Our runners up for Litigator of the Week include Kirkland & Ellis partners Erin Murphy and Rick Godfrey, who drove home a victory for General Motors LLC before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

The three-judge panel unanimously held that "New GM" did not assume liability for punitive damages when it purchased most of the assets of General Motors Company ("Old GM") following Old GM's bankruptcy. Had the court gone the other way, it could have cost New GM millions or billions in nationwide litigation over defective ignition switches in 2.6 million older recalled cars, as well as all other accident cases involving Old GM vehicles in general.

Mintz Levin's Peter Biagetti scored a win for Wynn Resorts, which faced a billion-dollar claim by Sterling Suffolk Racecourse in a suit alleging RICO violations plus tortious interference with contract and business relations. Biagetti led a multi-firm team in getting the case, which was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, dismissed with prejudice for failure to state a claim.

Sidley Austin's Jim Ducayet, Duston McFaul and Andy O'Neill came through in a literal bet-the-company win for Legacy Reserves Inc. following a six-day trial before U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas. Over the objection of the Unsecured Creditors' Committee (represented by Brown Rudnick), the court approved Legacy's Chapter 11 Plan of Reorganization.

The result? About $1 billion of Legacy's debt will be eliminated and an infusion of $256.3 in new capital from backstopped equity commitments and a rights offering can proceed.

Baker Botts litigation partner Jonathan Shapiro prevailed at trial for client Grupo Flor—an outcome that proves newly-legal cannabis companies can win before a jury. After testimony by cannabis cultivators, manufacturers, distributors and industry experts and professionals, a jury in Monterey County, California rendered a verdict in favor of Grupo Flor in a dispute with its former landlord. 

Frank Scibilia, Benjamin Semel, Donald Zakarin and Mona Simonian of Pryor Cashman successfully represented the Mechanical Licensing Collective—a new licensing collective created by the Music Modernization Act to collect and distribute royalty payments from digital services to songwriters and publishers.

Music streaming services including Spotify and Apple agreed to pay $33.5 million to get the collective up and running, and then $28.5 million for the first year after the collective's formal launch in 2021.