Our runners up for Litigator of the Week include a team from O'Melveny & Myers for their work on behalf of pro bono client Oscar Flores.

Arrested as part of a “takedown” of an East L.A. street gang called Big Hazard, Flores spent more than four years in prison awaiting trial for charges including RICO conspiracy, drug trafficking, firearms trafficking and extortion.

Retired O'Melveny partner Chuck Diamond was appointed to represent Flores, working as part of the firm's post-retirement pro bono program designed to provide current O'Melveny attorneys with trial experience and mentoring. Diamond assembled a team of firm partners and associates to help defend Flores including David Kirman,  Melody Drummond Hansen, Marisa Tashman and Katie Gosewehr. After a two-week trial, the jury took less than an hour to find Flores not guilty on all charges.

Honorable mention also goes to Jones Walker attorneys Michael Magner and T.C. Wicker IV, who scored a complete acquittal for Captain Vjaceslavs Birzakovs, master of the oil tanker Ridgebury Alexandra Z.

Federal prosecutors accused the Russian captain of six criminal counts of federal pollution and obstruction of justice related to a Coast Guard investigation. Following a four-day trial in the Western District of Louisiana, a federal jury found Birzakovs not guilty on all charges, leaving him free to return to Russia.