Any litigator knows a case can rise or fall on the testimony of an expert witness.

A New Jersey state judge made that abundantly clear when he skewered the plaintiffs' two experts in a long-running fight over the acne drug Accutane, banning their testimony and handing a huge win to Hoffman La Roche.

Represented by Covington & Burling's Michael Imbroscio and Paul Schmidt, the company faced more than 3,000 claims from people who said the drug gave them ulcerative colitis, a chronic, inflammatory bowel disease.