Telecommunications

January 1, 2024— Kellogg, Hansen, Todd, Figel & Frederick, P.L.L.C. is pleased to announce that Kevin D. Horvitz, Grace W. Knofczynski, Daniel S. Severson, and Lillian V. Smith have been promoted as partners in the firm. Kevin D. Horvitz represents clients in complex litigation at trial and appellate levels and has particular experience litigating cases involving antitrust claims, telecommunications, contract disputes, and mass torts.  He has argued on behalf of clients in federal and state courts nationwide, including in the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.  Before joining the firm in 2017, Kevin served as a law clerk to Judge Gerald B. Tjoflat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. He graduated magna cum laude from Duke University School of Law with a J.D. and LL.M. in Law and Entrepreneurship, where he was on the Editorial Board of Duke Law Journal, and a member of the Order of the Coif. He earned his undergraduate degree in Corporate Strategy and Entrepreneurship from Vanderbilt University. Grace W. Knofczynski represents both plaintiffs and defendants in complex civil litigation at the trial and appellate levels and in administrative proceedings.  Before joining the firm in 2017, Grace served as a law clerk to Judge A. Raymond Randolph on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.  She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she was a member of the Order of the Coif and received the Peter McCall Prize for the highest GPA for the three-year J.D. course.  She also served as an editor of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review and participated in the Supreme Court Clinic.  Grace graduated magna cum laude from the University of Tulsa with degrees in biochemistry and philosophy.  Daniel S. Severson litigates complex civil cases in state and federal trial and appellate courts throughout the country.  He has represented clients in a dozen certiorari and merits stage appeals at the U.S. Supreme Court and argued cases before two federal courts of appeals.  Daniel successfully reinstated civil rights claims as court-appointed pro bono counsel in Shaw v. Foreman, 59 F.4th 121 (4th Cir. 2023).  Before joining the firm in 2017, he served as a law clerk to Judge Allyson Kay Duncan on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.  Daniel graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard International Law Journal and received the Myer Dana and Etta Dana Scholarship and the Dwight D. Eisenhower Scholarship.  Daniel also holds a Master in Public Policy from Harvard University and was awarded Harvard University’s Presidential Public Service Fellowship for work at the U.S. Department of Defense.  He has served as a foreign affairs analyst at the U.S. Department of State and a Fulbright Scholar in Taiwan.  Daniel graduated from Bard College with degrees in political studies and French horn performance. Lillian V. Smith represents both plaintiffs and defendants in complex civil litigation and has substantial experience trying high-stakes matters for clients in both federal and state courts.  Before joining the firm in 2017, Lillian served as a law clerk to Judge Roger L. Gregory on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.  She graduated summa cum laude from Brooklyn Law School, where she was a Carswell Merit Scholar, an Edward V. Sparer Public Interest Fellow, and Editor-in-Chief of the Brooklyn Law Review.  Lillian earned her undergraduate degree with High Distinction from the University of Virginia. Kellogg Hansen is a preeminent trial and appellate litigation firm founded on the idea that talent, creativity, and hard work achieve the best results for clients.  Formed in the spring of 1993 by law school classmates Michael Kellogg, Peter Huber, and Mark Hansen, our firm has grown over the past 30 years – with each year proving that our founding principle holds true.  Today, Kellogg Hansen has more than 90 attorneys, including 41 partners, and boasts an extensive record of success for our clients.   ..

