(The Recorder) After 20 years at Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, Joseph Saveri is breaking out on his own.
The founder and chair of the firm’s antitrust group said he gave notice last week and plans to open Saveri Law Firm
in late May. Saveri shared his plans at the Northern District federal judicial conference in Monterey over the
weekend. He said his move is generating a lot of interest from those he’s talked to. “It looks like I will be very busy,”
he said.
Right now, Saveri and his team at Lieff are gearing up for a May trial against Toshiba over claims of price-fixing in
the TFT-LCD flat panel screen market. And he and his colleagues are behind the “no-poaching” proposed class
action that accuses Apple Inc., Google Inc., Intel Corp., and other tech companies of conspiring to restrain wages by
agreeing not to recruit each other’s workers.
“I want and I intend to continue to collaborate with the firm in the future, and that includes the cases that I have
been responsible for while at the firm, as well as ones in the future,” Saveri said. The details are still being worked
out, he said.
With Saveri leaving, partner Eric Fastiff will now chair the antitrust group at Lieff.
The move means San Francisco will have two Saveri law firms. Saveri’s late father, Richard Saveri, and uncle,
Guido Saveri, started Saveri & Saveri 50 years ago.
“I’ve been around the antitrust law and the plaintiffs business—if you count the time at home over dinner—all my
life,” said the younger Saveri, 49.
Saveri’s family name and connections helped him get his antitrust practice going at Lieff Cabraser, where he
became partner in 1994. Before that, he did general complex commercial litigation for about four years at what’s
now Bingham McCutchen. Saveri said he hasn’t lined up anyone from Lieff to leave with him, but does plan on
bringing on other lawyers at his new shop. “I’m not going to do this myself,” he said.
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Joseph Saveri’s uncle’s name is also Joseph.
Actually, his first name is Guido.
(Reporting by Ginny LaRoe)