LAS VEGAS – (July 15, 2021) – James J. Pisanelli and Todd L. Bice, founding partners of Pisanelli Bice PLLC, announced today that six of the firm’s attorneys were among select lawyers recognized on the esteemed 2021 Mountain States Super Lawyers lists. Super Lawyers is a national rating service of outstanding lawyers from more than 70 practice areas who have attained a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement.
James J. Pisanelli and Todd L. Bice were honored as two of the leading top 100 lawyers in the mountain region, which includes Nevada, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho. Pisanelli and Bice have earned Top 100 Super Lawyers distinction every year since 2007. Managing Partner Debra L. Spinelli and of counsel M. Magali Mercera were also recognized as 2021 Super Lawyers. This is the tenth consecutive year Spinelli has been selected for a Super Lawyers list. 2021 marks the first year Mercera has been selected as a Super Lawyer.
Spinelli was also selected to the Top 50 Women Mountain States Super Lawyers list again this year. The 2021 listing is the sixth consecutive year that Spinelli has been selected to the Top 50 Women list.
Attorneys Dustun H. Holmes and Ava M. Schaefer were named 2021 Mountain States Rising Stars. This is Schaefer’s sixth consecutive year appearing on the list, and it is the fifth consecutive year that Holmes has been named a Rising Star.
Recognition by Super Lawyers is a prestigious and highly sought-after honor with only five percent of Nevada’s attorneys selected as Super Lawyers and 2.5 percent selected as Rising Stars. Attorneys are designated after undergoing a comprehensive nomination and evaluation process. This patented, multifaceted process includes a statewide survey of lawyers, an independent research evaluation of candidates, and peer reviews by practice area. The result is a credible, comprehensive and diverse listing of exceptional attorneys. Super Lawyers’ parent company, Thomson Reuters, is the world’s most respected source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals.
For more information about Super Lawyers, visit https://www.superlawyers.com.
About Super Lawyers
Super Lawyers state and regional listings are published nationwide in Super Lawyers Magazines and in leading city and regional magazines and newspapers across the country. Super Lawyers Magazines also feature editorial profiles of attorneys who embody excellence in the practice of law. For more information about Super Lawyers, visit https://www.superlawyers.com.
LAS VEGAS (June 28, 2021) – James J. Pisanelli and Todd L. Bice, founding partners of Pisanelli Bice PLLC, announced today that the boutique law firm has been named among the country’s best litigation firms in rankings compiled by the prestigious service Chambers & Partners.
Pisanelli Bice is one of only four Nevada firms honored in Band 1 of the Chambers USA 2021 guide for General Commercial Litigation. Chambers and Partners ranks attorneys and firms based on interviews with their clients and legal colleagues.
The guide quotes a client as saying, “Pisanelli Bice is the best litigation resource in Nevada by a mile.” Another client describes the team’s attorneys as “extremely experienced lawyers who have argued cases up to the Nevada Supreme Court and are respected by judges all the way up,” adding the attorneys “have the practicality of understanding the connection between law and business.”
Chambers also recognized and spotlighted both founders as outstanding litigators, as both Pisanelli and Bice are ranked as Band 1 attorneys for General Commercial Litigation.
The guide’s commentary notes that Pisanelli “maintains a sterling practice in complex commercial litigation, with noted expertise in healthcare-related and defamation cases,” and a client states that he is a “legend in the community – a gentleman lawyer who can push aggressively but think carefully.”
Bice is described as being “recommended for his experience as a commercial litigator and for his expertise in gaming-related concerns,” with a client stating he “has handled some of the highest-stakes cases.”
The firm has represented Caesars Entertainment, City National Bank, Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority, MGM Resorts, the State of Nevada, Las Vegas Sun, and United Health among other high-profile clients. This is the sixth year Pisanelli Bice received a Band 1 distinction.
About Pisanelli Bice
Pisanelli Bice is a Las Vegas-based law firm focused primarily on commercial litigation. The firm, founded by attorneys James J. Pisanelli and Todd L. Bice, represents clients ranging from single-entity developers and entrepreneurs to Fortune 500 companies, municipalities, public agencies and some of Nevada’s largest gaming companies.
About Chambers and Partners
Chambers and Partners has published guides to the legal profession since 1990. With a team of over 150 full-time researchers at its London head office, the company identifies and rank the world`s best lawyers and law firms based on in-depth, objective research.
SAN FRANCISCO — The founder and former CEO of right-leaning social media site Parler is suing the company he created and its controlling owner, political megadonor Rebekah Mercer, alleging his ownership stake was taken from him.
John Matze, who founded Parler in 2018 with funding from Mercer, filed the suit in Nevada District Court on Monday. Matze has said he was forced out of the company in early February, just weeks after Parler became embroiled in controversy surrounding the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, resulting in the site being knocked offline for more than a month.
The suit, which was announced in a news release by Matze’s attorneys and uploaded online by the Las Vegas Sun, names Parler, Mercer, interim CEO Mark Meckler and investors Jeffrey Wernick and Dan Bongino as defendants, as well as a corporation believed to be controlled by Mercer.
In the complaint, Matze alleges that Mercer and others plotted to steal Matze’s 40 percent stake in the company, later saying the fair market value for his stake was worth only $3. The “outlandish and arrogant theft” is “the product of a conspiratorial agreement,” the suit says.
Mercer, who backed Donald Trump during his successful 2016 presidential bid, owns the controlling stake in the company, and has now installed her allies to run Parler, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly discuss private matters.
Parler executives, including Meckler and Wernick, did not respond to requests for comment. Mercer and Bongino did not respond to requests for comment. Law firm Pisanelli Bice said in a statement that Matze would not have any further comment.
Matze says in the suit that Parler is being “hijacked” away from being the free expression site he first imagined. The suit alleges that Mercer “sought to co-opt” Parler to encourage her political views.
