The American Lawyer celebrated the profession's finest and the magazine's 40th anniversary Wednesday night at the second annual American Lawyer Industry Awards in New York City.

Joanna Litt, who kickstarted a national conversation on the industry's mental health crisis, was named Attorney of the Year, and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison was honored as the Law Firm of the Year. Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher took home the award for Litigation Department of the Year.

Mary Jo White of Debevoise & Plimpton, one of the Lifetime Achievement honorees, spoke poignantly about the meaning of the award.

"A lifetime of achievements in the law can mean a lot of things, but they really don't count much if we forget our role as citizens and ethical keepers of the rule-of-law flame," she said. "It is up to each of us to figure out our own best way of both practicing law and fulfilling our broader obligations throughout our lives as lawyers."

Lifetime Achievement honorees Shira Scheindlin of Stroock & Stroock & Lavan and Stephen Zack of Boies Schiller Flexner both stressed the importance of civility in the profession during speeches to the packed crowd.

"Being an advocate does not mean disrespecting others' opinions, even if we disagree," Zack said. "We may be in a war of ideas, but we cannot be in a war with each other."

Litt found the strength to turn a personal tragedy into a clarion call for improving the well-being of the legal profession. A former practicing lawyer herself, she lost her husband, Gabe MacConaill, a lawyer in Big Law, to suicide in October 2018. A month later, she bravely penned an open letter calling for the industry to come to terms with the tougher side of the profession and what it can do to its members. In doing so, she changed the conversation around mental health in the law.

Paul Weiss not only had a strong year financially, but it evolved as a firm. Its practice offerings across litigation and corporate met the changing needs of its clients. Its pro bono commitment was all-encompassing, spanning all of the core issues currently facing our society. The firm added new star talent and service offerings. And it turned an outcry over its new partner class into an opportunity to focus on diversity.

Gibson Dunn's litigation department helped CNN's Jim Acosta get his White House press credential reinstated, won a U.S. Supreme Court separation-of-powers decision, persuaded the high court to strike down a federal sports-betting ban, and played a major part in pushing the AT&T-Time Warner merger through, among other accomplishments.

The American Lawyer previously announced its Lifetime Achievement honorees: Steven Brill of Newsguard; Elizabeth Cabraser of Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein; William Lee of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr; Scheindlin; White; and Zack. Bradford Malt of Ropes & Gray was honored as the Distinguished Law Firm Leader.

The rest of the winners announced on the big night include:

Litigation Departments of the Year

Litigator of the Year, Grand Prize: Theodore Boutrous Jr. of Gibson Dunn was at the center of some of the nation's most closely watched cases on the First Amendment, the rule of law, privacy and more.

Products Liability: Covington & Burling helped close out thousands of cases against its clients in several pharmaceutical MDLs, and earned great results in bellwether trials, often clarifying products liability law in several jurisdictions along the way.

Intellectual Property: Morgan, Lewis & Bockius has the depth and resourcefulness to bring home outstanding results, whether that means grinding through a years-long post-trial motions and appeals process, sprinting to a jury verdict or playing multidimensional chess across five different forums.

White-Collar/Regulatory: Whether it was helping Tesla and the Philadelphia 76ers deal with problematic tweets, leading the global defense to an auto maker CEO's arrest, representing pharmaceutical executives in the opioid crisis or shepherding an energy company through climate change lawsuits, Paul Weiss was at the ready.

Specialty/Boutique: Susman Godfrey secured a $700 million verdict for HouseCanary in a fraud and breach of contract case, defended Uber in its battle with Waymo, earned a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a price-fixing case and helped overturn the unconstitutional bail system used in Harris County, Texas, the third-largest county in the country.

Regional Litigation Departments of the Year

California: O'Melveny & Myers' California team had an impact across the country, as it helped beat an antitrust challenge to the AT&T-Time Warner merger; secured an early win in the Johnson & Johnson opioid litigation; and set a new standard in the U.S. Supreme Court on the statute of limitations for securities class actions.

Florida: From the Florida Supreme Court to the U.S. Supreme Court and at stops in between, Greenberg Traurig successfully argued matters ranging from constitutional challenges to class certifications and requirements for expert testimony.

Georgia: King & Spalding guided Equifax through one of the largest consumer data breaches in history, handled the tobacco litigation still pending in Florida for R.J. Reynolds, and secured a summary judgment win in a $200 million fraud case for Highstar Capital Fund.

New Jersey: Whether it was a memorabilia fraud suit on behalf of the New York Giants, an investor's challenge on behalf of Campbell's Soup or helping change the standard for expert testimony in New Jersey courts, McCarter & English led clients to significant victories in the Garden State.

Pennsylvania: Hogan Lovells' growth into new practice areas in the Philadelphia area is paying off as it brings in big wins for clients in a variety of matters, including the firm's work on behalf of the city in the high-profile sanctuary city case that ultimately allowed Philadelphia to go against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's policy on undocumented immigrants.

Texas: Baker Botts helped overturn an $8 billion punitive damages award against JPMorgan Chase in a dispute arising from the alleged mishandling of the estate of American Airlines executive Max Hopper. The firm also won two unanimous Texas Supreme Court rulings regarding Houston's effort to avoid its statutory pension obligations to city employees.

