Pratt McGuire LLP v Dixon North, Inc

Last week, our firm filed a lawsuit against Dixon North, Inc., a private AI consulting company based in Palo Alto. The complaint, filed in San Francisco Superior Court, outlines what we believe to be a deliberate and bad faith attempt to exploit our legal services without honoring their end of the contract.

Let me be clear: this isn’t a billing squabble. This is about integrity.

The Facts

In May 2024, Dixon North retained our firm to represent them in an intricate intellectual property dispute. Over the course of seven months, our legal team provided:

• A comprehensive litigation roadmap

• Jurisdictional risk assessments

• Arbitration prep kits

• Custom discovery strategies tailored to the client’s business model

What did we get in return?

• Unpaid invoices totaling $315,000.
  Radio silence during critical junctures of litigation.
  And finally, proof—yes, metadata-level proof—that Dixon North took our protected work product and handed it off to a rival firm.

This wasn’t a misunderstanding. This was a maneuver.

Why This Matters

We’ve worked with some of the most complex organizations on the West Coast. We understand that legal matters can shift, business decisions pivot, and budgets tighten.

But what cannot happen—what we will not allow to happen—is for any client to treat our intellectual capital as disposable. Legal strategy is not a free sample. It is the product of experience, judgment, and—most importantly—trust.

When a company signs an engagement agreement with us, we show up 100%. We expect the same in return.