“It became apparent to Matze that Meckler’s efforts were not to grow Parler as a free expression platform, but instead to redirect it into what Meckler called as the ‘tip of the conservative spear’ for a brand of conservatism in keeping with Mercer’s preferences,” the lawsuit alleges.
Parler grew from a niche social media site to a relatively mainstream option in 2020 when prominent conservative politicians and pundits began joining and promoting the site, many saying they were fed up with so-called “censorship” on Twitter and Facebook. Twitter had started labeling Trump’s tweets with fact checks, and Parler positioned itself as the “free-speech” alternative site.
After the election, Parler’s user base boomed to more than 10 million, bolstered by people seeking alternative social media sites as Trump and his allies spread false narratives about the veracity of the election.
Parler had about 15 million users before it was knocked offline in January, following reports that people had used the site to encourage the attack on the Capitol. Amazon, Apple and Google pulled their technical support for Parler, saying it was not moderating content robustly enough, effectively turning off the lights for the service.
Parler came back online more than a month later with a new cloud computing provider, Los Angeles-based SkySilk. In his suit, Matze claims he was the one who secured the new hosting provider and set up a version of the moderating system Parler is now using.
“However, as Meckler lacked the technical know-how to actually run such a social media platform — and his real role was to simply push a political agenda — the implementation was beyond lacking,” according to the suit.
Matze is seeking an unspecified amount in damages.
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John Matze, a Henderson resident and one of the founders of alternative social media site Parler, is suing the company for wrongful termination after being dismissed from his role as CEO earlier this year.
In a lawsuit filed Monday in Clark County District Court, Matze seeks “millions in compensatory” damages for an “orchestrated theft” of his 40% ownership stake in the Henderson company.
Matze and Jared Thomson co-founded Parler in 2018 as an alternative to Twitter and Facebook, which ban people for certain kinds of extreme or intentionally misleading expression not allowed under their terms of service.
A hotbed of far right activists, Parler went dark after the Jan. 6 deadly attacks on the U.S. Capitol by extremist supporters of then President Donald Trump. The events caused Apple and Google to remove Parler from their app stores and Amazon Web Services to decline hosting the site.
The lawsuit alleges that deplatforming led to Matze’s dismissal by Rebekah Mercer, another co-founder who funded Parler during its launch in 2018. She’s the daughter of Republican billionaire donor Robert Mercer.
The Mercers were also financial backers of Steven Bannon’s activities with Breitbart and Cambridge Analytica as well as early Trump supporters. They are believed to have withdrawn support for both Bannon and Trump in the early years of the Trump administration.
The lawsuit alleges that Matze “was abruptly ousted in violation of the law and public policy for endeavoring to preserve Parler’s commitment to free expression while combating any misuse by violent extremists and domestic terrorists in the wake of the January 6, 2021, attack at the U.S. Capitol. Rather than protect Parler, its other owner, Rebekah Mercer, sought to co-opt it as a symbol or as the ‘tip of the spear’ for her brand of conservatism, and plotted to force Matze out as CEO, manager, and member, and steal his forty percent (40%) ownership interest.”
Parler in January said it had more than 12 million users when it was forced offline. Many came to the site after Trump was banned from Twitter for advancing lies about election fraud and encouraging the Capitol insurrection.
The lawsuit estimates the site was worth upwards of a billion dollars, of which Matze no longer has a stake.
“This outlandish and arrogant theft, which occurred in Nevada, is the product of a conspiratorial agreement and actions taken both inside and outside of Nevada, that include intimidating threats and defamatory accusations of misconduct all designed to bully and deprive Matze of his valuable personal property and legal rights,” the suit alleges. “This scheme is epitomized by oppression, fraud and malice, for which Matze is entitled to punitive damages trebling (at a minimum) the millions that he is owed in compensatory damages.”
Matze, through his attorney James Pisanelli, wasn’t available to comment. Matze “looks forward to presenting his claims in court and being vindicated,” the attorney wrote in a statement.
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LAS VEGAS (Nov. 5, 2020) – Founding partners James J. Pisanelli and Todd L. Bice, of the litigation firm Pisanelli Bice PLLC, announced today the firm earned seven Tier 1 rankings by U.S. News – Best Lawyers® “Best Law Firms” for 2021.
The firm’s top-level designations are in the areas of Bet-the-Company Litigation, Appellate Practice, Commercial Litigation, Construction Law, Litigation – Construction, Litigation – Mergers and Acquisitions, and Litigation – Real Estate.
Pisanelli Bice has a long history in the U.S. News – Best Lawyers® rankings, having consecutively earned recognition since 2011.
The firm was named to the top tier based on a comprehensive evaluation process that includes client and peer evaluations of the firm’s expertise, responsiveness, understanding of a business and its needs, cost-effectiveness, civility, and whether they would refer another client to the firm. To be eligible, firms must have at least one attorney in the current edition of Best Lawyers in America©, which is one of the oldest and most respected peer-review publications in the legal profession.
Pisanelli Bice’s Tier 1 rankings will be included in the 11th annual edition of “Best Law Firms”- a definitive reference tool for legal representation across the U.S. The rankings also are available at http://bestlawfirms.usnews.com.
About “Best Law Firms”
The U.S. News – Best Lawyers® “Best Law Firms” rankings are based on a rigorous evaluation process that includes the collection of client and lawyer evaluations, peer reviews from leading attorneys in their field, and reviews of additional information provided by law firms as part of the formal submission process. To be eligible for a ranking, a law firm must have at least one lawyer who is included in Best Lawyers in America© in that particular practice area and metro. For more information on U.S. News – Best Lawyers® “Best Law Firms,” please visit http://bestlawfirms.usnews.com/.
