Law, disrupted

• Managing Google’s Litigation: A Conversation with Sandi Knight

  John is joined by Cassandra “Sandi” Knight, Vice President of Litigation and Discovery at Google. Sandi oversees a global team of over 200 in house legal professionals and a host of law firms around the world. The case load she oversees varies from patent disputes to content moderation, to AI, and privacy issues, among many other types of disputes.Sandi’s department focuses on three functions: litigation, discovery, and support for investigations. Cases rise to the level of Sandi’s attention based on the legal issues involved, the amounts at stake, and the reputational risk and the potential for press attention. One challenge of managing such a wide variety of matters lies in balancing the daily influx of urgent unpredicted matters with the need to intentionally carve out time for deeper strategic reflection.Much of Google's litigation docket includes cutting-edge disputes in areas like AI and content moderation where there is often little clear legal precedent. In recent years, tech companies have experienced a shift in public perception—from celebrated innovators to targets of public skepticism. This shift has affected Google’s approach to jury trials and litigation in general.Sandi underscores the importance of building trust between the legal team and the business side of the company. This requires lawyers to take clear, actionable positions on legal matters, rather than simply explaining the competing legal risks and leaving the business team to weigh those risks and develop future plans on their own.Collaboration between outside counsel and internal product lawyers is critical to shaping legal strategy in the evolving tech landscape. Counsel who conduct careful mock argument sessions, particularly in Supreme Court litigation, have helped significantly shaped Google’s litigation strategy and contributed to positive outcomes. In general, Google values outside counsel who provide early engagement, strategic foresight, efficiency, and the ability to make legal recommendations rather than hedging every opinion.Podcast Link: Law-disrupted.fmHost: John B. Quinn Producer: Alexis HydeMusic and Editing by: Alexander Rossi

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• The Madoff Litigation

  John Quinn is joined by Robert Loigman, partner in Quinn Emanuel’s New York office, and Eric Winston, partner in Quinn Emanuel’s Los Angeles office.  They discuss the extensive litigation that has followed the 2008 collapse of Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.  The litigation stems from a liquidation by a court-appointed trustee under the Securities Investor Protection Act (SIPA).  The primary goal of the liquidation was to recover assets for Madoff’s victims.  The litigation has continued for 17 years, so far, because of the number of parties involved and the multitude of proceedings and appeals in both the U.S. and foreign courts.The trustee has pursued clawback claims against “feeder funds” under fraudulent transfer theories, targeting both “net winners” who withdrew more than they invested and “net losers” who withdrew less than they invested.  After the estate recovered $7 billion recovery from one feeder fund, investors began to anticipate higher recoveries than normally occur in SIPA proceedings.  Over time, a secondary market in Madoff claims developed, with distressed asset investors buying claims at steep discounts and profiting when recoveries exceeded expectations.  The Madoff litigation has led to several significant legal developments.  One key issue involved included the safe harbor under the Bankruptcy Code for good faith conduct.  Initially, a judge in the SDNY ruled that to show a lack of good faith, a trustee must show that an investor was willfully blind to the fraud at issue.  In 2021, the Second Circuit ruled that simple inquiry notice is enough, placing a greater burden on investors to investigate irregularities.Another significant legal development was the Second Circuit’s ruling that U.S. bankruptcy law could reach transfers between foreign debtors and foreign transferees, expanding the potential reach of clawback efforts.  Finally, the Second Circuit ruled that in a Chapter 15 bankruptcy case, certain U.S. standards would apply to transactions between foreign entities even though the foreign courts with jurisdiction over the entities would apply different standards.The uniquely large and visible fraud in the Madoff litigation case may have led courts to expand legal doctrines in ways that affect bankruptcy and investor litigation more generally.Podcast Link: Law-disrupted.fmHost: John B. Quinn Producer: Alexis HydeMusic and Editing by: Alexander Rossi

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• An Unheard-of Result: Specific Performance of Regulatory Approval Covenant in a M&A Transaction