The American Lawyer Industry Awards

Tony Mauro Media Lawyer Awards: The CNN legal department sued the Trump administration to reinstate reporter Jim Acosta's press credential, and through Freedom of Information Act requests shook loose hundreds of documents related to the Comey memos as well as FBI transcripts referenced in the Mueller report. Laura Prather of Haynes & Boone gathered a coalition of more than 600 members to help preserve Texas' anti-SLAPP law.

Best Legal Services Innovation: Reed Smith has shown a commitment to innovation through nearly every aspect of its operations, investing heavily in processes, technology and talent development, all with an eye toward finding smarter ways to deliver the best legal services to its clients.

Best Business Team: Goodwin Procter overhauled its global operations team, working with clients to understand their needs and deliver, with initiatives including best practice panels, operational and technology support, and shared risk/reward investment with clients.

Best Client/Law Firm Team: Reed Smith and Eisai worked together to help the firm's business professionals and lawyers identify a need and solve a problem with the client's contract management process. The firm saved the client money by creating the technology itself and cut the contract review time in half.

Best Use of Technology: Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe has a team dedicated to developing, testing and implementing new technology, and launched tools that analyze data to create early warning systems, inform strategy, track trends, price work, automate project management and train artificial intelligence—all to better support the firm's lawyers and clients

Best Alternative Legal Service Provider: Elevate has worked to modernize the provision of legal services, focusing not just on cost-cutting but on consulting, providing legal services, implementing technology and much more. It has become an extension of the clients it serves, allowing them to operate at higher levels.

Best Mentor⁠—Law Firm: Natalie Pierce of Littler Mendelson is a first-generation American who understands the need for strong mentors. She has helped her firm institute a number of diversity and inclusion initiatives, including one that pairs diverse attorneys with both senior firm mentors and client mentors.

Best Mentor⁠—In-House: Through a secondment program founded by Daniel Weintraub of Audax Group, dozens of attorneys across Big Law have been the beneficiary of his mentorship and expressed the significant impact he has had on their careers.

Global Legal Awards

Finance: Hundreds of lawyers around the world, along with more than a quarter of the world's largest banks, came together to aid Seadrill Ltd. in its multibillion-dollar restructuring forced by falling oil prices, in what became the largest such restructuring ever in the sector.

Litigation/Dispute Resolution: With more than $9 billion at stake, Chevron and Texaco's arbitration battle with the Republic of Ecuador was one of the largest international arbitrations in history. The team of lawyers helped avoid global disruption and preserve the defendants' reputation.

M&A: It turns out, bringing Mickey Mouse and Bart Simpson under one roof is an exceedingly complicated task. Walt Disney Co.'s $71.3 billion acquisition of Twenty-First Century Fox included competing bids, spinoffs and financings, and required some of the top legal talent in the world to get the job done.

Pro Bono: Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson's work to obtain citizenship for foreign national U.S. Army reservists has helped thousands of individuals earn an expedited path to citizenship upon enlistment. The firm fought to enforce a government program that was not being uniformly applied.

Corporate Counsel Awards

Best Legal Department: When Eric Dinallo became GC of the Guardian Life Insurance Co. of America just over 18 months ago, two of the things he wanted to do were manage the legal department more like a business and have a "strategy partner for diversity." And his legal department did just that, all while embracing the company mantra to "do the right thing."

It's not every year that a company's top lawyer and team plays a role in taking on the U.S. president. And wins. Twice. But David McAtee and the legal team at AT&T secured a once-in-a-career victory when a federal judge cleared the company's acquisition of Time Warner. They also secured an injunction requiring the White House to restore the press credentials of CNN chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta.

Compliance Department of the Year: The legal team at eBay has a recipe for meeting new compliance challenges while improving existing processes and saving time and money: teamwork and technology. Kara Ricupero, eBay's senior director of global information governance, helped lead the implementation of new AI tools to review documents for litigation and M&A while catching bad actors on the company's site more quickly.

Best Use of Technology: Following the financial crisis, in-house attorneys in commercial banking had to wear two hats: one of their particular specialty and another that let executives know they could navigate through regulations. Now these same attorneys must put on an innovation cap. In 2018, U.S. Bank began to launch new products and James Chosy, U.S. Bank's GC and the law division realized it needed to educate itself to help the bank's initiatives. And that was just the beginning.

Startup GC of the Year: When Natalie Grunfeld Furman was contemplating her next career move, people told her to consider the cryptocurrency industry. Her first impression was, "This is a market that no respectable lawyer should be involved with." Well, looking back, she thinks that might have been a bit of a harsh assessment. As the GC of startup blockchain-alternative firm Hedera Hashgraph, she has grown the legal department and steered the company through major fundraising efforts.

General Counsel of the Year: Anat Hakim of WellCare immigrated to the U.S. from Israel when she was 7 years old. Her humble beginnings shaped her belief in hard work. Since arriving at WellCare in 2016, her department has led the company through five acquisitions, including WellCare's purchase of Meridian in 2018, the largest acquisition in the company's history. The acquisitions have added over $6.5 billion in revenue.