Alastair J. Agcaoili
Michael R. Leslie
Michael R. Leslie
leslie@caldwell-leslie.com
"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex ... it takes a touch of genius—and a lot of courage—to move in the opposite direction."
Mike Leslie, one of the founders of Caldwell Leslie & Proctor, is an accomplished trial lawyer and negotiator, with particular expertise in complex environmental litigation, including litigation brought under CERCLA, CEQA, common law environmental torts and California’s Proposition 65. Mr. Leslie is also known for his expertise in complex commercial litigation, having prevailed in cases involving intellectual property, real estate, breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, misappropriation of trade secrets and Section 17200, California’s unfair business practices statute.
Known for his ingenuity and formidable command of the science and substantive law underlying his cases, Mr. Leslie has a longstanding record of successfully representing clients in complex multi-party actions, in which tens of millions of dollars in compensatory and punitive damages are at stake.
Mr. Leslie regularly represents Fortune 500 corporations, multi-national energy companies, governmental agencies and small businesses. He has tried numerous cases to verdict, negotiated complex multi-party consent decrees with state and federal agencies, and won one of the largest jury verdicts in the state on behalf of the State of California. In addition to his busy trial practice, he has also won important appeals for his clients before the California Court of Appeal and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Mr. Leslie is a frequent speaker on complex litigation and trial practice, and has been honored as a “Southern California Super Lawyer” by the publishers of Los Angeles magazine and Law and Politics magazine each year since the award was established in 2004.
Representative Cases
Trials
As lead trial counsel, Mr. Leslie obtained a defense verdict after a five-week jury trial in federal court in San Francisco. The plaintiff, a local governmental body, had been compelled to clean up wastes left over when their tenant, an oil recycler, went out of business. The case went to the jury with claims against our client, a multi-national energy company, for compensatory damages of $25 million, as well as punitive damages. After only two hours of deliberation, the jury rendered a complete defense verdict in our client’s favor, awarding the plaintiff nothing. After the plaintiff appealed, Mr. Leslie argued the case before the Ninth Circuit and won an opinion affirming the defense judgment in all respects.
After substituting into an action a mere three weeks before trial and mastering literally thousands of exhibits, Mr. Leslie represented Shell Oil Company in a 10-week jury trial involving claims by a land company for cleanup of hydrocarbon contamination. Although the plaintiff went to the jury with a damages claim of almost $70 million—raised to over $120 million at trial—and also asserted a claim for punitive damages, Mr. Leslie won a nonsuit on the punitive damages claim and obtained a jury verdict for his client on two out of the three areas of contamination at issue. The award on the remaining plume—after the verdict was reduced by over $14 million on Mr. Leslie’s successful appeal—was $3.9 million, almost $20 million less than the plaintiff’s pretrial settlement demand.
Mr. Leslie represented several California state agencies against an oil shipper and several other defendants who were involved in a spill of 400,000 gallons of Alaska North Slope crude oil onto Orange County beaches, forcing widespread beach closures. After extensive litigation leading to $11 million in settlements with three of the defendants and precedent-setting decisions from both the Ninth Circuit and the California Court of Appeal, Mr. Leslie and his team recovered an $18 million jury verdict against the ship owner after a three-month trial. This verdict was the one of the first natural resource damage claims to go to trial and was reported as one of the ten largest jury verdicts that year.
Along with Chris Caldwell of the firm, Mr. Leslie represented defrauded investors in a fraud and RICO action against the financiers, attorneys, and promoters of a failed residential housing development. After pre-trial settlements with most of the defendants, Mr. Caldwell and Mr. Leslie tried the case to a multimillion-dollar jury verdict against one of California’s largest banks. The case then settled on favorable terms, resulting in complete recovery for the sixty-two plaintiffs.
Pretrial Victories
In a case alleging fraud in the sale of an oil field in Santa Barbara County, where the plaintiff sought millions of dollars in compensatory and punitive damages against our client, Mr. Leslie obtained summary judgment on the eve of trial dismissing all of the plaintiff’s claims. Mr. Leslie then defended plaintiff’s appeal of the summary judgment, winning an affirmance of the summary judgment from the Court of Appeal, ending the litigation.
