September 29, 2014
THE RECORDER
By Patience Haggin
SAN FRANCISCO – Health care litigation partner Zuzana Ikels has joined Polsinelli’s new San Francisco office. Ikels, who started Monday, comes from Coblentz Patch Duffy & Bass, where she litigated qui tam and class actions for health care clients.
Ikels said the move will allow her to both build up a practice from scratch and benefit from Polsinelli’s established national health care practice.
“It’s sort of a like a startup within a very huge organization,” Ikels said, describing it as the best of both worlds. Six-hundred-lawyer Polsinelli, based in Kansas City, Mo., opened a San Francisco office in June with three attorneys.
Ikels said she will bring several ongoing cases to Polsinelli, including one in which she is defending Hospital Corporation of America, the world’s largest for-profit operator of hospitals, against a novel theory of corporate negligence in state court in Santa Clara County. Ikels has represented HCA several times before.
No colleagues have joined her in the move, as of Monday afternoon, she said.
During her 12 years at Coblentz, Ikels litigated complex commercial disputes, particularly consumer class actions and fraud claims. She has also also worked on several intellectual property disputes involving the recording and fashion industries. She represented the Recording Industry Association of America in actions against individual plaintiffs accused of illegally downloading music from sites such as Napster and Kazaa, most of which settled out of court.
The move was brokered by Larry Watanabe and Mo Lee of Watanabe Nason.