We mourn the passing of our friend and partner, Peter W. Huber, who died Friday after a long illness. Peter was a brilliant lawyer and a generous and loyal colleague.  He earned B.S., M.S. and PhD degrees in mechanical engineering at MIT and received a professorship by age 23.  While teaching at MIT, he attended and graduated first in his law school class from Harvard University in 1982.  He clerked on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals for Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and on the U.S. Supreme Court for Sandra Day O’Connor.  He founded this firm with his friends and practiced here for almost three decades. In addition to his great skills as a lawyer, Peter is renowned as a public intellectual.  He spent over 25 years as a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, where he wrote on topics such as drug development, energy, technology, and the law. He is the author of many books, including The Cure in the Code: How 20th Century Law Is Undermining 21st Century Medicine (2013); The Bottomless Well: The Twilight of Fuel, the Virtue of Waste, and Why We Will Never Run Out of Energy (2005), coauthored with Mark P. Mills, which Bill Gates said “is the only book I’ve ever seen that really explains energy, its history and what it will be like going forward”; and Hard Green: Saving the Environment from the Environmentalists (2000), which William F. Buckley, Jr., called “the richest contribution ever made to the greening of the political mind” and which set out a new conservative manifesto on the environment that advocates a return to conservation and environmental policy based on sound science and market economics. He was an early advocate for tort reform, especially regarding misuse of science in jury trials, which he named “junk science.”  Liability (Basic Books 1988); The Liability Maze (Brookings 1991); Galileo’s Revenge: Junk Science in the Courtroom (Basic Books 1993); and Judging Science (MIT Press 1999). Peter was also an advocate for opening up competition in telecom, as an alternative to regulation.  He was hired by the U.S. Department of Justice to write a report about the aftermath of the Bell System breakup.  The Geodesic Network (U.S. Department of Justice 1987).  DOJ had promised Judge Harold Greene that it would file such reports every three years, but DOJ stopped after the first such report, so Peter wrote The Geodesic Network II (self-published 1993).  Peter then wrote the principle academic treatises on telecom law.  Federal Telecommunications Law (Little Brown 1992); Federal Broadband Law (Little Brown 1995); Federal Telecommunications Law Second Edition (Aspen Law & Business 1999), all with co-authors Michael Kellogg and John Thഠrne.  Prior to the treatises, telecom law was an oral tradition that you learned by working for the Federal Communications Commission.  Peter’s conclusion after studying that agency was it should be abolished.  Law and Disorder in Cyberspace: Abolish the FCC and Let Common Law Rule the Telecosm (Oxford University Press 1997). You can measure Peter’s efforts by their direct results.  Tort reform was adopted; junk science is kept out of courtrooms; the Bell breakup decree was lifted; telecom regulation has been replaced by competition; environmental and energy policy are better informed by Peter’s ideas; and the FDA is beginning to embrace individualized medicine.  In addition to his policy campaigns at the intersection of law and science, Peter took time to mentor several generations of lawyers and particularly to promote women in the law.  He clerked for the two most important women judges of his era – then-Judge Ruth Ginsburg and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.  He praised the home cooking of Justice Ginsburg’s husband while praising her dedication to getting the right answer in complex legal cases in a way that would be replicable by other sufficiently diligent judges seeking the answer.  He also wrote an inspiring book about Justice O’Connor for girls, age 9 to 12.  Sandra Day O’Connor (Women of Achievement) (Chelsea House 1992). On top of everything else Peter Huber did in his too-short life, he was an extraordinary counsellor and practicing lawyer.  For more than two decades, he trained his powerful mind and exceptional creativity on the real problems of real clients, in some of the most challenging areas of the law.  He helped the companies created by the AT&T breakup navigate the complex and thorny regulatory, legal, and business issues they faced – with his clients coming out on top, defying expectations.  He seized victory for the Pritzker family as their complex estate plans exploded in bickering and high-tension litigation in state court.  He examined witnesses, wrote briefs, formed strategy, always collegially with his friends and partners.  He set an example of excellence, and trained young lawyers to follow that example.  Throughout it all, even with a ferocious energy and focus, he was a dedicated and generous colleague, always willing to help, to listen to the ideas of others, even willing to tolerate those of us who were not as quick or deep in our thinking – and that was all of us!  We who had the privilege of practicing law with Peter Huber will never forget his influence, or think back on our partnership with him other than with gratitude and affection. ..

June 17, 2018 — Kellogg Hansen partner Kevin Huff and associate Kylie Kim will present at the Energy & Mineral Law Foundation (EMLF) 39th Annual Institute on Tuesday June 19 at 11:15AM. In their presentation, \"When the Trains Don\'t Come: Suing the Railroad,\" they will cover how railway operating companies can harm energy companies by failing to employ a sufficient number of trains, providing slow train service, or demanding unreasonable rates.  These actions can damage the business of energy companies by (among other things) delaying their production, slowing their service to customers, causing them to breach supply contracts with customers, and forcing them to pay demurrage and other late charges.  This presentation will explain how, although current legal standards are railroad-friendly, energy companies have potential claims against the railroad under federal, contract, and tort law.  For example, energy companies can sue railway operating companies for failing to provide adequate and reasonable rail service in violation of 49 U.S.C. §§ 11101(a) and 11121, failing to charge reasonable tariff rates in violation of 49 U.S.C. § 10701, failing to provide adequate service under the parties’ contract and under quasi-contractual doctrines, and tortiously harming the energy company’s reputation and business with false statements about who is to blame for delayed or missed shipments. Kevin Huff specializes in complex commercial and business litigation in state and federal courts throughout the United States. He has served as lead trial counsel in high-stakes, high-profile trials. He represents both plaintiffs and defendants in litigating cases involving business fraud and unfair trade practices, disputes arising out of business negotiations and investments, contract disputes, disputes between borrowers and lenders, creditor and debtor law, partnership disputes, accounting fraud and malpractice, securities fraud, fiduciary duty and Delaware corporate law, shareholder challenges to corporate transactions, and intellectual property. Kylie Kim represents clients in complex commercial litigation at both the trial and appellate levels. Ms. Kim has particular experience in antitrust, telecommunications, and False Claims Act cases.  Prior to joining the firm, she served as a law clerk to the Honorable Charles R. Wilson on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and to the Honorable Steven D. Merryday on the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida. EMLF 39th Annual Institute WebsiteSlideshowPresentation Outline ..