Hastings & Hastings history

When Alan Barton joined Paul, Hastings in 1980, he became the firm's first attorney to specialize in venture capital transactions.

After receiving a J.D. from Harvard Law School, Suzuki joined Paul, Hastings as an associate and then in 1984 became a partner.

The first store to offer the three product categories, touted as the company's first "triple combo" unit, opened in 1985 in Amarillo's Wolfin Village Shopping Center.

He was a director and trustee of the American Bar Retirement Association for six years and served as its 1986--87 president.

A graduate of Boalt Hall law school, Barton was by the summer of 1987 heading up a team of venture capital attorneys, including seven at the downtown Los Angeles office, seven in Costa Mesa, and another seven in Santa Monica.

Beginning in 1988, he was named a regent of the American College of Tax Counsel that included about 500 of the nation's top tax lawyers, academics, and judges.

In that capacity, he helped found in 1989 the nonprofit American Tax Policy Institute.

In 1990 the firm met with a legal challenge of its own, when the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a civil lawsuit in the Manhattan federal court alleging that some Paul, Hastings personnel had sexually harassed three female employees in its New York office.

1991: Marmadukes Forge Agreement with Wal-Mart

Named in The Best Lawyers in America, Grossman in a 1992 survey in the National Law Journal was "widely acclaimed as the top employment lawyer representing management [in the United States],"

By the end of 1993, several months after Sam Marmaduke died of a massive heart attack, John Marmaduke decided not to renew his contract with Western Merchandisers and Wal-Mart.

Hastings cofounded Netflix in 1995, the same year he sold his first company, Pure Software, to Rational Software.

In February 1997 it started its San Francisco office by attracting key attorneys from other firms.

For the resources to implement his expansion plans, Marmaduke turned to Wall Street through an initial public offering (IPO) of stock in June 1998.

In May 1999, Hastings launched a new electronic-commerce Web site on the Internet featuring more than ten million new and used multimedia products.

He owns about 1% of Netflix, which went public in 2002.

Netflix originally operated as a DVD subscription service, but began streaming content in 2007.

Hastings made a rare misstep in 2011 when Netflix announced that it would increase rental prices and split the company in two, with the DVD service rebranded as Qwikster.

Its first such offering was the episodic drama series House of Cards, which debuted in 2013.