Brian Klein

Brian Klein is an accomplished trial attorney who has successfully litigated in federal and state court. His practice focuses on high-stakes criminal and regulatory defense matters and civil litigation, and he aggressively and effectively advocates for his clients in a wide variety of state and federal forums. He is a former federal prosecutor with extensive trial experience, and he is known for his superior courtroom skills. He teaches a criminal practice seminar at the USC Gould School of Law.

Klein often represents successful entrepreneurs and professionals, iconoclastic companies, celebrities, and high-profile start-ups and fast growing businesses in connection with the most important legal issues facing them whether civil, regulatory, or criminal. As an example, he presently represents Marcus Hutchins, who is worldwide hero due to his assistance stopping the “WannaCry” ransomware attack in May 2017, in a prosecution based out of the Eastern District of Wisconsin for cyber-related crimes dating back to 2014-15. As another example, he currently represents Arthur and Kathleen Breitman, as well as their company, in connection with securities class action lawsuits involving the Tezos crowdfunding, which raised over $230 million. He also successfully defended Cesar Millan (the “Dog Whisperer”) when the Los Angeles County Department of Animal Control and District Attorney’s Office investigated allegations of animal abuse tied to one of Mr. Millan’s television shows. The authorities ultimately concluded Mr. Millan did nothing wrong and did not bring any charges. Based on his accomplishments, Klein has been repeatedly recognized as a “Super Lawyer” (including for 2018 as a Top 100 lawyer overall in Southern California) and he is frequently sought ought by the media to comment on pressing legal issues.

He has extensive experience with cutting-edge technology cases, including representing entrepreneurs, start-ups, and early adopters in all types of criminal and regulatory defense matters and civil litigation (including bankruptcy proceedings). He founded and chairs the board of directors of the non-profit Digital Currency and Ledger Defense Coalition and chairs the American Bar Association’s blockchain technology, digital currency, and ICO national institute, which will be held in New York City this year. He serves as an advisor to BlockSeer, a blockchain analytics company, and formerly volunteered as the outside general counsel and chair of the legal advocacy committee for the Bitcoin Foundation. He speaks about Fintech around the world at, among other places, global law firms, major payments and technology companies, and industry conferences. Chambers recently recognized as Klein as “the leading cryptocurrency trial attorney in the USA.”

Klein is admitted to practice in the states of California, Washington, and New York and before numerous federal courts around the country (including the Central and Northern Districts of California and the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York). He graduated from New York University School of Law and received his undergraduate degree from the University of Washington.
  

FACULTY IN THE NEWS

Los Angeles Times
July 1, 2020
Re: Edward Kleinbard

An obituary for the late Edward Kleinbard appeared in LA Times. Michael Hiltzik of the Times highlighted some of Kleinbard’s acerbic comments about public policy. "We are inundated today by economic noise and fog designed to generate superficially plausible rationales for what at bottom are simply jerk-like instincts," Kleinbard said. An obituary for Kleinbard also appeared in Law 360. He was also mentioned in Politico.

RECENT SCHOLARSHIP

Nomi Stolzenberg
May, 2020

"The Great Schism: Battles for Control in the Satmar Community," Progressive Property Conference, Fordham Law School, New York, NY.

Nomi Stolzenberg
May, 2020

Nomi Stolzenberg participated in an online conversation, "Who Are the Haredim? A Decade of Research on Kiryas Joel, New York," with B'Nai David-Judea.

Robert K. Rasmussen
May, 2020

Robert Rasmussen is part of a working group of bankruptcy academics that sent a letter to Congress urging an increase in capacity in the bankruptcy system given the expected increased demand on bankruptcy courts due to the COVID-19 virus.