After working her way up the ranks in private practice, Maribeth Annaguey (JD 2003) started a boutique firm where client communication and community service are priorities
More than 20 years since Maribeth Annaguey (JD 2003) was a student at USC Gould School of Law, editor-in-chief of the Southern California Law Review and president of La Raza Law Students Association, she is still closely tied to the law school.
Throughout her career, she has kept in touch with Gould mentors and friends, worked with Trojans, reached out to the network, and returned to campus as a guest speaker and member of the USC Latino Alumni Association. And the Trojan Network was there for her when she opened Annaguey McCann, which specializes in business disputes, with attorneys Kathryn McCann and fellow alum Jason Kelly (JD 2010) on May 1, 2023.
“I can’t speak highly enough of the strength of the Trojan Network,” Annaguey says. “It’s not just alums, but the professors and the administrators as well.”
One day in 2023, Annaguey was talking with Chloe Reid, senior director of development at Gould, about the challenges of being an entrepreneur.
“She connected me with three other attorneys who also recently started their firms so that we could talk and brainstorm and be a resource for each other,” Annaguey says. “We’ve kept in touch. They’ve been a great resource. I thought it was just a fabulous idea.”
Annaguey McCann recently added Rob Owens (JD 1977) and his longtime law partner Linda Gach Ray as of counsel. As co-counsel on several matters over the years, Owens was at the first deposition Annaguey ever took — over 20 years ago — where a mentorship and friendship was born.
“My first experience with Maribeth was when she was a young lawyer and we were working together as counsel for co-defendants,” Owens says. “I knew right away that Maribeth was an especially gifted lawyer, with amazing analytical skills and the highest ethical standards. That is why, over the years, my partner and I have asked her to co-counsel with us on multiple cases.
“My partner and I left a bigger firm to start our own firm more than 38 years ago,” he adds, “so I was very excited for Maribeth when she decided to start her own firm with Kathryn and Jason. Maribeth is a gem, and her clients are lucky to have her in their corner.”
Hands-on with clients
Annaguey and McCann worked together at Liner LLP and then Browne George Ross LLP, where they watched the business litigation firm expand to 70 attorneys and grow its East Coast presence with offices in Washington, D.C., and New York.
“Katie and I wanted to go back to being smaller,” Annaguey says. “We wanted something that was a bit more hands-on with the clients. We still refer work back and forth with our prior firm. We just wanted to move in a different direction.”
Now, their boutique law firm (which has three other Trojans onboard) offers a customized approach to business disputes for businesses, entrepreneurs and individuals — with an emphasis on listening to and connecting with clients.
“We really try, from the outset, to talk to our clients about what’s going on with their particular dispute, what their goals are, what the process is like and what their options are,” says Annaguey, whose practice areas include entertainment, real estate and employment law.
“I don’t think that litigation necessarily needs to be a ‘we must go to trial’ proposition every single time. Because that could mean three to five years of someone’s life or a company’s life mired in expensive litigation,” she says. “So, we try to understand what the goals are and we maintain good relationships with counsel and the courts, in order to see if there are off-ramps or ways to achieve the client’s objective without keeping the client mired in what can be a very difficult, expensive and lengthy process.”
Cases that have gone to litigation have involved such high-profile clients as a global real estate services company, a broadcasting station, an international producer and hip-hop artist, and actors.
An expert litigator, Annaguey enjoys collaborating with her clients and partners on solving the “puzzle” each case presents. “For each case, you’ve got to figure out: what are the facts, what’s the law, what’s the objective, what’s the goal, what are the obstacles to getting there?” she says. “This puzzle evolves as the litigation evolves, so you’re constantly being challenged to test your assumptions, test your conclusions. And I think that can be challenging, but also really gratifying.”
Throughout her career, Annaguey says she often turns to her professional network, and Gould alumni have been a major asset.
“To this day, some of my closest confidantes, mentors and friends are fellow Trojans,” she says. “And over the years, when I need to find someone for a particular issue, a resource for clients or friends, there are people in that network who I can tap into, and people are very willing to help. Again, I think that it’s a very strong, very real network.”
