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Max Twine didn’t set out to be a lawyer, though from an early age he displayed some telltale signs of a future litigator.
“I was one of those smart-alecky kids who was always in an argument,” recounts Twine, currently a director and associate general counsel of litigation for Shopify. “Now that I’m a parent, I have a different perspective on that. My daughter is so much like me and I think, ‘My poor parents.’ But I grew up with people telling me I was going to be a lawyer.”
Despite others’ predictions, Twine didn’t initially pursue law. After a childhood shuttling between Maine and Los Angeles to spend time with his mother, a teacher, and his father, an artist, he studied philosophy at Tufts University. At the time, his passion was politics.
“I had the incredibly good fortune to intern for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in 2004, just as he was becoming a national star in the Democratic party,” Twine enthuses. “That was my first love, and I did work in politics for a few years after college.”
But Twine became disillusioned with politics when he realized that not all politicians are on the Barack Obama level.
“Most of them you have to settle for less. You’re not working in Chicago or meeting celebrities all the time. It’s much more drudgery and less sexy,” he recalls. “They’re paying you peanuts, you’re moving around all the time, and politics is full of backstabbing people.”
In 2006, Twine decided to give law school a try. He graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law in 2011.
“I have always been interested in ideas,” Twine says. “Everything was pushing me toward litigation.”
Twine began his legal career with McCarter & English, followed by a federal clerkship and six years at a boutique litigation firm. In 2019, he shifted to in-house roles, becoming litigation counsel for Ripple, then for Zendesk two years later.
“I love being an in-house lawyer because I’m part of something that’s bigger than the practice of law,” he says. “At a law firm, the lawyers are the star of the show, but working in-house, we’re back-office people supporting a broader mission. Our job is to advise and empower the business and then step out of the way. I also don’t only talk to lawyers, which I enjoy.”
Plus, working in-house offers a different lifestyle. For instance, before joining Ripple in 2019, Twine had a big trial that required him to live in Delaware for a month, apart from his nine-month-old daughter at home.
“It was an amazing case. We won, and it was a big deal for me professionally,” Twine recalls. “But I realized I didn’t want to be at the top of the ladder, so I thought it would be best to change ladders and do in-house lawyering. I’ve been super happy ever since.”
In 2023, a former colleague from Zendesk had started working for Shopify and thought Twine would be ideal for an open position.
“It was pure happenstance,” Twine explains. “As you dig deeper into your career, your professional network grows, and openings come up. Like many people, I broadly understood what Shopify was—I had used Shop Pay before and was impressed with the product—but didn’t know a ton about the company.”
Twine quickly became interested in the role. He would have the increased responsibility of managing a bigger team, and his former colleague was enthusiastic about Shopify.
“I was lucky enough to have my résumé picked from the pile due to my connection,” Twine says. At the end of 2023, Twine received an offer from Shopify.
At Shopify, Twine oversees a wide variety of global disputes. “We have patent trolls nipping at our heels at all times,” he notes. Merchant disputes and consumer class action lawsuits also occupy much of his team’s time.
In the course of his varied work, Twine has worked with many outside counsel, including Moez Kaba, a managing partner at Hueston Hennigan. “Max has the unique combination of being both incredibly thoughtful and strategically aggressive,” Kaba says. “Max insists that we get to the right outcome but do so in the right way. Collaborating with Max is a joy and makes us all better lawyers.”
For the first time in his career, Twine is working for a company that fights patent trolls, which he calls “purely vessels for litigation.” He finds it satisfying to fight and win against them.
“We are prepared to take the long view economically, because we believe it’s important to protect the innovation, creativity, and hard work of our product development and engineering folks,” Twine explains. “When they sue us, we litigate with them, which has been fun to do. I’m not a highly technical person, but I am part of a team of smart people. It’s a mission-driven litigation practice, where we take the fight to the trolls and we win. We’ve had some great successes.”
Those successes include one that predates Twine. His team got a case voluntarily dismissed with no money paid and a reversal of a $40 million verdict against Spotify.
“Another area of success is in our consumer class actions,” Twine shares. “I’m involved in one now—a case called Briskin—which is the first case I have ever had get en banc treatment at the Ninth Circuit, because it’s a big one. Another recent dismissal is for a case called Baton. We’ve seen a lot of great wins.”
Reflecting on his career, Twine loves where he is, even as he has seen many old law school friends leave the law.
“I have no doubts at all that I will be a lawyer until the day I retire,” he says with a smile.
