Spiegel Liao & Kagay's
partners, all former members of the Antitrust Section of the California
Attorney General's Office, founded the firm in 1985. Both before and after entering
private practice, SLK attorneys have been leaders in numerous difficult and innovative
litigation and appellate matters. The principal attorneys manage their own cases,
eliminating the need for junior attorneys to learn while billing the client.
MICHAEL I. SPIEGEL earned
his undergraduate degree at Columbia University in 1956. In 1961, he received his J. D.
from Stanford University Law School, where he was a member of the Law Review. He was
admitted to the bar in 1962 and clerked for California Supreme Court Justices Dooling and
Tobriner from 1961 to 1962. He is a past member (1978-1986) of the Executive Committee of the
California State Bar's Antitrust and
Unfair Competition Section, and a present member of the American Bar Association's
Antitrust Law and Litigation Sections.
Mr. Spiegel was one of the founders of the Antitrust Section of the California Department
of Justice, where he served as Deputy Attorney General and Supervising Deputy from 1963 to
1985. In that position, he took a lead role in many major antitrust cases and
achieved national prominence as an antitrust attorney. He pioneered the development of modern day
class action and other complex litigation.
Mr. Spiegel represented the State of California in the Western Pipe Antitrust cases; the
Antibiotics Antitrust Litigation; the Western Liquid Asphalt Antitrust Litigation, MDL-50;
and the Cement Antitrust Litigation, MDL-296, among many others. He has consistently been
recognized by the courts and his peers as a leader in the fields of antitrust, class
actions, and other complex litigation. See, e.g., In re Coordinated Pretrial Proceedings
in Antibiotic Antitrust Actions, 410 F.Supp. 706, 717 (D.Minn. 1975): "Mr. Spiegel .
. . [has] done an outstanding job throughout this litigation. The Court has the highest
esteem for [this man] as [an] individual and as [a] litigant." He is best known for
captaining the Petroleum Products Antitrust Litigation for all plaintiff states, an
eighteen-year effort in a massive class action that ultimately netted over $140 million
for four western states and their citizens.
In 1995, Forbes Magazine recognized Mr. Spiegel as one of the nation's 25 most successful
trial lawyers. Mr. Spiegel
has served as Advisory Counsel for an Independent Counsel probe of a cabinet-level official in
Washington, D.C. He has been trained as a mediator and serves as an
arbitrator for California State Bar and San Francisco Bar Association
attorney-client and fee disputes.
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CHARLES KAGAY earned his
undergraduate degree, graduate degree and J.D. from Harvard University. He was admitted to
the bar in 1976, and served as Deputy Attorney General for the State of California from
1976 to 1985. He is a past member of, and current advisor to, the Executive Committee of the State Bar of California's Antitrust and
Unfair Competition Section.
Mr. Kagay has been certified as a specialist in Appellate Law by the
State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization, and has been
appointed to the State Bar of California's Committee on Appellate
Courts. He handles appeals in all California and federal courts,
particularly those involving complex or novel legal or procedural
questions. Mr. Kagay has taken a lead role in several major antitrust and class action cases,
including the Petroleum Products Antitrust Litigation, at both the trial court and
appellate levels. He also has served as principal attorney in several prominent appeals,
including:
- Bay World Trading,
Ltd v. Nebraska Beef, Inc., 101 Cal. App. 4th 135 (2002)
- Cel-Tech
Communications, Inc. v. Los Angeles Cellular Telephone Co.,
20 Cal. 4th 183 (1999)
-
United States v.
Blackley, 167 F.3d 543 (D.C. Cir. 1999)
- In re
Sealed
Case,
121 F.3d 729 (D.C. Cir. 1997)
-
United States
v. Espy, 145 F.3d 1369 (D.C. Cir. 1998)
- In re
Espy, 80 F.3d 501 (D.C. Cir.
1996)
- Abramson v. Gonzales, 949 F.2d 1567 (11th
Cir. 1992)
- In re Co-ordinated Pretrial Proceedings in
Petroleum Products Antitrust Litigation (MDL-150), 906 F.2d 432 (9th Cir. 1990)
- Bullock v. City and County of San
Francisco,
221 Cal.App.3d 1072 (1990)
- Pichon v. Pacific Gas & Electric
Co., 212
Cal.App.3d 488 (1989)
While still conducting his civil practice in
California, Mr. Kagay served as Chief Appellate
Counsel in the probes of two cabinet-level officials in Washington, D.C.
