By Tom Kirvan
Legal News
Just weeks after the unexpected death of attorney Rodger Young last fall, the two remaining partners in the firm that he founded more than 30 years ago were at a crossroads on their respective career paths.
The dilemma for Jaye Quadrozzi and David Garcia boiled down to a desire to stay the course at the place they had helped build into one of the premier boutique law firms specializing in complex business litigation or to pursue attractive offers and opportunities elsewhere in the legal landscape.
In many respects, it was a “win-win” sort of decision facing the pair of University of Michigan alums who spent much of their legal careers working with Young, a supremely talented and successful litigator who died Sept. 30 at age 75 following a brief illness.
“I believe both of us realized pretty quickly that we are part of something special here and that we wanted to continue along the road that Rodger built,” said Quadrozzi, a U-M Law School grad who joined Young & Associates 15 years ago after working at law firms in Chicago and California. “We have developed a special trust and respect for each other that would be hard to duplicate anywhere else.”
Garcia, who earned his law degree from the University of Wisconsin, echoed the sentiments, noting that Young’s influence on both of their careers was strong and lasting.
“Both Jaye and I had the privilege of working with and learning from a true legal legend,” Garcia said this week during an interview at the firm’s offices in Farmington Hills. “There was nobody quite like Rodger, and we enjoyed the benefit of working side-by-side with the master.”
Young founded his firm in 1990 after spending 18 years as a partner with the Detroit law firm of Moll, Desenberg and Bayer. He won scores of jury trials in federal and state courts, prevailing in complex cases involving such clients as Barclays, Siemens, Pullman Industries, Arthrex, Teleflex, Wachovia, and Motor City Casinos among many others. He took on the likes of General Motors, Ford Motor Co., Navistar, Chase Bank, Verizon, Nationwide Securities, and Northern Telecom, a collection of business heavyweights that tend to make legal opponents quake.
But not Young, who in a Legal News interview nearly a decade ago framed the courtroom duels in frank terms.
“Generally speaking, the bigger the opponent, the greater the challenge,” said Young, who received his law degree from the University of Minnesota in 1972. “But I’ve always enjoyed a challenge, especially when important legal principles are at stake. This firm has been built with people who are dedicated to winning, to seeing that our clients receive the finest legal representation possible in their respective cases and causes of action.”
That philosophy, according to Quadrozzi and Garcia, is ingrained in the firm’s DNA and will be at the heart of their legal commitment to clients in the months and years ahead.
“We take pride in being nimble and being extraordinarily efficient in everything we do on behalf of our clients,” said Quadrozzi. “It was part of Rodger’s recipe for success, which we obviously want to keep.”
A recent example of that took place in Oakland County Circuit Court, Garcia indicated.
Two months ago, an Oakland County jury returned a verdict, after a mere 30 minutes of deliberation, awarding Security Police and Fire Professionals of America (SPFPA) more than $500,000 in damages, including nearly $400,000 in attorney’s fees, concluding 2-½ years of litigation by SPFPA against a disgruntled former employee.
The newly-rebranded firm of Young, Garcia & Quadrozzi represented SPFPA, an international union of some 27,000 private police, security, and fire professionals. The case involved numerous breaches of a prior settlement agreement between SPFPA and its former member Steven Maritas, primarily related to repeated use of SPFPA’s trademarked name and acronym in hundreds of internet posts. Prior to trial, the firm successfully obtained a ruling from Oakland County Circuit Judge Martha Anderson that the agreement was valid and had been breached. As a result, the jury’s role was to determine SPFPA’s damages and attorney’s fees.
“We were very pleased with the jury’s verdict and the outcome of the case,” said Garcia, who served as lead trial counsel in the case. “SPFPA retained the firm to aggressively prosecute this case, after two prior lawsuits against Maritas that resulted in settlement agreements that Maritas habitually disregarded.
“The jury’s verdict, which awarded to SPFPA 100 percent of the damages and fees sought, was an unmistakable statement as to the magnitude and malice of Maritas’ online statements against the union,” Garcia added, noting that the case was one of the first jury trials to be conducted locally since the pandemic began sweeping across Michigan in the spring of 2020.
Garcia and Quadrozzi began building their bond in 2011 when Garcia rejoined Young’s firm after spending five years in Durham, N.C., where his wife Dr. Lisa Linnenbrink-Garcia, had accepted a professorship at Duke University, one of the premier private colleges in the country. Initially, Garcia was hired by Young straight out of law school and spent seven years under his legal tutelage before moving to North Carolina in 2006.
“When my wife accepted an appointment at Michigan State (in 2011), I got in touch with Rodger to see about the possibility of rejoining the firm,” Garcia related.
His timing couldn’t have been better, as Young was in need of a seasoned litigator who could assist Quadrozzi with a high-stakes multi-state case that she was handling.
“I remember vividly driving back from North Carolina, getting to know Jaye through a series of phone calls in which she brought me up to speed on the details of the case and what she needed me to do,” Garcia said. “I could tell then how dedicated and thorough she is in every respect.”
The wide array of cases they handle – whether in state or federal courts, while representing plaintiffs or defendants – demand their utmost commitment, Quadrozzi acknowledged.
“We expect every case of ours to go to trial and approximately 80 percent of them do,” said Quadrozzi. “It’s the reason that we embrace a ‘winning attitude’ at the firm. Our clients hire us with an overriding purpose in mind – to win.”
Their legal team also includes attorney Joshua Apel, a U-M alum who earned his law degree from Washington University in St. Louis, and paralegals Shelley Kulick and Theresa Gumowski.
The “newly” formed firm was launched officially last November with the name of its late founder still firmly in place – Young, Garcia & Quadrozzi, P.C.
“It seemed only fitting to keep Rodger in the lead,” said Quadrozzi. “He was such a force here and we want his spirit to live on.”
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