A litigation boutique based in Oakland, California, representing plaintiffs and defendants in complex civil litigation.
The Norton Law Firm Secures Outstanding FOIA Attorney Fees Award
The Norton Law Firm has secured a landmark fees award in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) case on behalf of Marc Cohodes, a prominent stock-market analyst and short-seller who has spent much of his career exposing frauds at publicly traded companies. Mr. Cohodes’s team was led by Leah Judge and George C. Harris.
The federal court awarded Cohodes $180,808.50—virtually all the attorneys’ fees requested for the underlying litigation, at full rates. The Court lauded the Firm’s successful work on “complex issues of FOIA privacy interests in the context of securities fraud” and considered the requested rates appropriate for a “high-end boutique.”
The U.S. District Court’s Order in Cohodes v. U.S. DOJ, No. 20-cv-04015-LB, Dkt. No. 124 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 24, 2025) can be viewed here.
The FOIA litigation arose from Mr. Cohodes’s exercise of his First Amendment rights to criticize corruption at MiMedx, a Georgia-based biotechnology company. In 2020, the SEC fined MiMedx $1.5 million for falsely inflating its revenues; the company’s CEO and COO were convicted of securities fraud that same year. Mr. Cohodes had begun publicly accusing MiMedx of this very misconduct in 2017. Soon thereafter, FBI agents appeared at Mr. Cohodes’s home and demanded that he stop tweeting about MiMedx—an extraordinary effort to silence criticism of a publicly traded company.
Mr. Cohodes submitted FOIA requests to the federal government seeking information about the FBI’s visit, ultimately filing a lawsuit to compel disclosure of documents. After nearly four years, the government disclosed more than 15,000 pages.
The disclosures revealed that MiMedx spent years attempting to commandeer federal law enforcement agencies to silence Mr. Cohodes’s criticisms of the company. The documents specifically disclosed that the FBI told Mr. Cohodes to stop tweeting about MiMedx only after Georgia Senator Johnny Isakson contacted the FBI on behalf of his “good friend and constituent,” MiMedx CEO Parker Petit. The FBI fast-tracked Senator Isakson’s referral.
MiMedx’s campaign against Mr. Cohodes continued two years after the FBI’s visit. The documents revealed that MiMedx executives obtained meetings with government agents to feed them “evidence” of Mr. Cohodes’s purported stock manipulation and ultimately persuaded California prosecutors to open an investigation into Mr. Cohodes for securities fraud. The disclosures also revealed that California prosecutors immediately closed the investigation of Mr. Cohodes in November 2019—when New York prosecutors indicted Petit and MiMedx COO Bill Taylor for securities fraud.
The order is a resounding victory for Mr. Cohodes, FOIA litigants, and The Norton Law Firm, adding to the Firm’s list of successes advancing its clients’ First Amendment rights and government accountability.