Leading Law into the Cyber Age

Juanita Brooks likes to joke that “beneath this cheap, flashy exterior beats the heart of a techno-geek.” But the San Diego–based attorney gives her opponents no reason to smile when they see her across the aisle in courtrooms around the country. In civil and criminal cases involving high technology and white-collar crime, the list of her victories is long.Brooks, now a principal with Fish & Richardson, is a San Diego State University and Yale Law School graduate who took off into national prominence when she defended automaker John DeLorean against federal fraud accusations in the early 1980s. He was acquitted.

“I’ve always liked representing the underdog,” says Brooks, whose practice has followed the trends in federal prosecutions. “There’s a sort of crime du jour that the government goes after,” she explains. “It was defense contractor fraud, then healthcare fraud. Now the next big area is the prosecution of cybercrime.”

Brooks has had, or currently has, cases in all those areas. She says her complex science background in college proved to be good training for newly developing and complicated legal arenas such as intellectual property, trade secrets and cybercrime. “The law is not changing as quickly as the technology, so we’re trying to get somewhat archaic law to catch up—judges just can’t apply old laws to present situations.”

Brooks’ most recent high-profile case is testing just that circumstance. It’s Playboy Enterprises vs. Welles—and this time Brooks is working for the big guy, Playboy. Hugh Hefner’s people are going after a former Playmate whose Web site uses the company name. The trademark case has gone high-tech and could ultimately affect how search engines work. It’s right up Brooks’ intellectual alley.

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