Linda M. Burrow
burrow@caldwell-leslie.com

Linda Burrow helps her clients achieve their litigation goals by applying more than twenty years of business and legal experience. A Caldwell Leslie shareholder since January 2008, Ms. Burrow has been in private practice since 1998, during which she has focused on entertainment litigation, including copyright and trademark disputes, as well as other complex litigation and criminal matters. Ms. Burrow is committed to pro bono work and has twice been honored by the ACLU Foundation of Southern California for her advocacy on issues of free speech and civil rights. Ms. Burrow has been recognized as one of 2009's "Top Women Litigators" by the Los Angeles and San Francisco Daily Journal and as a three-time “Rising Star” in a survey conducted by Law & Politics Media Inc. and published in Los Angeles magazine and the Southern California edition of Super Lawyers.

Ms. Burrow joined Caldwell Leslie in March 2006 after several years as an associate at Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP. Ms. Burrow is a 1997 graduate of Boalt Hall School of law, where she was elected to Order of the Coif. Before entering private practice, Ms. Burrow served as a law clerk to the Honorable Stephen V. Wilson on the United States District Court for the Central District of California. During law school, Ms. Burrow was a member of the Moot Court Board and an associate editor of the Ecology Law Quarterly and served as an extern for the Honorable David V. Kenyon on the United States District Court for the Central District of California.

From 1985 through 1994, Ms. Burrow worked for the ARCO Products Company in Bellingham, Washington and Los Angeles, California in a variety of technical, analytical and management positions. She graduated with high honors from Oregon State University in 1985 with a degree in Chemical Engineering.

Representative Cases

 Ms. Burrow, with Jeanne Fugate, convinced the Eleventh Circuit to affirm summary judgment in favor of Warner Bros. in a trademark matter filed in the Middle District of Florida. In ruling for Warner Bros., the Court agreed with Ms. Burrow and Ms. Fugate’s argument that the “Elimidate Ironman Challenge” did not infringe the Ironman Triathlon trademarks because the term “ironman” is commonly used to describe persons of unusual endurance and thus the Plaintiffs’ marks were entitled only to limited protection.

 Ms. Burrow, with Laurie Martindale, recently won summary judgment for a major motion picture studio accused of copyright infringement. In holding that the Plaintiff could not, as a matter of law, demonstrate that his script was used as the basis for a film produced by the studio, United States District Judge Margaret Morrow agreed with Caldwell Leslie that there was no evidence that the film's creators ever had access to the Plaintiff's script, and held that the Plaintiff's script and the studio's film were not at all "similar," thus precluding Plaintiff's copyright infringement claim.

 Ms. Burrow, with Michael Roth, derailed a potential class action against Best Buy, Inc., brought by a plaintiff who claimed he did not receive an extra promotional DVD in a box set of the "Smallville" TV series. Ruling that the alleged class was not sufficiently numerous and that any class members shared no commonality of interest, the judge granted Caldwell Leslie's motion to deny class certification.

 Ms. Burrow was the primary author of an amicus brief filed in the California Court of Appeal on behalf of the ACLU of Southern California in the matter of Smith v. Novato Unified School District. The Court of Appeal’s decision, which confirmed that high school journalists in California’s public schools have the same rights to free speech and freedom of the press as they have outside school, relied heavily on Ms. Burrow’s analysis in its opinion.

 As part of her representation of a prominent movie studio in its multi-year lawsuit with a German pay television distributor, Ms. Burrow played a lead role in developing and implementing the case strategy, defeated motions brought by many of the German defendants on Hague Convention grounds and successfully tried issues of German law before the United States Bankruptcy Court.

 In related civil and criminal matters for a Fortune 100 company, Ms. Burrow played a significant role in interviewing witnesses and other factual investigation, taking and defending depositions and preparing and making presentations to the United States Attorneys Office.

 In a pro bono representation of a prisoner incarcerated in California State Prison, Ms. Burrow briefed and successfully argued before the 9th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the reversal of the dismissal of the prisoner’s civil rights claims.

Education and Honors

J.D. Boalt Hall School of Law, 1997
Order of the Coif
Associate editor, Ecology Law Quarterly
Moot Court Board

B.S. Oregon State University, 1985
High Honors awarded at graduation

Clerkship

Law Clerk to the Honorable Stephen V. Wilson, United States District Court for the Central District of California, 1997-98

Professional Achievements

Member, California State Bar; U.S. District Court, Central, Northern and Southern Districts of California; United States Courts of Appeals, Ninth and Eleventh Circuits.

Recipient, First Amendment Award, ACLU Foundation of Southern California, 2007; Recipient, Free Speech/GLBT Award, ACLU Foundation of Southern California, 2003

Ms. Burrow has been honored as a three-time “Rising Star” by the publishers of Law & Politics and Los Angeles Magazine.

Away from work, Ms. Burrow continues to hone her knowledge of super heroes, baseball, World War II history and Star Wars, all courtesy of her 9- and 5-year-old sons.