Marc Luber: Hey everyone – welcome to JD CareersOutThere – where we get you career
advice from fellow lawyers and non-practicing lawyers – to help you achieve success and
happiness in your career.
In law school, you learn how to think, read and write like a lawyer.
We’re here to help you enjoy your career – and a big part of that is finding a path
that excites you – so we’re gonna look at one of those paths today.
I’m Marc Luber – and today we’re exploring careers in Business Litigation.
We’re talking to Craig Rutenberg, a business litigator and a Partner at the Los Angeles-based
law firm of Manatt Phelps & Phillips.
I asked Craig to tell us about his practice and what it’s like to be a business litigator.
Here’s a look at how that went:
Craig Rutenberg: I’m a business litigator at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips.
We have about 300 attorneys nationwide in 8 offices.
My practice consists primarily of representing individuals and entities in a broad range
of commercial disputes involving contract and tort claims like breach of fiduciary duty,
unfair competition, fraud and misrepresentation.
I’ve represented a wide range of individuals like officers and directors as well as a number
of different kinds of entities like corporations, hospitals.
A number of my cases often touch in one way or another on real estate, so I’ve represented
investors, partnerships, but the business litigation spectrum runs the wide gamut of
disputes and problems that occur in the business world between either competitors or partners
or joint ventures when things go sour and we are there to sort of try to put the pieces
back together.
Despite all of these differences though, I approach these cases in the same way.
And our first step is always collaborating with the client to understand what the client’s
goals are in resolving the disputes, then developing a strategy to achieve those goals
and the tactics to implement the strategy.
And then once we put that together, we're constantly in a position of reevaluating our
strategy and our tactics to see if they're effectively meeting the goals of the client.
Luber: Excellent.
Okay.
So, do this for everybody.
Walk us through a typical fact pattern, an exciting fact pattern.
Let everybody kind of see what a situation could be like that you’d be handling.
Craig Rutenberg: Sure.
In the real estate world, I've represented property owners in commercial disputes over
the use of property and I've represented a number of lenders or investors in foreclosure
proceedings.
I've represented banks in lawsuits against both borrowers, as well as in lawsuits against
other banks where the banks had entered their participation agreement and they're sharing
the loan obligations and the loan has been mismanaged.
I've done false advertising cases between competitors and I've done – I’m currently
representing a hospital in a large dispute with a disgruntled physician where there's
been a series of litigation ongoing for the last 12 years.
Luber: So, would you say that what you do is like what we see on TV?
Is it a courtroom all the time, action-packed adventure?
What's the reality?
Craig Rutenberg: I’m not at all like TV most of the time.
I certainly do get to go into the courtroom, but it's not nearly as unrestrained and it
doesn’t really provide the platform for extemporaneous opinion-making and speaking
the way you might have seen on some of the David Kelly or L.A. Law shows.
But it certainly is an opportunity to persuasively advocate on behalf of your client in a public
forum and to try to persuade a judge to see the case the way you see it.
And there is, you know, an Indiana Jones element to the job, which is that a lot of the pretrial
discovery work is an investigation.
And not only are you seeking the truth, but you're also seeking the jewels of the case,
which are the best pieces of evidence.
And that often is like an archeological expedition where you have to sift through a lot of dirt
and dust and unremarkable documents to find the true jewels and the ones that are really
going to make your case.
So, there's a lot more time sitting in a desk in front of the computer, writing briefs,
negotiating with adversaries and talking with clients than you ever see on TV.
But it doesn’t mean we're not having as much fun.
Luber: Excellent.
And I like that analogy.
You don’t sit and wear a hat, do you?
Craig Rutenberg: No, I don’t wear the hat, just my thinking cap.
Luber: Ha!
Very good.
Alright – you guys’ll learn lots more about being a business litigator from Craig
at JDCareersOutThere.com.
He gives us a great description of what it’s really like to be a business litigator.
And he talks about the work, the lifestyle, working at a prestigious firm with brand name
corporate clients, and shares tips for networking and breaking in to this path.
This is not the kind of stuff you learn in school!
You can take a shortcut to the site by going to JDCOT.com.
If you’re already at the site, you can scroll down to the full version – be sure to become
a member so you can watch the full interview and get access to lots more exclusive content
filled with great advice.
Thanks again for watching everyone – I’m Marc Luber and look forward to seeing you
again soon.
Take care.