  John is joined by Christopher D. Kercher, a partner in Quinn Emanuel’s New York office. They discuss the recent win Chris’s team achieved in a Delaware Chancery Court trial involving a high-stakes case involving Desktop Metal and Nano Dimension. The dispute centered around a merger agreement that included a "hell or high water" clause obligating Nano, the buyer, to do whatever was necessary to secure regulatory approval from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), with a narrow exception if required actions would result in a loss of 10% or more of the company’s revenue.After the agreement was signed, a hedge fund replaced Nano’s board and management with personnel opposed to the deal. The new board then sought ways to back out. Although CFIUS approval was near, Nano’s new leadership began stalling, making endless counterproposals, delaying communications, and attempting to trigger the revenue-loss exception by claiming that a requirement to maintain a German facility would exceed the 10% threshold.While the buyer tried to appear compliant with the contract, the evidence—particularly a 38-day gap in responding to CFIUS—revealed a pattern of bad faith and delay. Desktop Metal, struggling financially, was meticulous in adhering to operating covenants, collecting receivables and consulting Nano on business decisions, knowing any misstep could be weaponized to kill the deal. Despite pressure, the seller never received a renegotiation offer from Nano.At trial, the team presented the buyer’s conduct as a strategic “slow-walk.” The court ultimately agreed, affirming that a hell or high water clause must be honored in both letter and spirit. The case serves as a reminder that efforts to evade deal obligations—particularly those cloaked in delay or technicalities—will be exposed under judicial scrutiny, and that Delaware courts remain committed to upholding contractual integrity in complex M&A transactions.Podcast Link: Law-disrupted.fmHost: John B. Quinn Producer: Alexis HydeMusic and Editing by: Alexander Rossi

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• Inside Arm, The Hottest Chip Designer After Nvidia

  John is joined by Spencer Collins, Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer of Arm Holdings, the UK-based semiconductor design firm known for powering over 99% of smartphones globally with its energy-efficient CPU designs.  They discuss the legal challenges that arise from Arm’s unique position in the semiconductor industry. Arm has a unique business model, centered on licensing intellectual property rather than manufacturing processors. This model is evolving as Arm considers moving “up the stack,” potentially entering into processor production to compete more directly in the AI hardware space.  Since its $31 billion acquisition by SoftBank in 2016, Arm has seen tremendous growth, culminating in an IPO in 2023 at a $54 billion valuation and its market value nearly doubling since.AI is a major strategic focus for Arm, as its CPUs are increasingly central to AI processing in cloud and edge environments.  Arm’s high-profile AI projects include Nvidia’s Grace Hopper superchip and Microsoft’s new AI server chips, both of which rely heavily on Arm CPU cores.   Arm is positioned to be a key infrastructure player in AI’s future based on its broad customer base, the low power consumption of its semiconductors, and their extensive security features. Nvidia’s proposed $40 billion acquisition of ARM collapsed due to regulatory pushback in the U.S., Europe, and China.  This led SoftBank to pivot to taking 10% of Arm public.  Arm is now aggressively strengthening its intellectual property strategy, expanding patent filings, and upgrading legal operations to better protect its innovations in the AI space.Spencer describes his own career path—from law firm M&A work to a leadership role at SoftBank’s Vision Fund, where he worked on deals like the $7.7 billion Uber investment—culminating in his current post.   He suggests that general counsel for major tech firms must be intellectually agile, invest in best-in-class advisors, and maintain geopolitical awareness to navigate today’s rapidly changing legal and regulatory landscape.Podcast Link: Law-disrupted.fmHost: John B. Quinn Producer: Alexis HydeMusic and Editing by: Alexander Rossi

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• An AI Start Up That Revolutionizes Patent Litigation

  John Quinn is joined by Caleb Harris, Co-Founder and CEO of &AI, a startup focused on using artificial intelligence to transform patent litigation.   They discuss how &AI uses AI to accomplish complex patent litigation tasks such as invalidity and infringement analysis, dramatically reducing the time and cost associated with these traditionally labor-intensive efforts.  The service features four components: searches for prior art or infringing products, in-depth legal analysis (including creating claim charts), drafting litigation-ready documents like invalidity contentions or IPR petitions, and automating workflows using AI agents that operate independently.Patent litigation is particularly well-suited to AI because so much of the underlying data—such as patent filings, litigation histories, and prosecution records—is publicly available.  &AI continuously updates its data sets and can provide summaries, detailed claim charts, and customized drafts in as little as 10 minutes.  Unlike generative AI tools, &AI minimizes hallucinations by relying heavily on document retrieval rather than generation, and by providing verified citations in its output.The platform can also help streamline early-stage litigation decisions, such as assessing the strength of a patent portfolio or evaluating potential infringement claims in the marketplace.  It also helps defense teams efficiently assess and respond to weak claims, including those from patent trolls, by producing tailored response letters and evidence.&AI uses AI agents—AI that develops multi-step plans to accomplish tasks and automatically adjusts those plans based on how the work is progressing.  This allows the user to focus on the end product they want rather than the steps needed to get there.  AI agents will enable faster, more scalable, and more economically viable litigation, especially patent litigation.  This may lead to a boon for litigators as more lawsuits are filed and resolved quickly.  Although human performance will remain crucial in areas like persuading a jury or a judge, law firms may gain a competitive edge by pairing their expertise with firm-specific AI tools trained on the firm’s proprietary data and preferred styles.Podcast Link: Law-disrupted.fmHost: John B. Quinn Producer: Alexis HydeMusic and Editing by: Alexander Rossi

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