More on “Bulldog Law”

“Counsel for Defendant Bulldog Law, P.C. (‘Defendant’) have disobeyed virtually every order entered in this case since they substituted in as counsel in mid-2025.”  Batta Fulkerson, LLP v. Bulldog Law, P.C., 2026 WL 2644053 (S.D. Cal. Sep. 8, 2026).

The Bulldog court recited that it had issued four show cause orders and: “The July 20 Order gave Defendant one final opportunity to correct several of its deficiencies in complying with discovery. Despite the Court spelling out every step Defendant needed to take to correct its deficiencies, Defendant still failed to comply with the Court’s order.”  Id.

As to one of its orders, the court wrote: “To conceal their failures, rather than admitting their deficiencies, Defendant and its counsel made misrepresentations to the Court.”  Id. That led to another show cause process. However, the court wrote: “Defendant and defense counsel’s responses were not sufficient, and they continued the pattern of misrepresentations to the Court.”  Id.

The Bulldog court imposed monetary sanctions based on “lack of candor to the Court,” referred one attorney to the court’s Standing Committee on Discipline, awarded attorney’s fees, and recommended an adverse jury instruction. Id.

I wrote about a prior decision in this case in “Bulldog Attorneys” v. “Bulldog Law” – Sanctions Granted in Part; Denied Without Prejudice in Part (Mar. 12, 2026)(“The law firm of Batta Fulkerson, LLP, sued Bulldog Law, PC, over use of its registered mark, ‘Bulldog Attorneys.’”).

The recent decision describes the dispute over the phrase “BULLDOG ATTORNEYS.”  2026 WL 2644053, at *1-2.

Suffice it to say that plaintiff alleges that it “has advertised as ‘the bulldog lawyers’ since the firm’s inception in 2016” and that it has registered the mark.  Id. at *1.  Plaintiff also alleges that Defendant was formed in 2022 and “commenced operation as a law firm under the name, BULLDOG LAW at some point thereafter.” Id. at *2.

Defendant asserts that its use of “BULLDOG LAW” is not infringing for various reasons. Id.  “Defendant also alleges ‘Plaintiff’s attempt to police the legal profession for uses of the term ‘Bulldog,’’  constitutes unfair business acts and practices.” Id.

The Bulldog court wrote:

As of the date of this Order, it appears Defendant has now, finally, served a complete verified response to the Revised Interrogatories that were first served well over a year ago. This compliance required the issuance of two Orders to Show Cause, the filing of two motions for sanctions, multiple Discovery Conferences and orders, and the appointment of a special master. Despite Defendant finally providing a response to the Revised Interrogatories that complies with the Court’s orders, Plaintiff has not, however, received any intake call recordings, intake call transcripts (except for one call transcript), or intake call notes or summaries—all of which potentially could have contained evidence of confusion.

This is largely due to Defendant’s failure to preserve ESI the timeline of which is as follows:

February 19, 2025 June 13, 2025 July 14, 2025 July 31, 2025 May 13, 2026 Plaintiff alerted the Defendant about the need to preserve ESI in a demand letter. Plaintiff served RFPs seeking ESI and other documents. Plaintiff served interrogatories requesting that communications be identified, which would have included ESI. David Precilla, the person responsible for administrative matters in Defendant’s office, testified during his deposition that he did not know what a “Litigation Hold” is, and that no special process was put in place to preserve evidence. During a conference call with the special master, Defendant’s counsel could not confirm whether ESI documents exist, were deleted, or never existed.

Id. at * 8 (emphasis added).

Considering that and other factors, the court found that Defendant “has acted with the requisite intent to deprive Plaintiff of the intake call recordings and that Plaintiff has been prejudiced by Defendant’s failure to preserve. Despite ample notice of its ongoing duty to retain the intake call recordings, Defendant is not currently doing so. Moreover, Defendant has not produced its call intake information in any format, thus prejudicing Plaintiff.”  Id. at *10.

The Bulldog court rejected terminating sanctions and found “that a jury instruction stating that Defendant failed to preserve intake call recordings during the pendency of this litigation despite its obligation to do so, and that the jury may infer that at least some of those recordings may have been unfavorable to Defendant, including as evidence of actual consumer confusion, is appropriate.”

As noted above, counsel were also sanctioned for violation of the duty of candor and for violation of a court order.

“Here, the Court finds that defense counsel violated their duty of candor to the Court. As set forth herein, the declarations filed by Mr. Tafur and Mr. Berwish in response to the Court’s Orders to Show Cause and the statements made by Mr. Tafur and Mr. Berwish at the Show Cause hearings are internally inconsistent and contain multiple misrepresentations to the Court.” Id. at *11.

Sanctions were also imposed for violating a court order.  “The Court gave Defendant and its counsel, which in this case are one and the same, the benefit of the doubt in the July 20 Order, giving Defendant a final opportunity to correct several of its discovery failures. However, Defendant once again failed to comply with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and with an order of this Court….  The Court emphasizes that this was not a one-off, unique event, but rather a pattern and practice in this case.”  Id. at *12.

Additionally, the court recommended that pro hac vice status of one attorney be revoked.

This blog was initially posted on  Electronic Discovery Reference Model.