Carol Risher

Carol Risher has been with Rushing McCarl LLP since its founding. She has an extensive background in management and legal support, and she is responsible for overseeing the firm’s day-to-day logistics, recruiting, finances, and client intake.

Before joining Rushing McCarl, Ms. Risher worked as Executive Assistant to the President and the General Counsel of California Cartage Company. Before that, she managed the anti-piracy litigation for the Association of American Publishers for 25 years as Vice President of Copyright and New Technology, coordinating lawsuits on behalf of book and journal publishers in eleven foreign countries and the United States.

In her spare time, Ms. Risher races sailboats – having sailed in such remote places as the North Sea and the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. She is also a volunteer with Worldreader, which promotes literacy by bringing digital books to children in underdeveloped regions around the world.

Notable Results (Firmwide)

Representing plaintiffs:

• Won a $17.8 million jury verdict in a breach-of-contract case involving a major cosmetics manufacturer (Virgin Scent, Inc. v. BT Supplies W., Inc.).
• Won a $9.9 million jury verdict in a partnership dispute involving the largest cannabis business in Kern County (Delis v. Thorn).*
• Won a $3.3 million jury verdict in a dispute involving a breach of a medical practice sale contract and nonsolicitation agreement (Leyster v. Tran).
• Won a California Labor Commissioner judgment exceeding $468,000 for an iHeartRadio DJ in a fraud case involving the Talent Agencies Act.
• Won a default judgment exceeding $500,000 in a cryptocurrency fraud case; the case was covered in Forbes, leading to an FBI investigation and indictment (Chavez v. Jordan-Jones).
• Won a Ninth Circuit reversal for a victim of an in-flight assault (Doe v. Compania Panamena de Aviacion).
• Named co-lead plaintiffs’ counsel in putative deceptive-advertising class action based on a manufacturer’s failure to disclose its use of lead in Stanley Tumbler drinkware (In re Stanley Tumbler Litigation).
• Won a favorable pretrial settlement of a malpractice and conversion case against an AmLaw 100 law firm (DSS Risk Consultants v. ArentFox).
• Represented the family estate of musician Leonard Cohen in malpractice litigation against his former law firm (Seibert v. Ervin, Cohen & Jessup LLP).

Representing defendants:

• Won a total victory (settlement with the plaintiff paying our client) for an employee who was sued in a trade-secrets case (T2 Modus, LLC v. Williams).
• Won a total victory (settlement paying the plaintiff nothing) for a shipping company that was sued in a secured-transactions case.**
• Won a jury verdict on four of five claims as trial counsel in a securities fraud case, defeating RICO allegations that sought eight-figure damages (Altaa v. Production Cap.).
• Favorably resolved trademark claims brought by Patagonia against Rushing McCarl clients within weeks of taking each case, resolving one matter for $0 and the other for a nominal sum ($1,860) (Patagonia v. Kranz).

Other:

• Wrote an amicus brief signed by 1,700 University of Michigan alumni, garnering national news coverage  (Harbaugh v. Big Ten Conf).
• Wrote an amicus brief for ClientEarth and The Shareholder Commons in a securities-regulation case, with the Fifth Circuit citing the brief in its ruling (Nat’l Ctr. for Pub. Pol’y Res. v. SEC).
• Wrote an amicus brief for 14 signatories in a case about state land-surveying regulations (Crownholm v. Moore).
• Wrote a pioneering amicus brief on workplace caste discrimination, leading to invitations to present to the Department of Justice and other federal agencies (California DFEH v. Cisco Sys., Inc.).

* After damages for civil-theft are automatically trebled under Cal. Pen. Code § 496(c).
** Agreement has been reached but written terms are still being finalized.