These attorneys have been named finalists for The American Lawyer's Litigator of the Year award. The winner will be announced Wednesday evening at The American Lawyer's Industry Awards in New York.
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Jeroen van Kwawegen, Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann

It was a busy year for Jeroen van Kwawegen, as he oversaw 45 cases as head of Bernstein Litowitz’s corporate governance department. He also argued numerous dispositive motions, including lead plaintiff motions, motions to dismiss, motions of class certification, summary judgment motions, and post-trial arguments.

Van Kwawegen acted as co-lead trial counsel on a three-year suit to secure a governance trial victory in the Delaware Court of Chancery rescinding Elon Musk’s $55 billion Tesla compensation package.

In March of this year, he also helped secure a $350 million post-trial judgment against TC Energy in connection with the company’s acquisition of Columbia Pipeline Group. It was the largest shareholder verdict involving Revlon claims in history, and came on top of a $79 million settlement with individual defendants, according to the firm.

In late 2023, he also helped obtain a landmark $1 billion recovery in a securities class action against Wells Fargo—the top U.S. securities class action settlement of 2023.
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Beth Wilkinson, Wilkinson Stekloff

Beth Wilkinson secured a groundbreaking victory for Microsoft by defeating the Federal Trade Commission's motion for a preliminary injunction just four weeks after the FTC filed a complaint in federal court seeking to block Microsoft’s proposed $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Wilkinson also prevailed in opposing the FTC's request for stays of the district court’s ruling pending appeal, clearing the way for the deal to close. Wilkinson continues to represent Microsoft as the FTC challenges the merger through an administrative proceeding.

Wilkinson also represents the NFL, its 32 member teams, and NFL enterprises in a certified antitrust class action in which the plaintiffs challenge the NFL's multi billion-dollar exclusive distributorship arrangement with DIRECTV for Sunday Ticket, and the business arrangements whereby the NFL teams collectively license broadcast rights to NFL games. A $4.7 billion jury verdict from June was set aside by the district court in August.
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Gary Bornstein, Cravath, Swaine & Moore

As the first openly gay department head in Cravath's history, Gary Bornstein is making history in more than just his many trial victories.

In December 2023, Bornstein won a three-and-a-half-year battle with Google, in which his client, Epic Games, alleged that Google engaged in anti-competitive behavior in the distribution of mobile and in the handling of the in-app payments. He continues to represent Epic in post-trial proceedings.

Last year, Bornstein also led proceedings in similar anti-competitive claims against Apple, ultimately securing Epic a Ninth Circuit ruling affirming a nationwide permanent injunction.

Among other matters, he currently represents Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile’s controlling stockholder, in a putative class action and derivative litigation related to T Mobile's $26 billion merger with Sprint. He also represents British American Tobacco in putative class action securities litigation concerning the company’s $31.5 billion impairment charge.
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Justin Nelson, Susman Godfrey

Justin Nelson of Susan Godfrey served as co-lead counsel to Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former personal counsel and key witness in the Trump criminal trial, in his defamation lawsuit against One American News network (OAN) related to a March 2024 article about Cohen published on OAN. Nelson helped secure a victory in the defamation case, in which OAN made a public retraction.

Nelson also serves as co-lead counsel representing book authors suing OpenAI and Microsoft in a copyright class action lawsuit claiming that the companies used their works to train artificial intelligence models.

In 2023, Nelson also represented Dominion Voting Systems in its defamation litigation against Fox, culminating in a $787.5 million settlement.
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Kannon Shanmugam, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison

Kannon Shanmugam is credited with 10 appellate victories this year.

Shanmugam won a May 2024 victory for the NFL, compelling former Las Vegas Raiders coach Jon Gruden to arbitrate claims that the NFL allegedly leaked his racist, sexist and homophobic emails to the media. Reversing a lower court decision, a divided Nevada Supreme Court held that the NFL constitution’s arbitration provision survived the termination of Gruden’s employment, and that Gruden’s conduct was subject to the arbitration provision.

In late 2023, Shanmugam won a Ninth Circuit reversal of former U.S. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry’s criminal conviction on charges of making false statements to government agents. The court found the government's choice of California as the venue for the prosecution unconstitutional because the alleged misconduct took place elsewhere.

This year he helped Verizon resolve a case concerning the arbitration clause in its customer agreement and helped Align Technologies win summary judgment in a certified antitrust class action over the company’s alleged refusal to deal with a competitor.
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Tarek Ismail, Goldman Ismail Tomaselli Brennan & Baum

Tarek Ismail, a founding member of Goldman Ismail Tomaselli Brennan & Baum, is known for handling complex commercial cases for major corporations.

This year, he secured a defense verdict on behalf of Bayer/Monsanto in a case concerning Roundup weed killer's links to cancer. (Ismail had previously served as counsel in a Roundup trial in the Circuit Court of St. Louis County that ended in Nov. 2022 with a unanimous defense verdict).

In May of this year, the lawyer secured a complete defense verdict on behalf of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), with a jury finding GSK not liable for the plaintiff's cancer that the suit alleged was caused by taking discontinued heartburn drug Zantac.

Ismail is also scheduled to serve as lead or co-lead for the other upcoming Zantac trials.
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Jason Sheasby and Lisa Glasser, Irell & Manella

Over an 18-month period, Irell & Manella partners Jason Sheasby and Lisa Glasser have together won eight complex and high-stakes trials.

Sheasby and Glasser persuaded a jury to find Samsung infringed on patents related to the 5G standard for client G+ Communications. In January 2024, the jury found infringement of two patents and also rejected Samsung’s claim that G+ breached its obligation of good faith negotiation. In April they secured $142 million in patent damages, the full amount requested, in a retrial of the damages portion of the case.

Sheasby and Glasser also obtained victories for memory storage provider Netlist Inc. in three separate cases involving patent infringement and breach of contract issues. In May 2024, in a case concerning patents related to computer memory technology, a jury in the Eastern District of Texas found both asserted patents willfully infringed upon by Micron Technology Inc., ultimately leading to a $445 million in damages to NetList.

The verdict followed a May 17 trial victory for Netlist against Samsung in the Central District of California in an action to declare Samsung in material breach of contract regarding the supply of crucial NAND and DRAM memory products.