CARL W. SHAPIRO

Partner

Tel: 310.319.5461

Email

Since he arrived in California in 1976, Carl Shapiro has been practicing commercial litigation in such diverse areas as First Amendment defense, intellectual property, insurance coverage and appellate work. While he is admitted to practice before all state and federal courts in California as well as the United States Supreme Court, his practice presently focuses on finding creative ways to solve his clients' problems without resorting to litigation, if possible.

Before founding Shapiro, Rodarte & Freedman LLP in 1996, Carl spent twenty years with the international law firm of Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker, where he was a partner specializing in business litigation at both the trial and appellate court levels. He also frequently represented major Asian companies in U.S. litigation. At SR&F, his practice currently focuses on guiding national and international clients in the management and containment of mass tort losses and in securing insurance recoveries in connection with such losses.

Carl was the principal architect of a bad faith action brought on behalf of a major studio that resulted in a substantial judgment for compensatory and punitive damages; lead counsel in an action that secured a multi-million judgment against the California Insurance Guarantee Association on behalf of a major motorcycle manufacturer; lead counsel in overturning a multi-million dollar verdict obtained by an American inventor against a Japanese manufacturer of personal watercraft and successfully defending the retrial of the inventor's intellectual property and defamation claims; and principal trial counsel for a Korean newspaper in obtaining a non-suit with respect to defamation claims brought by a Korean clergyman. More recently, Carl has designed and negotiated several innovative coverage-in-place programs that have resulted in the voluntary payment of hundreds of millions of dollars by insurance carriers in multiple mass tort contexts involving healthcare companies. He has also been instrumental in the negotiation of several class action settlements, and has directed the implementation of several of those settlements as well.