Mark D. Baute
Mark Baute graduated from U.C.L.A. Law School, and received his bachelor's degree from the University of Washington. While at U.C.L.A. he was the recipient of the Olin Fellow in Law and Economics academic scholarship, and the co-President of the graduating class of 1986. In 1998, he was featured as one of the top twenty lawyers under forty years of age in California in the Los Angeles Daily Journal's annual "20 under 40" article.
He started at Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue in Los Angeles, California, practicing exclusively in the area of commercial litigation. Most of his work at that time was defending Fortune 500 companies in the areas of labor and employment, real estate, construction and trade secrets and unfair competition cases. Mr. Baute then left Jones, Day to become a junior partner at Blecher & Collins, a firm which specializes in high-stakes plaintiffs' commercial trial work. While there, Mr. Baute handled, among others, an antitrust case against 123 hospitals and the California Hospital Association, a tortious interference case against the NBA for its wrongful veto of a pay-per-view one-on-one contest between Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson, and a variety of labor and unfair competition cases for both plaintiffs and defendants, in jury trials and binding arbitrations.
Mr. Baute has tried over twenty cases to verdict as lead counsel. Those cases range from large antitrust cases, to mid-sized labor, unfair competition and real estate cases, in both state and federal courts and arbitration tribunals, in forums throughout the country. His experience also includes the full range of appellate work, including appeals and writs in State Courts, the Eighth and Ninth Circuit Courts of Appeals, and the United States Supreme Court.
Mr. Baute's practice has been more or less evenly divided between long-established business entities and more recently established entrepreneurs. He brings a noticeably different perspective to the prompt resolution of most commercial litigation matters. In brief, Mr. Baute believes that as much as half the time and money consumed in commercial litigation today is largely a waste. Even in many large cases, there are usually only one or two important witnesses and a handful of critical documents. There is also generally one critical motion -- the motion for summary judgment. Form your game plan and your settlement position early, and if settlement is not a realistic possibility, follow through with a cost-effective plan designed to get a prompt decision on the real issues, or a clean win at trial.
Click here to see a representative sample of cases handled by Mr. Baute.