James E. Magleby

JAMES E. MAGLEBY practices in all areas of intellectual property and complex civil and commercial litigation. Mr. Magleby's litigation and trial experience includes cases involving trade secrets, patents, trademarks and unfair competition, the Lanham Act, trade dress, real property and real estate, construction, partnership and business dissolutions, commercial collections, securities, landlord-tenant disputes, and non-competition and non-circumvention agreements.

Mr. Magleby also has extensive experience in seeking and resisting expedited relief, particularly in intellectual property, false-advertising and trade secret cases, including temporary restraining order (TRO) and preliminary injunction hearings.

Mr. Magleby has been practicing for more than 25 years, and has obtained notable major verdicts and favorable rulings for clients in the courtroom and arbitration, including the following:  

• Representing Utah-based ClearOne Communications, Inc. in a two-and-a-half week jury trial, resulting in a verdict of approximately $10.5 million for theft of trade secrets and related claims. 

• Representing a number of parties in a complex business theft case in Utah state court, obtaining approximately $1.3 million in a bench verdict.  

• Representing a partner in the iconic Utah restaurant La Caille in a breach of partnership and fiduciary duty case, obtaining a $4.7 million unanimous verdict from a Salt Lake County jury. 

• Obtaining complete dismissal of over $27 million in claims against a client, after a confidential two-week arbitration held in New York City. 

• As co-counsel with Magleby Cataxinos & Greenwood partner Peggy A. Tomsic in a more than five-week jury trial, in which the firm won a unanimous verdict of over $133 million for the firm's clients in a theft of trade secret, breach of Confidentiality Agreement, and breach of fiduciary duty case. The jury verdict was affirmed by the Utah Supreme Court in May 2016. 

• Securing a settlement of $45 million for Utah-based ClearOne, Inc. against investment bank UBS Financial Services, Inc. after a two-week arbitration before a three-member panel, but before a decision.

• Representing clients in a five-week bench trial against the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).  Prior to trial, the firm succeeded in having the FTC’s damages claims reduced from over $20 million to less than $9 million.

• Obtaining an award of over $9.5 million in a Lanham Act, false advertising case including claims for the deceptive manipulation of Amazon product reviews, after a four-week video bench trail in the Summer of 2020 during the pandemic.  The award will be augmented by millions of dollars in prejudgment interest and attorney fees.

• Obtaining dismissal on motions to dismiss or summary judgment of claims against firm clients.

• Over $100 million recovered through confidential settlements.

Prior to forming Magleby & Greenwood, P.C., the predecessor firm to Magleby Cataxinos & Greenwood, Mr. Magleby worked for a number of Utah's premier law firms, including Burbidge & Mitchell; Jones Waldo Holbrook & McDonough; Berman, Tomsic & Savage, and Ballard Spahr.

Mr. Magleby is A/V rated by Martindale Hubble, the highest rating available for an attorney. Mr. Magleby has been consistently voted by his peers throughout the state as one of Utah's "Legal Elite" every year for more than a decade, as published in Utah Business Magazine.

Mr. Magleby was included on the list of Mountain States Super LawyersTM every year since 2007, an honor given to only the top 5% of attorneys practicing in the Mountain States. Mr. Magleby has been listed in the Mountain States Top 75 and Mountain States Top 100, as one of the top 75 or top 100 lawyers in all of Nevada, Utah, Montana, Idaho and Wyoming.

Mr. Magleby has been listed in Best Lawyers® in the areas of Commercial Litigation, Litigation – Intellectual Property, and Litigation - Real Estate, for several years running.  Mr. Magleby is ranked in Benchmark Litigation in the areas of Intellectual Property Litigation and Commercial Litigation.  

Mr. Magleby has been ranked in Chambers USA - America's Leading Lawyers for Business, in the area of commercial litigation, since 2010. Beginning in 2017, Mr. Magleby has been ranked in Band 1, the highest rating available, and which includes only five lawyers in the entire state in 2020. (The Magleby Cataxinos & Greenwood firm has been listed in Chambers USA - America's Leading Lawyers for Business, as a top-tier law firm for Litigation: General Commercial, since 2011).

Mr. Magleby has published several articles, including Hospital Mergers and Antitrust Policy; Arguments Against a Modification of Current Antitrust Law, 21 Antitrust Bulletin 137 (1996), The Constitutionality of Utah's Medical Malpractice Damages Cap Under the Utah Constitution, 21 J. Contemporary Law 217 (1995), and The Recovery of Attorney Fees in Utah: A Procedural Primer for Practitioners, Utah Bar Journal, (Dec. 1996 - Jan. 1997). He also co-authored Justices of the Utah Supreme Court 1896-1996 (Quality Press 1997).

Mr. Magleby graduated with Honors from Swarthmore College (B.A. 1989) and the University of Utah Law School (J.D. 1995) where he was inducted into the Order of the Coif. He clerked for the Honorable Pamela T. Greenwood of the Utah Court of Appeals from September 1995 to September 1996.