Krysta Kauble Pachman

Krysta Pachman represents plaintiffs and defendants in high-stakes commercial litigation, including class actions, patent cases, trademark & copyright matters, and other disputes. Ms. Pachman has scored massive trial wins, favorable settlements, and arbitration victories for her clients, who range from small businesses and individuals to Fortune 500 companies.  In the last twelve months alone, Pachman has won more than $1.3 billion at trial. 

In 2023, Pachman obtained one of the biggest trial wins in the country, a $330 million Final Award for her client after completing a full arbitration hearing.  Pachman cross-examined the key witness at trial and was instrumental to obtaining a complete victory on behalf of her client, one of the largest independent power producers in the country.

LANDMARK CLASS ACTION LITIGATION

Ms. Pachman has obtained hundreds of millions of dollars and impactful injunctive relief for plaintiffs in class action settlements thanks to her strategic focus, tireless work ethic, and ability to synthesize huge volumes of information into succinct, comprehensive facts and arguments.

Ms. Pachman previously secured a $100 million deal to resolve all claims in a class action relating to Pattern Energy’s $6.1 billion sale to the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, which is one of the largest Section 14(a) settlements in history.  The complaint alleged that Pattern Energy omitted key details relating to the valuation of the company in the proxy statement and failed to disclose conflicts of interest to the detriment of shareholders. Read more.

In addition, Pachman previously secured class certification on behalf of victims of sex trafficking in a class action against MindGeek, the parent company of Pornhub (now Aylo). The complaint alleges that MindGeek unlawfully has received and distributed child pornography under Section 2255 and financially benefitted from sex trafficking under Section 1595.

Ms. Pachman is court-appointed co-lead counsel in the widely followed Blackbaud Data Breach Class Action, which relates to a massive data breach. Blackbaud, a cloud computing provider, maintains consumer data on behalf of thousands of non-profit corporations, hospitals, and educational institutions.  The complaint alleges that Blackbaud did not maintain adequate security measures, which led to a ransomware attack.  The stolen data included bank account information, social security numbers, health care data, usernames, and/or passwords. Read more.

In the landmark copyright action, Ferrick, et al. v. Spotify USA, Ms. Pachman was an integral part of a trial team that secured a settlement valued at more than $100 million dollars, including a $43.45 million cash settlement fund and an agreement to pay future royalties to settle a class-action lawsuit with Spotify brought on behalf of music copyright owners.  This case made national news, receiving press from Billboard, Forbes, and Reuters.

Ms. Pachman was also part of a team that secured a $40 million settlement for a class of derivatives traders in Timber Hill v. Pershing Square Capital Management, L.P., et al.  Timber Hill alleged Defendants violated federal securities laws through their illicit insider trading and front-running scheme that damaged Timber Hill and other investors by artificially deflating the value of options and equity forwards traded by Timber Hill and Class Members. This is the largest ever stand-alone options settlement and the largest ever Section 20A options settlement.

Ms. Pachman played a key role in Schulein, et al. v. Petroleum Development Corp., representing a class of more than 7,000 limited partners who invested in 12 oil and gas limited partnerships, who alleged the defendants made false and misleading statements and omitted material information regarding the value of the assets held by the partnerships in proxy statements used to solicit votes in favor of mergers that caused the investors to be cashed out of their investments.  Ms. Pachman took key depositions, wrote the opposition to defendants’ motion for summary judgment, and wrote the successful opposition to defendants’ motion to decertify the class.  The case was settled for $37.5 million in March 2015, with the class receiving approximately $24 million.

RECOGNITION

For these wins and more, Ms. Pachman has been recognized by the nation’s leading legal publications. She has been named an Elite Women of the Plaintiffs’ Bar by National Law Journal (2025),among the nation’s Top 250 Woman Lawyers by Benchmark Litigation (2023, 2024), and was included on its 40 and Under Hot List four years in a row (2021-2023). Law360 has called her a Class Action Rising Star (2023) and Lawdragon recognized her on both their 500X list – a compilation of the “next generation of leading lawyers” (2023, 2024) and among its top 500 Leading Litigations (2022 – 2023). Ms. Pachman is also recognized as  a Top Woman Lawyer in California by The Daily Journal (ALM, 2022) and a Rising Star of the Plaintiffs Bar by National Law Journal’s Elite Trial Lawyers (ALM, 2021). The Recorder named her a California Trailblazer in (ALM, 2020), and Best Lawyers called her “One to Watch, Commercial Litigation” (Woodward White, Inc., 2021).

Prior to joining Susman Godfrey, Ms. Pachman served as a Law Clerk to the Honorable Philip S. Gutierrez in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. She also serves on the Board of Governors for the Women Lawyers’ Association of Los Angeles and serves on the Board of the Association of Business Trial Lawyers

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