Michael Jacobs, recently retired Partner and Trial Lawyer at Morrison & Foerster, current Evaluative Mediator and Arbitrator at JAMS, has spent decades at the center of the biggest technology disputes of our time, including Oracle v. Google and the Smartphone Wars. 

Michael shares his journey from serving as a U.S. diplomat in the Foreign Service to becoming a top intellectual property trial lawyer. He offers a masterclass on navigating billion-dollar cases, arguing that launching major litigation should be treated like ”opening a new line of business” that requires careful management, a SWOT analysis, and a strong partnership between inside and outside counsel.

Michael also explores the constant challenge of translating complex technology to a lay audience – spanning from mainframe software in the 1980s to today's generative AI models – and discusses how the pace of change in the AI era is shifting the litigation landscape. Finally, Michael weighs in on the future of the billable hour, why the ultimate value of a lawyer is human-to-human strategy, and his perspectives as an evaluative mediator and arbitrator.

Follow Michael:
@Michael A. Jacobs on LinkedIn

Show Notes & Key Takeaways:

• The Billion-Dollar Playbook: What happens behind the scenes in massive IP disputes and why managing a big case is exactly like launching a new corporate product.
• When to Walk Away: Michael shares a story of advising a major U.S. industrial company not to pursue a massive case, highlighting the fiduciary duty to put a client's financial interests over a law firm's potential fees.
• Tech Translation: The core task of a great IP litigator is analogizing complex technology for judges and juries. Michael tracks this evolution from his first big case (Fujitsu v. IBM) through the smartphone wars, to currently applying traditional copyright law to LLMs in the OpenAI litigation.
• Lessons from the Foreign Service: How Michael's early career as a consular officer in Jamaica and working in Washington D.C. taught him the critical skill of truly understanding ”who the client is.”
• The Two Voices of Outside Counsel: How to deliver bad news to a General Counsel by clearly separating your ”advocacy voice” from your ”advisory voice.”
• AI and the Law Firm Model: Why the new baseline for law firms is delivering a product that is demonstrably better than an AI's output, and why the ultimate strategic value remains ”humans talking to humans.”
• Insights from the Arbitrator's Chair: Michael discusses his work as an evaluative mediator and why drafting convoluted contracts with nested definitions is a terrible strategy for eventual disputes.
• Lightning Round: Michael recommends Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance as a guide for using ”quality” as a North Star, and shares his best career advice for young lawyers: ”No shortcuts. Read the rules.”

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