Last month, at The American Lawyer Industry Awards in New York, The American Lawyer honored the litigation departments of six law firms for their work in jurisdictions across the country: Connecticut, Georgia, Florida, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Texas.

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.

The following Q&A contains responses from the firm's litigation department:

How would you describe the philosophy of your litigation department in terms of the types of matters you look to handle, the types of clients you look to represent and the way in which you approach cases?

Clients in a wide array of industries turn to McCarter & English's litigation team to handle their complex matters because we take the time to listen to them and really understand their businesses so that our litigation strategy is consistent with their overall business goals. We are guided by the firm's client-centric philosophy, efficiently handling matters so clients can get back to running their businesses as quickly as possible. We don't add unnecessary steps to already contentious situations; rather, we pride ourselves on maintaining professional excellence in all phases of a case. We are focused on building long-term relationships with each client, and that happens by having a solid understanding of their individual needs during the process and maintaining responsive and open communication throughout.

What cases in this submission period best represent that philosophy and what did the firm's litigators do to get the client a successful result in those matters?

The matters listed below offer just a few examples of the zealous advocacy, extensive experience, and creative problem-solving that have enabled us to resolve our clients' pressing legal issues as effectively and expeditiously as possible. By working collaboratively and understanding our clients' ultimate goals, we have achieved very favorable results.

We won major court rulings in high-profile battles involving Campbell Soup. Our litigators prevailed in a proxy fight with activist investor Third Point LLC, which sought to replace the company's entire board. Third Point sued Campbell in New Jersey state court, seeking to halt a shareholder vote until the company corrected purported deficiencies in its proxy materials. The judge denied that request, and Campbell and Third Point reached a favorable settlement of the case three days before the anticipated vote.

In another high-stakes dispute, we reached a confidential settlement on the brink of trial in a New Jersey state court litigation alleging a wide-ranging conspiracy among members of the New York Giants organization to defraud memorabilia collectors by creating fake "game-worn" helmets and jerseys. We secured the dismissal, with prejudice, of nearly all of the 18 claims asserted against our clients, positioning them for an extremely favorable settlement that resolved the plaintiffs' few surviving causes of action.

Our significant appellate victories on behalf of Hennessy Industries were recently cemented by the Illinois Supreme Court's denial of the insurers' petition for leave to appeal in a long-running litigation involving hundreds of millions of dollars in coverage from the client's umbrella and excess liability insurers for losses arising from thousands of underlying asbestos bodily injury lawsuits. The appellate wins, which addressed "number of occurrence" and "non-cumulation clause" issues, preserved Hennessy's insurance limits and positioned us well to obtain the full amount of recovery to which our client was entitled.

We represented multiple international oil, gas, energy, and related companies in the nationally publicized environmental bankruptcy proceeding of Maxus Energy Corporation et al. Faced with hundreds of millions of dollars of environmental and indemnity claims related to pollution at Superfund sites, including the Passaic River in New Jersey, the debtor and its affiliates filed for bankruptcy. The debtors are alleged alter-egos of YPF SA, Argentina's state-run oil company, and hold oil and gas interests in the United States. Among the debtors is Tierra Solutions, Inc., which conducts remediation services at environmental legacy sites across the nation. The representation included objections to a proposed $130 million settlement with YPF related to alter-ego claims. Ultimately, the court approved favorable releases for past-due costs for our clients and a Chapter 11 Plan of Liquidation, which preserves litigation claims against YPF.

How has the legal landscape in New Jersey evolved and how has the firm looked to adapt?

New Jersey has historically been a hotbed of litigation against corporate defendants—particularly pharmaceutical and medical technology companies—largely because of its large concentration of corporate headquarters. Recently, the legal landscape has become friendlier to corporate defendants, particularly since the New Jersey Supreme Court heightened the requirements for admissibility of expert testimony by adopting the Daubert factor–based approach as advocated by McCarter and its amici clients. Indeed, our litigation team represented the state's three largest trade associations and successfully argued before the Supreme Court as amici curiae in the court's landmark decision on expert admissibility—In re Accutane.

What are you doing to attract, train, and retain new talent in the litigation department?

We are always looking to grow and support our diverse team of lawyers because we know our clients benefit from having a team that can offer different approaches and perspectives. Our culture, reputation, and sophisticated work have enabled us to attract the best of the best—lawyers with tremendous work ethic and intellectual ability who also fit within our collaborative and down-to-earth culture. We reward lawyers who work as a team and those who go above and beyond for their clients, and we are fortunate that our group is mostly homegrown. Because we are dedicated to the professional development of our lawyers, we can promote from within. Most of our litigators have been with McCarter for many years, and many have spent their entire careers here. This collective mindset and commitment to hiring for the long term enables us to assemble consistent, dedicated teams that work well together, ensuring the best possible results for our clients.

How does pro bono work factor into the litigation department's mission?

Our commitment to pro bono is the same across all departments, and the tens of thousands of hours that we dedicate each year to pro bono work reflect our lawyers' tenacity and zealous advocacy for our pro bono clients. Our Litigation department has led the way in taking on incredibly challenging cases, many lasting for years. We were honored to have received the American Bar Association's 2019 Pro Bono Publico Award, a testament to our lawyers' exceptional commitment to helping marginalized people gain access to justice.

In New Jersey specifically, our lawyers have long engaged in pro bono representation of the most marginalized, including low-income families facing eviction, adults and children seeking safety in the United States, veterans in need of assistance, and victims of domestic violence. This past year, we hired Abdul Rehman Khan, our Pro Bono Fellow for the City of Newark. Abdul Rehman is a full-time attorney dedicated to assisting the overwhelming number of low-income families facing eviction without access to counsel, including at the systemic reform level.

For well over a decade, our NJ lawyers have represented people seeking asylum and other forms of relief from removal, including those held in immigration detention. We represent individual clients at all levels of the immigration system, including federal appeals. Building on our deep roots in this area, we sent three teams of partners to rural Georgia for a week to work with the Southern Poverty Law Center to serve people held in remote immigration detention facilities. Using the lessons we learned from that experience and all of our other work with people held in immigration detention, we have begun exploring innovative ways to provide services to as many people in immigration detention as possible in our footprint.

Lawyers across all our offices are also honored to represent veterans in their disability claims and appeals, helping to break the cycle of chronic homelessness among veterans.