger. Key motions defeated. Case proceeding to trial. SNS playing critical role in multi-disicplinary depositions requiring expert medical knowledge and aviation litigation experience.
Sriwijaya Air Flight 182 Mass Fatality (2021): SNS was lead counsel representing claimants in the latest Boeing crash in Indonesia which claimed the lives of 62 Indonesians aboard. SNS settled multiple claims against Boeing on this landmark matter and was one of the counsel leading the charge on the successful defeat of Boeing’s attempt to have the case dismissed outside the United States.
Dennis Finn v. Los Angeles County (2020-2022): SNS was lead trial counsel for the whistleblower Dennis Finn, a former social worker who was terminated by the DCFS in Los Angeles County. Mr. Finn revealed the alleged misconduct which is believed to have been the cause of the Hickman toddler fatalities. The case settled highly favorably and prompted significant reforms at DCFS.
High Stakes Business Disputes
SNS has settled multiple high stakes, complex commercial disputes involving breach of contract, professional malpractice, commercial defamation, tortious interference, and breach of fiduciary duty. Multiple multimillion dollar settlements achieved for clients on matters including domestic and cross border disputes.
Tech Company v. Top Five National Law Firm (Fall 2021-2022): SNS was lead trial counsel in a pending demand for settlement and pending complaint against a Top Five National Firm for malpractice alleged to have lost SNS’s client a $20m contract with a major governmental entity. Based on SNS’s extensive pre litigation investigation and highly detailed complaint previewed to the Defendant, the matter settled in early 2022.
Multiple litigation matters for a major US Cannabis company (2020-2022): SNS was lead trial counsel on multiple litigation matters for a leading U.S. cannabis distributor. Cannabis companies are often vulnerable to strategic lawsuits, and SNS uses its insights from its numerous plaintiff cases to identify matters which can be settled efficiently vs. frivolous or tenuous matters that should be litigated to trial.
Multiple litigation matters for a well known Northern California recovery center (2014-present): SNS has served as lead counsel to resolve multiple litigation matters for a Northern California recovery center. SNS also provides the center general counsel support year round with an on call attorney available for any matters which arise.
Settlement of multimillion dollar cross complaint and recovery of owed fees by software services company (2021): SNS successfully defended its long standing software services company against what was believed to be an unmeritorious $3M+ cross complaint. SNS achieved a zero dollar settlement on the cross complaint and instead obtained for its client a near complete recovery of fees owed.