Over the past two years, Annaguey and her partner have noticed something interesting about how their client base has evolved.
“The number of women clients, specifically women-owned businesses and women entrepreneurs, that we’ve represented has actually gone up quite a bit. I’d say a majority of our clients are women or women-owned businesses,” she says. “That’s been really exciting. As a women-owned law firm, it’s hard not to notice that shift.”
A long list of honors
Before launching her own firm, Annaguey had spent her entire career in private law firms in Los Angeles. After working with Alschuler Grossman Stein & Kahan LLP, Dreier Stein & Kahan LLP and then Liner LLP, she moved over to boutique litigation firm Browne George Ross in 2017. In 2020, she became a name partner.
For Annaguey, this was a particularly momentous occasion: “I was the first female name partner in the law firm’s 30-plus-year history.”
When the news broke, Lawdragon wrote that Annaguey and the other name partners were “major players in Southern California” and commented on the firm’s prestige: “Browne George has long been considered one of L.A.’s hottest litigation firms — and it’s just getting hotter.”
Lawdragon was no stranger to Annaguey’s work. The respected women-owned digital media company recognized her in its 2022 list of “500 Leading Lawyers in America.”
Starting early in her career, Annaguey’s work drew attention from the legal community. She was named multiple times among Super Lawyer’s Rising Stars and Southern California Super Lawyers and received Comerica Bank’s Best of LA Women’s Business Awards for “Woman of Mentorship” in 2013.
And the honors keep coming. In 2024, she was recognized as a DEI Visionary in the LA Times B2B Publishing Division’s 2024 DEI issue and a Legal Visionary in its Business Visionaries issue that same year. In addition to being included among Los Angeles Business Journal’s 2024-2025 Women of Influence: Attorneys, Annaguey was selected to Lawdragon’s list of 500 Leading Global Entertainment, Sports & Media Lawyers in 2025.
Giving back
But what means more to Annaguey than awards and recognition is giving back. She does that by staying involved with her alma mater, as well as by taking on pro bono cases and making community service a priority at Annaguey McCann.
“Katie McCann and I both strongly believe in giving back to the community,” Annaguey says. “At each of the firms that we’ve been in, we’ve both been committed to the nonprofits we work with. And when we were designing the structure for this firm, because giving back to the community is such an important aspect of our lives, it was a no-brainer that it would be an integral part of our firm as well.”
Public Counsel and HOPE are two of the causes the firm supports. McCann sits on the executive board of Public Counsel. Since 2022, Annaguey has served on the board of directors of HOPE, Hispanas Organized for Political Equality. She also previously served on the board of Extera Public Schools (founding member), Scholar Bridge and the Asian Pacific Women’s Center.
Access to education for underserved youth is one of Annaguey’s “deeply held commitments.” Born and raised in San Bernardino, she says her immigrant parents (her mom is from Mexico, her dad from the Philippines) emphasized the importance of education and supported her being the first in her family to attend law school after graduating from UC Berkeley.
When it comes to Gould, Annaguey stays connected in various ways. She’s been invited to campus to speak on panels, including an event on legal careers in the entertainment industry. Most recently, Annaguey McCann has been a sponsor of the USC Latino Alumni Association annual gala. Annaguey says she always feels “incredibly inspired to see and hear about these young students and their personal challenges as they pursue higher education.”
“The practice can keep you really busy, and you get focused on your clients’ cases and the work in the office. And I think that the reason, for me, it’s important to give back — staying connected with alumni events, the nonprofit and community service work that we do — is it takes you outside of that work. It helps keep me grounded.
“It helps serve as a reminder of why we do what we do, the privilege that we have and the opportunities to help other people who are trying to also break into this industry or other industries that may not seem as accessible. And so, staying connected with the alumni network and staying connected with nonprofits who are devoted to helping marginalized communities is important to me in order to feel whole.”
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