Susan Kalra is a California based litigator and business advisor who builds trust with her clients by being open and honest, and making herself available when they need to talk through their most stressful problems. And when it comes time to litigate, she leverages tech that helps her compete with even the biggest firms out there.
How would you describe your practice?
I'm the General Counsel for a boutique patent firm, Mahamedi IP Law, and I’m also the firm’s Litigation Partner. While the other lawyers in the firm are patent prosecutors, my practice focuses on business matters, and on employer/employee relationship documentation. I work with the firm’s clients on trademark matters and provide advice on business issues.
Which jurisdictions are you primarily working in?
California! Primarily the San Francisco Bay area. I've also got an office down in Los Angeles for Central District of California clients.
What attracts your clients to your practice?
Clients have a high level of trust in me because I know how to exercise discretion. I’m also a little bit on the blunt side, which I find my clients really appreciate. I would rather have a client know what is likely to happen in litigation upfront. I try to set client expectations early on, and to advise of possible risks along the way . That kind of transparency builds trust over time, and it’s a reason clients seek me out.
I think another reason is that I like to get to know my clients and understand their business. When a business client comes in, it generally brings a specific issue or concern. I like to get to know more about the business than its one-time concern, and to try to resolve the concern in a way that might enable the business to avoid that same issue in the future. For example, if a business has an issue with an employee that is misusing the company’s leave policy and is encouraging their colleagues to do the same thing, I like to understand what the company’s specific policy is, and how the policy is communicated to the employees. Next I explore whether it makes sense to create a new policy or modify the existing policy, and determine an effective way to make sure all of the company’s employees know about the change.
As a litigator at a boutique firm, what is your approach to handling the high volume of evidence that is becoming more and more typical of the discovery process in the average case?
As a litigator in a boutique law firm, my ability to access, sort, and then marshall the evidence is a lot different process-wise than that at a big firm. For example, I just finished off a case against a firm where their trial team was six attorneys. They can pull things up at the drop of a hat. For me, part of being in a boutique practice means that we operate fairly independently from one another, so I often do not have the support of paralegals to complete tasks. So I've got to figure out an alternative way to be able to access or use all the evidence.
Have you been able to leverage technology to even the playing field?
Here is where I have to mention Clearbrief: it has given me tools that have allowed me to complete projects in a much more efficient manner than I was able to do before. I do some work as a local counsel for a patent litigation firm, and when I start getting a lot of exhibits to attach to various court filings, it has been very nice to have Clearbrief. I'm able to plug in all of the bits of evidence that I have so that as I read the patent infringement complaint, or a motion, in Word, I have all the context visible to me.
For example, if somebody says, “this claim relates to XYZ”, or “this claim chart is at such and such a page”, or “these pieces of correspondence support the assertions in this declaration” etc., it could take me forever to sit there and go through the large volumes of documents and try to find each reference. This way, I just upload them into Clearbrief in Word, tell Clearbrief once how these docs are cited to, and then it's right there. It's so easy!
I also find that I've been using Clearbrief a lot as I prepare for and argue at hearings. I have been able to pull up case law while I’m in a Zoom hearing, and I have been using Clearbrief internally as I prepare. Maybe I'll have five cases that I really want to rely on for oral argument. I have very specific passages of those cases that I want to cite, or at least refer to. Now, when I’m using Zoom to attend Z-hearings, it's great, because I open up Clearbrief and I can just zip right to the case citation, right to the piece I want. I can read it, but I don't have post-it notes all over the place. I don't have piles of paper that I have to look at. It's more like, click, here's the cite, here's the reference.
[Ed. note: Click here to get a demo of Clearbrief tailored to your practice area]How important is your legal writing to your practice?
Good legal writing is critical to my practice, and it is also one of my favorite parts of my job.
The way I write is a lot different than other people's processes... I have friends that make outlines and they put in all their little Roman numerals and put everything in. My process is more fluid; I'm more like, “oh, I need to be sure I mentioned this, oh, I need to be sure I mentioned that.” So more of a category or subject-driven approach, and then at the end, I like to organize everything into a cohesive piece of writing.
The nice thing with Clearbrief is that I don't have to keep moving things around and try to remember which “id.” goes with which case or evidentiary cite. I'm taking all of the citations with me. If I copy and paste it, the visible source document just moves around right with the writing.
With Clearbrief, I've caught mischaracterizations of documents and cases by opposing counsel. As soon as I look at the evidence, or look at the caselaw, with Clearbrief and I think, 'well, that doesn't really support that,' I can highlight that point and really hone in on that in my response. These are things that I might not have really noticed as easily previously. My clients are always very impressed. For a small firm - or any firm really - it's invaluable!
How do you help your small business clients manage the litigation process?
Anytime a business receives something from a courthouse or from an opposing attorney for the first time, especially when the process server shows up at your door, they often don't know what to do. I like to help clients understand the next steps by showing them a roadmap of the litigation process and saying here's what you can expect to happen next, etc. A lot of business people, once you can translate things into language that they understand, are like, “Oh, I see why we're doing this!” In general, clients love details, and they appreciate and explain the process, and translation of legalese into relatable steps.
Given your extensive experience helping small businesses, any specific advice to new businesses?
Two things. One is, if you're forming a new business, even though you think your partners are your best friends, or your relatives or whoever they may be, get an agreement in writing, and be sure that everybody understands what their obligations are, and what their rights are. Two, if you form a company that already has employees, take the time to invest in an employee handbook. And while you can never avoid all litigation, at least when you go into litigation, you could say, look, my company has a clear policy, here's what it is. And my employee acknowledged that they got this policy and that they understood it.
Another issue I see frequently is employees who leave to start their own companies and questions arise regarding whether or not they're allowed to do that. The other thing is the ever changing landscape of COVID-19 and what's going on with respect to employers and employees. For example, do employers have to pay them, and are employees eligible for additional paid sick leave. Other issues concern ownership of IP. Does your business own it? Do your employees own it? And when your company owns IP, what can the company do to protect it?
How do you see your law firm growing in the future?
I see a couple of things happening. First, I’d like to move toward working with contractors for a lot of the organizational, more administrative-type work (non-legal). That will help save my clients money because I don't have to do things like document organization myself. In terms of the practice, in the state of California there's always something changing and evolving in terms of the regulations that impact the types of businesses I advise. So, you must keep your eyes open and read a lot of news to see what's coming down the pike. Companies are going to deal with employment issues no matter what, for as long as we have companies with employees. I see my firm and my practice growing by working with more businesses to address their needs proactively, by working with them to protect their intellectual property, and by assisting businesses with putting policies and documentation in place to reduce risks.
Another key component to the future is being open to technology. Before I came to work at my current firm, I spent a number of years working for a small firm doing cite checking and preparing Tables of Authorities for attorneys either because they didn't know how to create them in Word, or because it took far too long to do so. That’s another feature of Clearbrief that is fantastic–no one should have to suffer through doing those manually again!
