Kathyleen O’Brien

Kathyleen A. O’Brien is a partner in the firm’s Los Angeles and Century City offices and is a member of Reed Smith’s Complex Litigation, Advertising, Entertainment and Media, and Intellectual Property and Technology Groups. She has extensive experience litigating complex business matters, including class actions, with a particular emphasis on advertising, unfair competition, and unfair trade practices issues.

Kathyleen has tried cases in both state and federal court. She routinely handles arbitrations, mediations, investigations, and enforcement proceedings, including proceedings before the Federal Trade Commission and the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, Inc. and investigations by state Attorneys’ General.

Kathyleen has lectured and written on a broad range of class action, advertising, and unfair competition issues. Her articles on advertising topics ranging from avoiding the pitfalls of discount pricing claims to the requirements for “green” marketing have appeared in various publications, including The IP Litigator, Los Angeles Business Journal, Industry Week, and Apparel Industry magazine and she was quoted in a recent article in Bloomberg Law entitled “Don’t Discount Deceptive Pricing Class Actions.”

Kathyleen is a co author of past editions of the handbook entitled The Nuts & Bolts of California Unfair Competition & Trade Regulation Law. She has served as a speaker at the WLALA’s “Class Action Forum,” at the American Conference Institute’s Conference on “Advertising Law in the Electronic Age” and at the International Trademark Association’s “False Advertising Forum.” She also chaired a roundtable on “Comparative Advertising” for the International Trademark Association.

Education : Georgetown University Law Center, 1978, J.D., with honors

Professional Admissions & Qualifications :

• California
• Massachusetts
• New York

EXPERIENCE :

• Class Action and other Litigation Matters
  • Successfully resolved pre-litigation demand by individual plaintiff threatening to bring a class action lawsuit on behalf of California consumers against a well-known restaurant food delivery service based on allegedly false and misleading pricing for its delivery services.
  • Successfully negotiated two separate favorable pre-litigation settlements with individual plaintiffs threatening to bring class action lawsuits on behalf of a national class and California and New York sub-classes against a major restaurant chain under various state consumer protection statutes based on allegedly false and misleading “fresh” claims for food products.
  • Williams v. Novo Nordisk, Inc. Successfully defended a major pharmaceutical company in putative class action by California consumers alleging claims for violation of California’s telephone recording and monitoring statute in connection with marketing activities.
• Investigations
  • Successfully represented major retailer of musical instruments in investigation of false discount pricing claims by State of Georgia Office of Consumer Affairs resulting in assurance of voluntary compliance and payment of nominal fine.
  • Successfully represented major toy company in investigation by New York Attorney General’s Office of presence on websites of third party tags which collect consumer data for purposes of behavioral advertising.
  • Represented major supplier of children’s products in FTC investigation of pricing practices of suppliers and retailers of children’s products.
  • Represented manufacturer of infant formula in FTC investigation of pricing practices of manufacturers of infant formula.