Bree Hann

Partner

(510) 906-4902 | bhann@nortonlaw.com | VCF

Bree Hann combines keen advocacy skills with creative strategy and pragmatic management, earning her clients efficient, effective results.

Bree began her career with McCutchen Doyle Brown & Enersen, later Bingham McCutchen, where she was a partner from 2010 to 2014. Her work ran the gamut: investigating and building cases, navigating discovery labyrinths, and winning cases on motions and at trial. For example, Bree was a key member of a trial team that won a record-breaking $1.3 billion copyright infringement verdict on behalf of Oracle; and in addition to the trial work itself, she was a driving force behind the focused, thorough discovery and motion practice that positioned Oracle for that trial victory.

In 2014, Bree joined the in-house legal team at SolarCity, where she designed and led the company’s groundbreaking antitrust litigation against an Arizona utility, including victories at the Ninth Circuit. While at SolarCity, and continuing at Tesla through 2017, she solved problems before they became lawsuits. When litigation could not or should not be avoided, Bree ran both plaintiff and defense cases to achieve the larger business objectives for the company. Bree’s in-house experience gives her a deep perspective on the varying, sometimes conflicting, forces that companies balance with every legal decision.

Since co-founding the firm with Fred Norton, Bree has continued to represent both plaintiffs and defendants across a swathe of industries, including video game designers, cryptocurrency companies, enterprise software providers, social media platforms, residential solar companies, and individuals.  In addition to court and arbitration cases, she has advised clients on antitrust compliance and data retention, convinced potential opponents to pay what they owe without going to court, and beaten back aggressive opponents in would-be wars of attrition.  Recent examples include:

• Successfully enforcing a choice of venue clause, leading to the opponent abandoning its claims rather than re-filing elsewhere (San Francisco Superior);
• Reversing a preliminary injunction, winning a demurrer, defeating a demurrer, and defeating an anti-SLAPP motion in rapid succession (Orange County Superior Court);
• At the client’s request, drafting a patent infringement summary judgment motion over a weekend, which led to the opponent agreeing to favorable settlement soon after (N.D. Cal.);
• Litigating to favorable settlement a technology company’s trade secret misappropriation claims (N.D. Cal.);
• Persuading a client’s customers to pay past-due licensing fees rather than undergo copyright infringement litigation (various); and
• Obtaining a $2m jury verdict for a pro bono client whose confidential information was improperly disclosed to his employer and colleagues (N.D. Cal.).

The right attorney offers more than a bundle of litigation skills. Bree achieves results through both legal acumen and effective people management. With her years of team and department management experience, as well as teaching and peer counseling work, Bree quickly puts people at ease and gets them working well together towards goals large and small. Those skills deliver results smoothly, quickly, and accurately.