Nicholas Daum

With a particular focus on crafting highly persuasive legal arguments before trial and appellate courts, Nicholas F. Daum has obtained successful results for clients including major entertainment-industry corporations, religious organizations, law firms, and professional advisors.

Fluent in all stages of civil litigation, Mr. Daum skillfully crafts legal arguments that have helped clients resolve novel and cutting-edge legal issues, especially in the areas of commercial and contract law, First Amendment and constitutional law, and professional liability.

Education:

• Yale Law School, J.D., 2003
  • Cover Fellow
  • Yale Law Journal, Notes Editor
  • Yale Journal on Regulation, Executive Editor
  • Research Assistant to Professor Owen Fiss
• University of California at Berkeley, M.A., History, 2000
  • Mellon Fellow
• Cornell University, B.A., History and College Scholar Program, 1996
  • Magna cum laude

Representative Matters:

• Represent minority owners of major television production company in major corporate dispute involving multiple appeals and numerous appellate issues.
• Represent estate of prominent deceased music star in connection with multiple appeals involving California’s anti-SLAPP law and the First Amendment.
• Obtained complete defense-side summary judgment for defendant BET Networks, Inc. in a case that involved novel First Amendment issues that were applied to performers and cast members.
• Integral member of the team that obtained a complete defense victory for Paramount Pictures at trial and on appeal in a complex commercial dispute over domestic and international film financing.
• Currently representing the heirs of a holocaust survivor in a federal court action brought against a Spanish state-owned museum for the restitution of a Camille Pissarro painting that was looted by the Nazis.
• Obtained dismissal of an action brought against a lawyer who was representing the heirs of the original authors of the “Superman” comics.
• Representing Los Angeles County in a lawsuit seeking to invalidate a new state law that puts the redrawing of county supervisors’ districts in the hands of a 14-member citizens committee.
• Represented civil rights and pro-democracy organizations in filing amicus briefs challenging partisan gerrymandering before the U.S. Supreme Court and Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

Bar and Court Admissions:

• California, 2005
• U.S. District Courts
  • Central, Eastern, Northern, and Southern Districts of California
• U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit