Daniel M. Petrocelli (born August 15, 1953 in East Orange, New Jersey) is a partner at

O’Melveny & Myers O'Melveny & Myers LLP is an American multinational law firm founded in Los Angeles, California in 1885. The firm employs approximately 740 lawyers and has offices in California, Washington, D.C., New York City, Beijing, Brussels, Hong Kong, Lo ...

LLP and the Chair of the firm’s Trial Practice Committee. Petrocelli is known in part for his work in a 1997

wrongful death Wrongful death claim is a claim against a person who can be held liable for a death. The claim is brought in a civil action, usually by close relatives, as enumerated by statute. In wrongful death cases, survivors are compensated for the harm, ...

civil suit - A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil act ...

against O. J. Simpson, for representing

Enron Enron Corporation was an American energy, commodities, and services company based in Houston, Texas. It was founded by Kenneth Lay in 1985 as a merger between Lay's Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth, both relatively small regional compani ...

CEO

Jeffrey Skilling Jeffrey Keith Skilling (born November 25, 1953) is an American businessman who is best known as the CEO of Enron Corporation during the Enron scandal. In 2006, he was convicted of federal felony charges relating to Enron's collapse and eventual ...

, and for his leading role in defeating the US Department of Justice’s attempt to block the merger of

AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile te ...

and

Time Warner Warner Media, LLC ( traded as WarnerMedia) was an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate. It was headquartered at the 30 Hudson Yards complex in New York City, United States. It was originally established in 1972 by ...

Early life and education

Petrocelli is a graduate of

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California S ...

with a degree in economics (he began as a music major but switched to economics after two years), and then moved on to the

Southwestern University School of Law Southwestern Law School is a private law school in Mid-Wilshire, Los Angeles. It is accredited by the American Bar Association and enrolls nearly 1,000 students. Its campus includes the Bullocks Wilshire building, an art deco National Register o ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

where he received his Juris Doctor in 1980. He graduated first in his class from Southwestern and was also editor-in-chief of the Southwestern Law Review.

Career

Petrocelli first gained national media exposure in 1997 when, as a partner at the law firm Mitchell, Silberberg & Knupp, he represented Fred Goldman, the father of murder victim Ron Goldman, in a

against O. J. Simpson. Petrocelli successfully argued the case, in spite of Simpson's 1995 acquittal in the related 1994 criminal murder case, and a jury awarded the Goldman family $8.5 million in damages. His book about the case, ''Triumph of Justice: The Final Judgment on the Simpson Saga'' (1998), written with co-author

Peter Knobler Peter Knobler (born 1946) is an American writer living in New York City. He has collaborated on fifteen books, ten of them best sellers and was the editor-in-chief of ''Crawdaddy'' magazine from 1972 to 1979.Don Henley and

Glenn Frey Glenn Lewis Frey (; November 6, 1948 – January 18, 2016) was an American singer, guitarist and a founding member of the rock band Eagles. Frey was the co-lead singer and frontman for the Eagles, roles he came to share with fellow member Don H ...

in the lawsuit filed against them by former

Eagles Eagle is the common name for many large birds of prey of the family Accipitridae. Eagles belong to several groups of genera, some of which are closely related. Most of the 68 species of eagle are from Eurasia and Africa. Outside this area, jus ...

band member

Don Felder Donald William Felder (born September 21, 1947) is an American musician who was the lead guitarist of the rock band Eagles from 1974 until his termination from the band in 2001. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998 with th ...

. In 2001, Petrocelli took on the legendary

Bert Fields Bertram Harris Fields (March 31, 1929 – August 7, 2022) was an American lawyer noted for his work in the field of entertainment law. He represented many of the leading film studios, as well as numerous celebrities, and lectured at both Stanfo ...

in Los Angeles Superior Court in the celebrated case of

Stephen Slesinger Stephen Slesinger (December 25, 1901 – December 17, 1953) was an American radio, television and film producer, creator of comic strip characters and the father of the licensing industry. From 1923 to 1953, he created, produced, published, develo ...

Inc. v

The Walt Disney Company The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Disney Stud ...

, which remains active and is the longest-running case in that court's history (it was filed in 1991). Petrocelli won a dismissal of the case after Fields had won a $200 million preliminary judgment but was forced to recuse himself. The case concerns the merchandising royalties paid by Disney to the heirs of Stephen Slesinger, a branding pioneer who obtained merchandising rights from Pooh author A.A. Milne in 1929. The clash between the two famous attorneys was covered in depth by

Joe Shea Joe Shea (February 7, 1947 – October 19, 2016) was editor-in-chief of '' The American Reporter'', the first daily Internet newspaper, started on April 10, 1995. Shea was the named plaintiff in the landmark First Amendment case, ''Shea v Reno ...

The American Reporter The American Reporter was the first online-only newspaper to use content that was specifically written for the web, rather than items fed from a news wire. It was started in 1995 by Joe Shea, and last published in September 2016, a month befo ...

, an online daily newspaper that now offers a
archive
of 28 articles about the case with an extensive discussion of Petrocelli's role. Petrocelli's next high-profile client was former

CEO

, whom Petrocelli has represented since 2004, who was tried on charges of fraud and insider trading in 2006. Even though he had never previously handled a criminal case, Petrocelli became Skilling's lead defense counsel. Despite his defense, for which Skilling still owes a reported $30 million, a jury found Skilling guilty of nineteen out of the twenty-eight counts against him, including one count of conspiracy, one count of insider trading (although he was acquitted of the other nine counts of this particular charge), five counts of making false statements to auditors, and twelve counts of securities fraud. For these crimes, Skilling was sentenced to serve over 24 years in federal prison. In 2013 Petrocelli successfully negotiated a 10-year reduction to the original term, reducing Skilling's term to 14 years. In December 2009, Petrocelli was retained by

boxing Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermine ...

celebrity

Manny Pacquiao Emmanuel Dapidran Pacquiao Sr. (; born December17, 1978) is a Filipino politician and former professional boxer. Nicknamed "PacMan", he is regarded as one of the greatest professional boxers of all time. He served as a Senator of the Phil ...

to sue

Floyd Mayweather Jr. Floyd Joy Mayweather Jr. (''né'' Sinclair; February 24, 1977) is an American boxing promoter and former professional boxer. He currently owns a team in the NASCAR Cup Series named The Money Team Racing. As a professional boxer he competed b ...

Floyd Mayweather Sr. Floyd Joy Mayweather (born October 19, 1952) is an American boxing trainer and former professional boxer who competed from 1973 to 1990. Fighting at welterweight during the 1970s and 1980s, Mayweather Sr. was known for his defensive abilities ...

Roger Mayweather Roger Mayweather (April 24, 1961 – March 17, 2020) was an American boxing trainer and former professional boxer who competed from 1981 to 1999. He was a two-division world champion, having held the WBA and ''The Ring'' super featherweight tit ...

Oscar De La Hoya Oscar De La Hoya ( , ; born on February 4, 1973) is an American boxing promoter and former professional boxer who competed from 1992 to 2008. His accolades include winning 11 world titles in six weight classes, including the lineal championshi ...

, and Richard Schaefer for false and defamatory statements accusing Pacquiao of taking performance-enhancing drugs. Filed in

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a state in the Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the 7th-most extensive, ...

, the case sought compensatory and punitive damages in excess of $75,000, which according to Petrocelli was simply the minimum that one has to allege in order to sue in federal court, and that the actual damages to Pacquiao’s reputation were in the tens of millions of dollars, excluding punitive damages. Petrocelli represented Donald Trump and Trump University in a pair of class actions in San Diego federal court alleging thousands of customers were deceived into paying for real estate seminars and mentoring. This litigation took place in the midst of the 2016 election and was ultimately settled during the presidential transition. In October 2017, The New York Times published an article stating that Petrocelli represented Harvey Weinstein in 2004 against actor, Ashley Matthau. Matthau stated that Weinstein sexually assaulted her in his hotel room. He served as lead trial counsel for both AT&T and Time Warner, defending the companies $100 billion merger against claims by the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division that the transaction would harm competition and should be blocked. US District Judge Richard Leon rejected the government’s case and denied its bid to block the merger. The merger closed on June 14, 2018 and the DOJ appealed the ruling in July. In February 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit unanimously denied the government’s appeal, affirming Judge Leon’s decision in its entirety. In late November 2021, the ''

Houston Chronicle The ''Houston Chronicle'' is the largest daily newspaper in Houston, Texas, United States. , it is the third-largest newspaper by Sunday circulation in the United States, behind only ''The New York Times'' and the ''Los Angeles Times''. With i ...

'' reported he was representing Travis Scott as lead defense counsel in the criminal investigation and civil lawsuits surrounding the

Astroworld Festival crowd crush On November 5, 2021, a fatal Crowd collapses and crushes, crowd crush occurred during the first night of the 2021 Astroworld Festival, a music event founded by American musician Travis Scott that was held at NRG Park in Houston, Texas. Eight p ...

Simpson trial

MSNBC - Man behind Simpson guilty verdict - Updated: 8:32 p.m. ET June 13, 2004

Video

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Petrocelli, Daniel M. 1953 births California lawyers Living people University of California, Los Angeles alumni Southwestern Law School alumni