Lee Landa Kaplan

Lee Kaplan has tried dozens of cases in state and federal courts, representing plaintiffs and defendants ranging from Fortune 10 corporations to individuals. His docket has included oil and gas, construction, securities, antitrust, patent and trademark infringement, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, fraud, theft of trade secrets, shareholder rights, and class actions.  He frequently handles "high tech" cases and enjoys mastering complicated business dealings or scientific concepts in order to present them concisely to other lay people (particularly judges and juries).  Lee has also served as an arbitrator, often named to panels by prior opposing counsel. Here are some recent examples:

In May 2015 he won a two-week federal jury trial alleging theft of trade secrets, obtaining a $12.2 million verdict and judgment in addition to four stipulated judgments of $28.5 million reached with four defendants prior to trial.  Quantlab Technologies Ltd. (BVI) and Quantlab Financial, LLC, vs. Vitaliy Godlevsky, Andriy Kuharsky, Anna Maravina, Ping An, Emmanuel Mamalakis, and SXP Analytics, LLC, Case No. 09-cv-4039 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division. 

In 2014, he served as an arbitrator in a four-week hearing of a $100 million-plus construction dispute.

 In 2013, he and his partner Land Murphy defended a trade secrets case in which the Fortune 500 plaintiff tried to shut down his startup client, which was formed by plaintiff's ex-employees.  After months of discovery and a four-day trial at the temporary injunction stage, the state district court granted no meaningful relief to plaintiff and the case settled confidentially soon thereafter.

In 2012, he tried a jury case as co-counsel for a Schlumberger affiliate in a patent infringement suit.  He conducted the voir dire examination to select the jury and the direct and cross-examination of the damages experts.  The jury returned a nine-figure verdict in the client's favor.  The case is currently on appeal, with the Federal Circuit having sustained damages of approximately $20 million.  

He has been selected as a Texas "SuperLawyer" every year since 2003 and listed every year since 2007 in Chambers USA, Leading Lawyers for Business, for commercial litigation.  Chambers has referred to him as “good on his feet” and quoted a peer who said "he just lights up the courtroom" and recognized him as among Texas’ leading individual commercial litigators.  In 2013 he was also named one of the Top 100 Lawyers in Texas by SuperLawyers -Texas edition.  He has been elected to membership in the American Law Institute.

Lee has been a contributor on the radio show "The Price of Business" commenting on diverse topics such as the competitive value of patent protection, factors that drive settlement negotiations in commercial litigation and suggestions on how employers can protect themselves from the loss of intellectual property or from unjustified lawsuits claiming that they have misappropriated others' trade secrets.  Lee has been quoted for publication on various important legal issues, including the 2014 Texas Supreme Court case Ritchie v. Rupe, which overturned decades of Texas law and severely restricted or extinguished the rights of minority shareholders in Texas.

For his concise discussion of the three most important business-related decisions issued by the Texas Supreme Court in the last two years, click on :   .  (Start at 1:35 to skip the flattering description of SKV.) 

In his May 11, 2016 radio appearance, found at , Lee discussed law firms’ obligation to clients to protect their own cybersecurity (start at 1:00), the new federal Defend Trade Secrets Act (start at 6:12), and offered a practical solution for the current dispute between Uber and the City of Houston (start at 10:20).

As an Eagle Scout and the father of an Eagle Scout, he now assists as an adult leader for Troop 212.