Des Hogan of Hogan Lovells.

Welcome another edition of our Litigation Leaders series. Meet Des Hogan, who took over earlier this year as the Head of Litigation for the Americas for Hogan Lovells.

Based in Washington, D.C., he continues to practice full-time as a class action lawyer who focuses on MDLs and other large cases in the life sciences, cyber security, technology, and food spaces. Hogan also has a separate expertise in representing companies and executives who are called to testify by congressional committees.

Lit Daily: Tell us a little about yourself—beyond what's in your law firm bio.

Des Hogan: I am passionate about youth sports because they are a mixture of pure joy, a few tears, and innumerable life lessons about resilience. Some of my best moments have been coaching my daughter and son on the basketball court, baseball field, and soccer pitch.

And, in the thrill of my son's life (and mine too), our team won the D.C. Little League championship and we ended up playing several games in the Little League World Series Tournament that was televised on ESPN. Back here at the firm, it was broadcasted on TVs where my colleagues watched in a conference room and cheered along for my crew of kids.

How big is your litigation department and where are most of your litigators concentrated geographically?

Worldwide we have approximately 800 lawyers in our practice. Focusing solely on the United States, we have more than 350 attorneys and about 75 other professionals who support the practice. We have significant litigation presence in all 14 of our offices, but by pure numbers the offices with the largest contingent are D.C., New York, Boston, Miami, and L.A.

In what three areas of litigation do you have the deepest bench? (I know it's tempting to list more, but please just name three.)

Has anybody ever started the answer to this question without saying "It is impossible to limit this to just three"? Because that pat answer reflects exactly how I feel.

But in respect to your premise, I give a nod to: (1) our class action bench that, for the two-plus decades I have been at the firm, has been involved in the biggest consumer, life sciences, automotive, products, and antitrust class actions in the country; (2) our unparalleled appellate group that argues multiple cases every year in every circuit, many state high courts, and the U.S. Supreme Court; and (3) our privacy and cybersecurity litigation team, which we have built from scratch over the course of the past decade, and handles the most high-profile data breach and privacy-related matters for house-hold name clients every day.

As head of the department, what are some of your goals or priorities?

Three immediately come to mind. First, we want the entire market to recognize what our clients already know: We are a powerhouse litigation practice that is fiercely effective in both the courtroom and boardroom at protecting our clients' interest. We do this by charting winning litigation strategies with specialized knowledge of the regulatory landscape and industry sectors in which our clients must operate.

Second, we want to continue our long history of being a leader in diversity, putting concrete steps in place to ensure that our litigation teams reflect the diversity of the country.

Third, we want to continue to bring our practice—which spans Boston to LA, Miami to San Francisco and many spots in between—closer together so that the lawyers with the best expertise are handling our clients' most important matters, regardless of their home office.

What do you see as hallmarks of your firm's litigators? What makes you different?

Our litigation team is comprised of extraordinarily talented lawyers who can handle complex cases that pose existential threats to our clients' business plans. What sets us apart is our willingness to go the distance, and try a case to verdict, if that's in our client's best interest. We of course make reasonable judgements about when to fight, and when not to. But we are not afraid to go for the win in court, vigorously, and we succeed regularly. Not every law firm out there has the in-court track record that we do.

Another reason we are so effective is our comprehensive understanding of our clients' business—and the issues that keep them up at night. That comes from having litigators who have significant industry sector expertise and have spent decades in the trenches with clients. But it also comes from our consistent practice of partnering with our regulatory lawyers to get the best outcomes for our clients. In this way, we are able to provide litigation strategy that helps our clients win the case and positions them best to continue to ski between the gates of the governmental rules and agency scrutiny.

This approach helps us keep our eye on what is important: Winning the matter at hand, but doing so in a manner that recognizes the risks, business environment, and competitive pressures our clients face in the market and the need to keep maintain continuity of operations and profitability.

How many lateral litigation partners have you hired in the last 12 months? What do you look for in lateral hires?

In the past year, we added two partners to our practice in the States via lateral recruiting, Chris Cox in Silicon Valley and Ann Kim in Los Angeles, both of whom have substantially strengthened the depth of our offerings in California.

