Lewis & Llewellyn recently secured a $25.7 million jury verdict in a trade secret theft lawsuit in the Northern District of California, working alongside attorneys from Councill, Gunnemann & Chally. Congratulations to the trial team, Evangeline Burbidge, Zachary Flood, Jonathan Chally, Josh Gunnemann, and Jennifer Virostko, and to our incredible client EchoSpan.

EchoSpan is the creator of a web-based platform that allows companies to conduct complex 360-degree employee reviews.

During the six-day trial, EchoSpan presented evidence that Medallia signed up for a free trial of the EchoSpan product under false pretenses—claiming to be accessing the software to evaluate whether to purchase 5,000 licenses for Medallia’s internal use when, instead, Medallia employees took extensive notes on and screenshots of the product, using it to create a copycat tool. Medallia, in turn, defended these actions, arguing “no harm, no foul” and asserting that it developed the product on its own.

The jury sided with EchoSpan, finding that Medallia had willfully misappropriated the “heart” of EchoSpan’s product and awarding $11.7 million in compensatory damages and $14 million in exemplary damages to the company.

“It was powerful and humbling to watch the jury—regular members of the community—hold a $6.4 billion dollar company accountable when no one else could,” said partner Evangeline Burbidge. “CEO Joe Vance did the hard thing and stood up to a much bigger company. He and EchoSpan can walk tall after this verdict.”

To date, Lewis & Llewellyn’s clients have been awarded over $100 million. Congratulations to our team.