Former Flight Attendant Takes on Coinbase in Debut at High Court

Hassan Zavareei started out as a Russian language flight attendant for Delta Air Lines Inc. On Tuesday, he’ll speak before another captive audience, this time on the ground as an attorney arguing a case against Coinbase Inc. at the US Supreme Court.

Zavareei will make his Supreme Court debut in a case against the online cryptocurrency exchange, which is asking the justices to halt two proposed account-holder class actions while it fights on appeal to send the dispute to arbitration.

The 54-year-old co-founder of a class action and whistleblower law firm, who will argue for the cases to proceed, considers himself an underdog lawyer representing underdog clients.

“I always wanted to be on the plaintiff’s side and represent the little guy,” he said.

Zavareei, a UC Berkeley School of Law alum, was a corporate defense lawyer for seven years at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP before starting Tycko & Zavareei LLP with his former Big Law colleague Jonathan Tycko in 2002. Zavareei didn’t always know he wanted to be a lawyer, though.

In the 1980s, he was interested in diplomacy and learning more about Russian language and culture. After graduating from Duke University with his undergraduate degree in international relations and Russian, he took a job as a flight attendant and Russian translator on domestic and international flights.

“It was rough duty because my Russian was pretty bad,” he said of the job he held for two years.

User Agreement

At the heart of Tuesday’s case is a question about the power trial courts have to proceed with litigation when an appeal denying a motion to compel arbitration is pending.

Zavareei said he believes he has a strong argument in that the text of the Federal Arbitration Act is clear.

“This is an extraordinary power that can’t be taken away from judges unless Congress says so,” he said.

His client, Abraham Bielski, filed one of the proposed class actions after he gave a scammer remote access to his account and lost $31,000 in Bitcoin. Bielski argues Coinbase didn’t perform its responsibilities to remedy unauthorized electronic fund transfers and should compensate him.

In the second case, former Coinbase users allege the company duped them into paying $100 or more in Dogecoin to enter a sweepstakes that offered prizes of up to $1.2 million in Dogecoin.

Citing the requirements of its user agreement, Coinbase tried to send the disputes to arbitration but the district court rejected its efforts in both cases. While Coinbase appeals those decisions, the company argues all proceedings in the trial court should stop.

Zavareei will argue on behalf of the account-holders in both disputes after the Supreme Court rejected a request to divide the argument between Zavareei and the attorney in the other case.

The first generation Sicilian-Iranian American will face off against veteran litigator and former Acting US Solicitor General Neal Katyal, who is representing Coinbase. Katyal, a first-generation Indian-American, has argued 48 cases before the Supreme Court.

“Mr. Zavareei has distinguished himself as an excellent advocate, and I am particularly thrilled to be arguing once again against an attorney of color—something that continues to be very, very rare in the U.S. Supreme Court,” Katyal said in an email to Bloomberg Law.

Attorney Referral

Having a diverse firm has long been a goal for Tycko & Zavareei LLP.

“In our partnership, we have a majority of women partners, which I think is really quite rare,” said Andrea Gold, a partner who joined Zavareei & Tycko when the firm was in its infancy. It’s now grown from three to 24 lawyers across three offices in Washington, Los Angeles and Oakland.

The firm’s reputation for handling class actions and False Claims Act cases is how this dispute with Coinbase came to Zavareei. The attorney who handled the case in the lower courts came to him on a referral.

“He had already gotten a good ruling on the motion to compel arbitration, and we looked at it and were really impressed,” Zavareei said. “He was at a smaller firm and didn’t have the resources to devote to what he thought, we agreed was a really important case.”

Theodore Boutrous, who worked closely with Zavareei at Gibson Dunn, said he’s been impressed with how his former colleague’s firm has done. Having argued four cases before the court himself, Boutrous offered a bit of advice for the first-timer.

“Just enjoy the moment and realize the justices want to drill down and get to the bottom of the issues,” he said, adding it’s fun to banter with them.

“It’s everything you’d want to experience as a lawyer when you start out in law school,” Boutrous said.