In the first federal class action involving claims that ethanol in gasoline damages boats and marine engines, Mr. Leslie represented a large refiner and worked closely with other defense counsel in obtaining a dismissal with prejudice of the entire action on preemption grounds, upon their first motion to dismiss.
In a recent action brought under California’s Proposition 65 alleging violations involving environmental releases and alleged failures to warn residents regarding toxic materials at an old landfill, Mr. Leslie and the defense team won dismissal of the action with prejudice on their first demurrer.
Mr. Leslie won summary judgment in a personal injury case involving a plaintiff who was seriously burned while cleaning an underground storage tank, on the ground there was no premises liability under the Privette doctrine.
Mr. Leslie represented the City of Torrance in litigation against Mobil Oil Corporation that led to entry of a landmark consent decree compelling the company to enhance its environmental procedures and the safety of its refinery operations under the supervision of the Court.
Mr. Leslie also regularly represents potentially responsible parties (“PRPs”) in the defense of CERCLA contribution actions, federal and state environmental investigations, and complex multi-plaintiff and multi-defendant toxic tort actions, such as those involving the Burbank Operable Unit of the San Fernando Valley groundwater superfund site, and the El Monte Operable Unit of the San Gabriel Valley groundwater superfund site.
Education and Honors
J.D. Stanford Law School, 1985
Managing Editor, Environmental Law Journal
Editor, Wilderness Preservation
Project Editor & Co-Author, Land Use Regulation
Murie Award in Environmental Law
R. Hunter Summers Award for Excellence in Trial Advocacy
B.A. Dartmouth College, 1980
summa cum laude
Phi Beta Kappa
Rufus Choate Scholar
Clerkship
Law Clerk to Honorable A. Wallace Tashima, U.S. District Court, Central District of California, 1985-1986
Professional Achievements
Member, California State Bar; U.S. District Court for the Central, Eastern, and Northern Districts of California; U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Co-Chair of the American Bar Association Mass Environmental/Toxic Torts Subcommittee, 2009-2010
Member, Executive Committee, Los Angeles County Bar Association, Environment Section, 2006-2009
Speaker, Los Angeles County Bar Association, CERCLA Allocation and Arranger Liability After Burlington Northern—The Supreme Court Changes the Rules of the Game,
Los Angeles, CA, 2009
Speaker, American Lawyer Events, Small Firm Business Forum, Technology Issues for the Small Firm, June 2006
Speaker, California State Bar Association, Environmental Trial Academy, Effective Opening Statements and Closing Arguments, San Diego, CA, 2005
Speaker, CLE International, Seminar on High Profile Litigation, Litigating When Your Cause and Client are Unpopular: Strategies to Maximize Your Client's Chances at Trial, Los Angeles CA, 2003
Speaker, Los Angeles County Bar Association Litigation Section, Seminar With Complex Court Judges and Selected Counsel Concerning Creative Techniques and Complex Case Management for Trials and Fact-Finding, Los Angeles CA, 2002
Speaker, American Bar Association, Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources Annual Meeting, Daubert Challenges to Evidence of Physical Injury and Property Damage, St. Louis MO, 2001
Speaker, American Bar Association, Section of Environment, Energy and Resources 7th Section Fall Meeting, The Expanding Scope of Damages and Injunctive Relief in Environmental Litigation, San Diego CA, 1999
Speaker, Environmental Law Institute Annual Conference at Yosemite, Natural Resource Damages after the American Trader Verdict, 1998
Speaker, Los Angeles County Bar Association, Complex Toxic Tort and Personal Injury Litigation, Los Angeles CA, 1998
Member, California State Bar, Environment Section; Los Angeles County Bar Association, Environment and Intellectual Property Sections; American Bar Association, Litigation Section and Section on Natural Resources and the Environment; Federal Bar Association
In his spare time, Mike Leslie enjoys spending time in the outdoors with his wife and two teenage daughters, and is an expert skier with a taste for the "steep and deep" backcountry. When there is no snow, he is an avid mountain biker exploring the rugged terrain of Southern California, Colorado and Utah.
