Lizbeth Hasse has served as mediator, arbitrator, negotiator, or special master since 1998 in over 1,000 matters in the United States as well as internationally. Bringing 30+ years of international experience in the fields of intellectual property, business operations, entertainment and media, and technology law, Ms. Hasse has proven sophistication to manage a wide range of disputes.

Ms. Hasse is best known for her commitment to the process and its participants. Her resourceful insights, tenacity, intellectual acumen, and masterful communication skills enable her to resolve high stakes and multi-party cases involving highly talented lawyers and their clients. Ms. Hasse is also a mentor to new mediators and frequently speaks and writes about mediation and intellectual property.

Representative Matters

• Settlement master since 2007, for highest grossing US rock band
• Part of team that settled numerous banking and financial institution actions arising out of Enron collapse
• Part of team that designed processes and settled multiple antitrust/practice fixing cases in the DRAM, SRAM, LCD, and other multinational competition matters
• Part of a team that resolved class action and other cases in the Adelphia bankruptcy
• Mediated and managed process for landmark environmental case involving indigenous Peruvian Amazon communities versus a major petro-chemical company
• Mediated several complex securities cases following public offerings of high valued Chinese energy and resources companies
• Structured process and helped resolve major copyright termination, copyright infringement, and related rights of motion picture studios and content originators and estates
• Mediated high-value technology development and licensing cases involving university technology exchange and private industry
• Neutral evaluator for trademark dispute involving major technology mark
• Mediated numerous trademark actions involving disruptive or evolving technology and rights-holders in the music, video, and gaming industries
• Negotiation of high tech-venture involving governmental and private interests in West Africa
• USAID evaluator and designer of rule of law, judicial, and legal reform projects in Central Asia and Eastern and Central European countries

Representative Matters

• Antitrust & Competition
• Large complex actions involving price fixing and anti-competitive allegations in SRAM, DRAM, LCD, egg distribution, and health care industries
• Board Governance
• Variety of board disputes and dysfunctional situations for non-profit and profit entities; board governance reform in corporate derivative actions; structuring of mergers of large charitable organizations
• Business Commercial
• High-value merger and investor disputes; breach of buy-sell agreements in ongoing business relations; joint agency dispute; back-dating options actions; attorneys’ fee arbitrations; partnership and joint venture disputes and dissolutions; broker disputes; disputes between private equity firms and major bank; wide variety of business contract and licensing disputes; lender liability actions
• Class Action & Mass Tort
• Institutional lender-borrower class actions; high value DRAM anti-trust claims involving private and governmental plaintiffs; class certification issues; federal securities and common law fraud; multiple carrier insurance coverage issues in class action resolutions; big pharma securities fraud class; consumer products and consumer fraud class actions; financial entities and fraudulent reporting; consumer class actions involving statutory penalties that would potentially bankrupt company
• Employment Law
• Sexual discrimination cases; statutory wage and benefits class actions; employee and customer raiding; employee and company trade secret issues; founder and executive employment termination
• Entertainment & Sports
• Disputes between artists and distributors over music rights; film property and publishing royalty disputes; file-sharing (“peer to peer”) copyright actions; pre-filing resolution in production and talent matters; defamation involving high profile individuals; “idea theft;” misappropriation and production disputes; distribution rights disputes; arbitrations of rights between motion picture co-producers; rights of publicity; major boxing promotion disputes; sports merchandising disputes; arbitration of rights involving film distribution; copyright termination matters
• Environmental Law
• Resolution of actions involving environmental activist organization plaintiffs; private action toxic pollution claims; water bank disputes involving countries and private owners; resolution of environmental remediation claims requiring complex long-term settlement structure; multinational disputes in extractive industries; environmental cases involving indigenous populations; California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) challenges; actions relating to county implementation of general plan and EIR
• Insurance Coverage
• Numerous cases on inconsistencies/differences in policy language between layers of insurance coverage; coverage issues in IP cases; coverage dispute involving broker malpractice allegations; insurance and reinsurance coverage disputes
• Intellectual Property
• High tech, software and hardware, patent and copyright infringement; trademark infringement claims by multinational companies; patent and licensing disputes; patent infringement involving data privacy and encryption; fashion design misappropriation; secondary liability in online copyright infringement; video game licensing dispute; copyright termination issues; Fair Use; university/researcher IP and patent ownership issues; joint venture IP ownership disputes
• International & Cross Border
• Complex disputes in business commercial, intellectual property, and environmental disputes between business partners, local communities, indigenous populations and quasi-governmental bodies; experience in Africa, Europe, Central Europe, and Central Asia
• Nonprofit/Education
• Alleged discrimination in public school system; dispute between nonprofits over donors; nonprofits’ mergers; issues between founder of charity and non-profit board; facilitation of board and constituent issues for nonprofits; disputes between major private universities and foundations; disputes between public universities and pension fund fiduciary
• Personal Injury
• Successfully mediated a variety of disputes including wrongful death, medical malpractice, emotional distress, defamation and trade libel matters; cases involving long-term health effects resulting from severe personal injury
• Professional Liability
• Accounting negligence in bet-the-company litigation; attorney malpractice in complex IP rights matters; attorney negligence in large damages actions
• Securities
• Acquisition of company and stock trade resolution; cases with a variety of stock-drop Dura class action analyses; restatement, securities fraud and/or §11 cases at different stages of litigation; control person liability; resolution of derivative actions involving governance and fee/cost negotiations; settlement of China reverse-merger actions; mortgage-backed securities litigation; multiple securities class actions

Honors, Memberships, and Professional Activities

• Fellow, Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, London
• Fulbright Fellow, Paris, France; Legal Scholar in comparative law
• Selected Member, The Masters Forum of the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution, Pepperdine University
• Certified by United Nations in Civilian Personnel of Peace-Keeping, Mediators and Election Monitoring at International Faculty of Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, (Advanced Studies in Human Rights and Conflict Management), Pisa, Italy
• Panelist, AIPLA (American Intellectual Property Law Association) ADR Neutral Registry
• Panelist, Arts Arbitration and Mediation Services, San Francisco
• Panelist, Bar Association of San Francisco, Qualified Mediator Panel and Trainer of Mediators
• Member, American Bar Association – Intellectual Property and Dispute Resolution Sections
• Member, California Bar Association – Intellectual Property, Litigation, Dispute Resolution, and International Law sections
• Member, San Francisco Intellectual Property Association; Women’s Intellectual Property Law Association
• Visiting Professor, University of California Berkeley, American University School of Law, Yerevan, Armenia; University of Paris V Faculty of Law, France; Indonesian State University at Denpasar Law Facility, Intellectual Property, Civil Law, Comparative Law, Dispute Resolution, Media Law and Legal Theory
• Member, Boards of Directors: Heart-to-Heart International Children’s Medical Alliance; Founding Board of the Edible Schoolyard, Berkeley, CA; Trustee: Presidio Graduate School, San Francisco, CA

Background and Education

• Founding Partner, Creative Industry Law, San Francisco
• Coudert Brothers LLP, 2002-2004
• Hasse Molesky LLP 1987-2002
• Steinhart & Falconer LLP, 1984-1986
• Heller Ehrman, White & McAuliffe LLP, 1982-1984
• J.D., University of California, Berkeley School of Law (formerly Boalt Hall School of Law), 1982
• M.A., Jurisprudence and Social Policy, University of California, Berkeley, 1982
• B.A., magna cum laude, Wesleyan University, Highest Honors in Linguistics, 1977
• On parle francais