Halley Josephs

Halley Josephs is an accomplished trial and appellate lawyer who represents clients in complex business disputes and other high-stakes litigation around the country. Named one of the Top Women Lawyers in California and a California Lawyer Attorney of the Year by The Daily Journal, a Next Generation Leading Lawyer by Lawdragon, and a Rising Star of the Plaintiffs’ Bar by National Law Journal’s Elite Trial Lawyers, Halley has experience in a wide range of practice areas, including antitrust, breach of contract disputes, consumer protection, employment, intellectual property, False Claims Act, and class action litigation.

In 2023 alone, Halley helped secure over $400 million in recoveries for her clients, including over $350 million in settlements for universal life insurance policyholders in multiple breach-of-contract class actions against some of the nation’s leading insurers, including AXA and North American. Halley is currently litigating putative class actions against additional insurers, including John Hancock, Midland, and Sun Life. Halley also secured a $16 million settlement in a False Claims Act whistleblower case alleging that Walgreens and its USA Drug affiliates failed to pass on “usual and customary” generic prescription drug prices to government health programs, including Medicaid and Medicare Part D.

Halley previously defended Uber Technologies in the “Tech Trial of the Century,” in which Waymo (Google’s self-driving car project) claimed more than $2 billion in damages for alleged trade secret theft. Halley and her team were brought on by Uber only months before the jury trial and achieved a key victory by successfully arguing for the exclusion of Waymo’s expert damages opinions. The case settled during the first week of trial. Benchmark Litigation awarded Halley and the Susman Godfrey team National Impact Case of the Year for their work on this matter. Read more.

Halley’s notable representations and successes include:

• In re AXA COI Litigation (S.D.N.Y.) Secured a $307.5 million settlement for a certified class of plaintiffs who challenged AXA’s 2016 increases to cost-of-insurance charges for certain flexible-premium life insurance policies covering elderly insureds.
• PHT Holding II LLC v. North American Company for Life and Health Insurance (S.D. Iowa) Secured a $59 million settlement for a certified class of plaintiffs who challenged North American’s failure to decrease cost-of-insurance charges for certain flexible-premium life insurance policies.
• U.S. ex rel. Strauser, et al. v. Stephen L. LaFrance Holdings Inc. (N.D. Okla.) Secured a $16 million deal to resolve a qui tam whistleblower lawsuit in False Claims Act litigation alleging that Walgreens, Stephen L. LaFrance Holdings, Inc., and several companies that were part of USA Drug, a regional pharmacy chain, knowingly overbilled Medicare Part D, Medicaid and other government health programs millions of dollars by unlawfully charging more for generic drugs than the customary prices paid by individuals without prescription drug insurance. Read more.
• Capitol Hill Group v. DCA Capitol Hill LTAC, LLC, et al. (D.C. Superior Court) Represented Capitol Hill Group (CHG), a family-owned commercial real estate company, in a contract dispute. Following a week-long bench trial, Halley and her team secured a complete victory on CHG’s contract claims plus an award of attorneys’ fees and expenses, and defeated an $18 million fraud counterclaim, resulting in a multi-million dollar judgment in CHG’s favor.
• Confidential Sports Arbitration. Representing a major sports agency in a confidential arbitration concerning the departure of agents to a competing agency.
• Vertical Aviation v. Government of Trinidad and Tobago (S.D.N.Y.) Represented an international aviation financing and leasing company in breach-of-contract actions to recover more than $40 million in damages from various lessees. Halley led mediations which resulted in confidential settlements in several of the actions.
• Jane Doe v. MindGeek USA Inc. et al. (C.D. Cal.) Litigating a certified class action against Pornhub parent company, MindGeek, alleging MindGeek has violated federal sex trafficking and child pornography laws by knowingly posting, enabling the posting of and profiting from thousands of pornographic videos and images featuring persons under the age of 18. Halley and her team secured class certification in November 2023, which you can read about here.

PRO BONO

Halley maintains an active pro bono practice. She currently represents SAJE, ACCE Action, and CES, tenant advocacy groups, as intervenors to help defend the constitutionality of eviction moratoria enacted in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic by the City of Los Angeles and County of San Diego. Halley has argued and won multiple appeals before the Ninth Circuit involving Takings Clause challenges to the LA and San Diego ordinances. The Daily Journal profiled Halley and her colleagues for their work in this area and named them a California Lawyer Attorney of the Year in 2023 for their critical work. Read more in the San Francisco Chronicle and Law360 (subscription required).

BACKGROUND

Halley joined Susman Godfrey after clerking for Judge Patty Shwartz of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and Judge Anita B. Brody of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. She earned her J.D. from Yale Law School and her B.A. with distinction and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Virginia.

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