This is coming off a two-year period in which we had added significant pieces in Boston and New York and we have been focused on the hard and exhilarating work of integrating all of those lawyers into our larger practice.

But today, as we assess a market that presents significant recruiting opportunities for us, we are looking for the obvious: groups of partners who have large, sticky client relationships; and the intangible: people who are willing to do the work of getting to know our partners and clients, which means getting on planes, going to other offices, visiting our clients, and multiplying their practices using the incredible network of client relationships that exist in our litigation, regulatory and corporate groups.

What were some of your firm's biggest in-court wins in the past year?

There are quite a few from which to choose, but here are a few:

We won a jury verdict on all claims in a nearly $400 million jury trial for Orbital ATK, defeating claims for breach of contract and tortious interference brought by U.S. Space LLC over the dissolution of a joint venture created by Orbital ATK and U.S. Space to market Orbital ATK's new spacecraft, the MEV.

We secured a major Supreme Court victory for Epic Systems and Murphy Oil Company in a landmark case preserving the right of employers to enter into individualized arbitration agreements with their employees. In the case, the court decisively rejected the assertion that class action waivers are forbidden by the National Labor Relations Act.

After seven years of hard-fought litigation–including numerous fact and expert depositions in the U.S. and Korea–we have achieved massive victories for Hyundai in securing the denial of class action certification in two cases related to alleged brake defects, and also established a precedent that is crucial to counterbalance several recent decisions that have answered similar issues in favor of the plaintiffs.

Following an extensive trial, as well as preliminary injunction proceedings, we won a permanent injunction preventing the U.S. Department of Justice from withholding formula grant funding from the City of Philadelphia because of the city's efforts to protect immigrants through so-called "Sanctuary City" policies.

Can you give an example or two of tactics that exemplify your firm's approach to litigating cases?

When we are defending, we commit to finding the best path, even if it is not the standard path, to extinguish cases early so our clients can avoid the expense and distraction of time-consuming litigation.

Case in point, recently for a major technology company we opposed the normal course of most MDLs, which has plaintiffs filing a consolidated amended complaint that lumps together claims of dozens of lawsuits. We opposed this well-worn path because we knew that the threshold flaws in the underlying class actions would be best exposed if defendants had the space in individual briefs to detail plaintiffs' lack of standing, the application of arbitration provisions, and other legal flaws in the cases.

It paid off. The court denied leave to allow the filing of a consolidated amended complaint and ordered "bellwether" filings of motions to dismiss and to compel arbitration. And in every one of those many bellwethers we have briefed, the court has ruled for our client, granting our threshold, dispositive motions before any discovery commenced.

Where are you looking to build or expand in the next year?

Since entering my new role earlier this year, we have been looking hard at changing the old model that most firms have followed, ours included, which is to fill gaps. Instead, we are now focused on building further on our strengths.

So, for example, we will look to further build out practices—both through advancement and recruitment—that historically have been our most successful and we would like to add to our depth in major markets such as D.C., New York, and California. We have deep client relationships, a focused leadership team, and wonderful culture that makes us an attractive destination.

See our prior Litigation Leaders profiles:

Sullivan & Cromwell's Sharon Nelles on Big Personalities, Mutual Respect and Associate Development

Covington's John Hall on Plaintiffs-Side Work, Partner Promotions and the 'Plus Factor'

Quinn Emanuel's Diane Doolittle on Show Jumping, Street Smarts and Bet-the-Company Cases

Cleary's David Brodsky on Lockstep Compensation, Latin America and Lateral Hires

Skadden's David Zornow on Top Talent, 'Walking Through Walls for Clients' and Joe Flom's Legacy

Wilmer's Howard Shapiro on 'Classic Trial Lawyering,' Suing the Government and Lateral All-Stars

Morgan Lewis' Gordon Cooney on Crisis Management, Data Analytics and the Importance of Teamwork

Kirkland's Mark Filip on Lateral Hiring, 'Perry Mason' Moments and Training the Next Generation

Cooley's Mike Attanasio on Strategy, Lateral Hires and Training New Trial Lawyers