Polin Shook

Jacob specializes in helping victims of fraud recover losses from powerful opponents. He represents consumers, small businesses, startups, founders, and investors in all manner of disputes involving deceptive business practices, cyber security failures, unfair competition, and privacy violations. For many years, nearly all of his representations have been on a contingency (percent of recovery) or fixed-fee basis. Eschewing hourly payment structures helps him and his clients focus on the actual value of their cases, and improve access to justice.

In his practice, Jacob often represents large groups. These cases can be organized as class actions, mass actions, or cases brought by public entities, such as cities, counties, or Native American tribes. For example, he and his former colleagues at Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP obtained a $230 million recovery for the People of San Francisco, and won the Daily Journal’s “California Lawyers of the Year” award in 2023. In another case brought on behalf of victims of the 2015 Refugio Oil Spill in Santa Barbara, they obtained a $200 million settlement from a large publicly-traded oil company shortly before trial. He also litigated similar cases against other large technology, financial, insurance, oil, and chemical companies.

Jacob enjoys working with clients, experts, and colleagues to learn how different industries function and the conditions that give rise to fraud. He tries to bring a nuanced perspective to that analysis, as an attorney who previously represented large corporations at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP. In privacy and advertising-related litigation, he also draws on his pre-law school experience as a digital media buyer for technology companies and progressive political campaigns.

Jacob grew up in Oakland, California, where he now practices. He and Nick have been friends for 20+ years, going back to their time together on the UC Berkeley debate team. There, at Cal, Jacob led the debate team to the #1 national ranking in America. In his spare time, he enjoys cycling, hot yoga, and traveling.

A lawyer who has shipped code. Nick has practiced law for more than ten years, licensed in California, Washington, and Nevada, and has litigated through the appellate level. He represents founders, investors, and technology companies in litigation and serves as outside general counsel to fast-growing companies, from AI and cybersecurity platforms to consumer products. Where a dispute or a deal turns on how the technology actually works, Nick reads the code himself.

Nick wrote software at Apple. You will not need a translator to explain your stack, your architecture, or what actually broke. There he was an engineer responsible for a 30 petabyte financial data lake covering pricing information, activations, and install base, some of the more important data sets at the company. He was an early engineer at CryptoMove, a cybersecurity startup, and a Y Combinator founder. He also spent a year teaching programming, including AI-assisted agentic coding, and did that all around the world, teaching developers how to program with agents in today’s world.

Prior to that, Nick worked as a startup lawyer. His wins include a $26 million M&A for a cannabis company and a successful § 1983 appeal in the Nevada Court of Appeals. He has advised many startups on the agreements that decide whether a company scales, for clients that sell into Airbnb, Netflix, and LinkedIn, and he works with Bay Area venture funds on financings from seed to Series E.

Nick and Jacob met on the UC Berkeley debate team and have been friends for 20+ years, the start of the network of elite litigators the firm still co-counsels with today. Nick practices and teaches hot yoga. In his spare time, he enjoys traveling and astrology, and he will read your tarot.

One of the top debaters in the country. Emilio researches legal issues around AI and manages all aspects of our clients’ cases and matters.