Our runners up for Litigator of the Week include Tom Clare, Libby Locke and Megan Meier of Clare Locke, who won a $26 million jury award in a defamation case in the Eastern District of North Carolina. They represented pharma pioneer Dr. Fred Eshelman, who was embroiled in an ugly proxy fight with Puma Biotechnology and its CEO. The jurors found Puma smeared Eshelman, falsely accusing him of being fired from his position as CEO of Pharmaceutical Product Development after being involved in clinical trial fraud.

We were also impressed by a team from Reed Smith led by Louis Solomon, who sealed a pro bono win on behalf of Congregation Shearith Israel when the U.S. Supreme Court denied a cert petition by Congregation Jeshuath Israel. The two congregations were fighting over who was the rightful trustee of oldest synagogue in the United States and its historic silver finial bells, or Rimonim.

Solomon lost at the district court level—and we gave the LOTW crown to opposing counsel Gary Naftalis of Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel in 2016 for the win. But Solomon and his team prevailed on appeal before the First Circuit, allowing his client to retain its historic role with regard to the Touro Synagogue.