Chad Hummel is a nationally recognized trial lawyer who has served as lead counsel in some of the nation's most high profile civil and criminal cases. He is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and has been ranked among the Best Lawyers in America in the areas of antitrust, criminal defense and commercial litigation. He is Co-Chair of Manatt's Trial Practice. After having chaired the Firm's Litigation Division for five years, Mr. Hummel is now the Chair of Firmwide Strategic Development and sits on the Executive and Compensation Committees.
In the commercial litigation arena, Mr. Hummel has litigated and tried complex breach of contract, fraud, false advertising and Lanham Act, intellectual property, federal and state unfair competition, Consumer Legal Remedies Act and complex consumer class action matters. His criminal trials have involved allegations of complex fraud, antitrust violations, tax fraud and evasion, money laundering, and RICO. His successful antitrust trial work has involved allegations of price fixing, monopolization, exclusive dealing, tying, and other forms of alleged unfair competition. Among his most notable recent cases, he tried the federal criminal RICO and wire-tapping case of United States v. Anthony Pellicano which is presently on appeal in the Ninth Circuit, the Herb Adderley v. NFLPA case achieving a landmark jury verdict for retired NFL players, and represented Oscar-winning film director Roman Polanski in his efforts to dismiss the criminal prosecution against him in the extradition proceedings in Switzerland.
In just the past two years, Mr. Hummel has successfully litigated civil cases for clients including IMAX, Digital Domain, Regal Cinemas, Beachbody, 3M, Ticketmaster, IAC, NBC, American Idol, Steve Madden, Ltd., Entertainment Publications, Sirius XM, DIRECTV, and Gyrodata.
He is a frequent author and lecturer and is a lecturer-in-law at USC's Gould School of Law teaching Advanced Pre-Trial Advocacy.