He has also been called back by the California Attorney General's
office as a Special Deputy Attorney General in antitrust matters,
including the landmark antitrust trial in United States v.
Microsoft.
In 2004, Mr. Kagay was
selected as a “Northern California
Superlawyer”
– i.e., one of the top 3% of the lawyers practicing in Northern
California, on the basis of surveys of 56,000 attorneys in that
region.
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WAYNE LIAO, of counsel to
the firm, earned his undergraduate degree in 1972 from the University of Chicago, and his
J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1975. He was admitted to the
California Bar in 1975 and served as a Deputy Attorney General for the State of California
from 1976 to 1985. He has been a member of the Executive Committee of the State Bar of
California's Antitrust Section beginning in 1990.
Mr. Liao led the firm's defense of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission in the
relocation of the National Basketball Association Clippers team from San Diego to Los
Angeles, National Basketball Association v. SDC Basketball Club, Inc., 815 F.2d 562 (9th
Cir. 1987). He also shouldered major leadership responsibilities in other large antitrust
cases, including the Petroleum Products Antitrust Litigation. In addition to his
litigation practice, Mr. Liao represents a leading international financial services
company in matters arising from capital investments.
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BARTHOLOMEW LEE, counsel to
the firm, earned his undergraduate degree from St. John's College in 1968 and his J.D.
from the University of Chicago in 1971, where he was a Teaching Fellow from 1971-73. He
has been an adjunct professor in Law and Economics at Golden Gate University
since 1983. His legal publications include "The California Civil Code," 5 Journal of
Western Legal History 13, (1992); "Hard Rock Mining and the Antitrust Laws: When Too
Much is Really Too Much, Ninth Circuit Survey," 15 Golden Gate University Law Review
49, (1985), and "Eliminating Affirmative Defenses in Antitrust Treble Damages
Actions: Symbolic Control, Inc. v. IBM, Ninth Circuit Survey," 11 Golden Gate
University Law Review 241, (1981). His published appellate decisions include
Energy
Conservation, Inc. v. Heliodyne, Inc., 698 F.2d 386 (9th Cir. 1982),
Liew v. Official
Receiver (Hong Kong), 685 F.2d 1192 (9th Cir. 1982), and Bullock v. City and County of San
Francisco, 221 Cal.App.3d 1072 (1990).
Mr. Lee’s recent
litigation emphasis has been on constitutional issues, particularly
property rights, discrimination, and First Amendment questions, and on
RICO matters. He has also emphasized practice in mediation advocacy and
has served as counsel to businesses and individuals regarding dispute
avoidance and resolution, intellectual property management and defense,
fine arts law, and international regulation. Additionally, he has worked
on evolving health care industry issues such as restraint of trade
matters involving the Federal Trade Commission and physician and
hospital relations, and he has served as counsel to non-profit groups
such as museums and Federal Communications Commission-regulated
emergency services organizations.
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DON
SMALTZ, of counsel to the firm, earned his undergraduate degree from
Pennsylvania State University in 1958 and his J.D. from the Dickinson
School of Law in 1961. He began his career serving as a Captain in the
United States Army JAG Corps and as an Assistant United States Attorney
in the Central District of California. He capped a long and successful
private practice by returning to public service from 1994 to 2002 as the
Independent Counsel appointed to investigate former Secretary of
Agriculture Alphonso (Mike) Espy. As Independent Counsel, he brought
over a dozen criminal and civil proceedings.
Mr. Smaltz, a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers, is a very
successful trial attorney with extensive experience in white collar
criminal defense, business litigation, and SEC and environmental
litigation matters.
Mr. Smaltz is resident in the Los Angeles area.
Mr. Smaltz's reported cases include the following prominent decisions:
-
Rebel Oil Co., Inc. v. Atlantic Richfield Co., 146 F.3d 1088 (9th
Cir.
1998)
-
United States
v. Espy, 145 F.3d 1369 (D.C. Cir. 1998)
- United States v.
Hemmingson, 157 F.3d 347 (5th Cir. 1998)
- Little Oil Co., Inc. v.
Atlantic Richfield Co., 852 F.2d 441 (9th Cir.
1988)
- Goldberg v. United
States, 425 U.S. 94 (1976)
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