Jirgal, Tom
Thomas Jirgal is a commercial litigator and trial attorney whose national practice focuses on intellectual property, advertising and general litigation matters. He co-chairs Loeb & Loeb's Advertising Disputes practice group.
Mr. Jirgal has nearly twenty years of experience representing clients in the entertainment, communications, food, and financial services industries in cases involving copyright, trademark, trade secret, corporate espionage, false advertising, contract, fiduciary duty, defamation, invasion of privacy, employment, civil forfeiture, antitrust and unfair competition claims. He regularly represents clients in state and federal court, in private arbitration and before the Better Business Bureau's National Advertising Division. He also counsels clients on advertising matters, including the substantiation needed for advertising claims, and the management, licensing and protection of intellectual property rights.
The advertising disputes in which Mr. Jirgal is involved often turn on cutting-edge technological issues, and the effective presentation of complex testing and statistical analysis. As an essential part of his practice, Mr. Jirgal also regularly oversees the design and critique of consumer perception surveys that can be dispositive in an advertising dispute involving implied claims.
Van Dongen, Christine A.
Dr. Christine van Dongen is Associate Director of the Sensory and Consumer preference Group at R & D Minneapolis for Nestlé Health Science. Her academic training was in experimental psychology, philosophy of science, and human development. She has focused her career on measuring the human response to products, both food and non-food, for a range of companies. Her areas of focus are on delivering actionable research outputs to manage the risk in product innovation and renovation, developing new methods to measure sensory and hedonic responses to consumer products, statistics, research methods when humans provide the responses, and claims substantiation. Her almost 30-year career in consumer packaged goods companies is complemented by academic teaching. She has been active in professional organizations, including contribution to ASTM's standards on claims substantiation.
Mallen, David
David Mallen is partner and co-chair of advertising disputes at Loeb and Loeb LLP. He presently serves as Vice Chair of the American Bar Association's, Section on Antitrust Law, Advertising Disputes & Litigation Committee.
In his capacity at Loeb and Loeb, Mr. Mallen offers guidance to marketers from a variety of industries in connection with national advertising campaigns, analysis of claim substantiation issues, and resolution of advertising disputes. He has specialized experience in industry sectors of food and beverages, cosmetics, OTC drugs, telecommunication services, consumer household products dietary supplements, and information technology.
Mr. Mallen is a popular speaker at conferences and workshops on advertising claim substantiation, U.S. standards for industry self-regulation, advertising in social media, sustainability and green marketing, and scientific sensory testing. He is the co-author of the e-book How To Make Credible Green Marketing Claims. What Marketers Need to Know about The Updated FTC Green Guides.
