Disney Goes After DeSantis With O’Melveny, WilmerHale Veterans

Walt Disney Co. has turned to O’Melveny & Myers and WilmerHale in its lawsuit against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis over what the entertainment company has called “a targeted campaign of government retaliation.”

Renowned litigator Daniel Petrocelli, chair of O’Melveny’s trial practice and the firm’s vice chair, is on Disney’s team. Petrocelli’s former client list includes former Enron Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Skilling, boxer Manny Pacquiao, rapper Travis Scott and former President Donald Trump.

Jonathan Hacker, chair of O’Melveny’s Supreme Court and appellate litigation practice, is also on Disney’s high-powered team, along with Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr partner Alan Schoenfeld.

The lawsuit filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida is the latest in the escalating battle between the Florida governor and Disney. The fight began after the company’s criticism of Florida’s education law that restricted classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity.

Over the last five years, O’Melveny has handled 6% of the litigation for the Disney, according to Bloomberg Law analytics. Petrocelli has handled 1.6% of Disney’s litigation matters, the data showed.

He successfully represented the company in 2001 when it was sued by the family of literary agent Stephen Slesinger for allegedly underpaying royalties related to Winnie the Pooh. The Los Angeles Superior Court eventually dismissed the case in 2009.

Petrocelli is also representing Disney over copyright infringement claims brought by independent musician Daniel Grigson over a song in “Frozen 2.”

Petrocelli was lead trial counsel for both AT&T Inc. and Time Warner in the companies’ successful challenge against the Justice Department’s attempt to block the merger, completed in 2018. He represented Trump and Trump University in a class action fraud case that was settled in 2016.

Lawyering Up

Schoenfeld, a New York-based partner at WilmerHale, has also represented Disney in past matters.

In 2016, he won a dismissal for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts when the Middle District of Florida threw out two class actions related to its use of third-party IT vendors who employed workers on H-1B visas.

Also representing Disney is Adam Colby Losey of Orlando-based Losey PLLC.

Disney said in its 74-page complaint that “a targeted campaign of government retaliation—orchestrated at every step by Governor DeSantis as punishment for Disney’s protected speech—now threatens Disney’s business operations, jeopardizes its economic future in the region, and violates its constitutional rights.”

DeSantis communications director Taryn Fenske said in response that “this lawsuit is yet another unfortunate example” of Disney’s effort “to undermine the will of the Florida voters and operate outside the bounds of the law.”

The Florida governor’s office didn’t say which lawyers will defend against the suit targeting DeSantis and the five-member board of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District.

Florida’s government previously said it retained lawyers from Washington’s Cooper & Kirk for a potential legal battle with Disney, as well as Florida-based law firms Fishback Dominick, Lawson Huck Gonzalez, and Nardella & Nardella.

In-House Changes

Disney’s own legal team has changed dramatically within the last year. The company saw its longtime legal chief Alan Braverman retire and be succeeded by Horacio Gutierrez, a former top lawyer at Spotify Technology SA and general counsel at Microsoft Corp.

Gutierrez received a lucrative pay package to join Disney, where he received $15 million in total compensation last year.

Braverman, who began his career at a predecessor to WilmerHale, has watched some of his former Disney colleagues depart in recent months as the media giant began a corporate restructuring that will shed roughly 7,000 employees in an effort to trim $5.5 billion in costs.

Among those lawyers caught up in the cutbacks were Disney’s former chief compliance officer, Alicia Schwarz, who saw her job be taken over by Gutierrez. Paul Richardson, an attorney and veteran executive at Disney and the company’s sports media affiliate ESPN, was terminated in March from his role as the company’s chief human resources officer.