Our runners up for Litigator of the Week include Hogan Lovells  (newly-elevated) counsel Tom Schmidt and associate Mitchell Reich for their work on two different cases.

Schmidt and partner Neal Katyal won a major patent appeal for Google in the Federal Circuit. Katyal, who had a looming Supreme Court argument, backed Schmidt (then an associate) to handle Google's mandamus appeal—and the client agreed. Their faith was well-placed. Schmidt convinced the appellate court that Google could not be subjected to suit in the Eastern District of Texas based on computer servers it owns there. The decision stands to set the legal framework governing venue in many patent cases going forward.

As for Reich, he's the newest member of an exclusive club—associates who have argued before the Supreme Court. Representing a bankrupt Colorado bank in a tax refund dispute, Reich led the effort to find the case and wrote the successful cert petition. After a lively oral argument, he succeeded in persuading the court to issue a 9-0 opinion striking down the so-called "Bob Richards" rule, a federal common law provision that deals with assigning ownership of tax refunds.

Latham & Watkins partner Gregory Garre, who heads the firm's appellate practice, scored a pair of wins this week. On Monday, he prevailed before the Fifth Circuit sitting en banc on behalf of Huntington Ingalls Industries in a closely-watched case testing the availability of federal removal in state court suits against federal contractors. 

Two days later, Garre came out on top in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in a case on remand from the U.S. Supreme Court. At issue: Can a private plaintiff sue a company for negligently violating Section 14(e) of the Securities Exchange Act? Representing Emulex Corp., Garre persuaded U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney to dismiss the case against his client with prejudice. 

At Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, Randy Mastro prevailed on behalf of Madison Square Garden in a high-profile dust-up with former basketball star Charles Oakley. 

When watching a Knicks game in 2017, Oakley was physically removed from the arena. Madison Square Garden said he was being disruptive, disturbed fans around him and then struck MSG security guards, ultimately leading to his arrest by NYPD officers.  

Oakley claimed his ejection was unprovoked and filed a 10-count civil lawsuit in the Southern District of New York against Knicks owner Jim Dolan and assorted MSG entities. Mastro succeeded in persuading U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan to dismiss the case without leave to amend.

Arnold & Porter's Matt Wolf, Jennifer Sklenar and David Barr secured a complete victory on behalf of Hologic Inc. and Grifols following a seven-day jury trial in Delaware federal court. 

BioMerieux S.A. sued Hologic and Grifols for infringing a patent related to HIV-1 detection technology, seeking $90 million in damages. The jury found that BioMerieux's patent was invalid based on a prior invention by Hologic's predecessor GenProbe, Inc. as well as on obviousness grounds.

Sidley Austin's Richard Weiner and Raj Pal scored for Exxon Mobil at the International Trade Commission in a fight over imported steel from Canada, China and Mexico. Exxon needs fabricated structural steel to build a multibillion-dollar petrochemical plastics plant in Texas, but stood to owe a huge duty liability. On Tuesday, the ITC issued a rare negative vote in favor of Exxon and other respondents.

It wasn't Sidley's only notable win. Working pro bono alongside Public Counsel, partners Michael Andolina, Jennifer Clark, Ellyce Cooper, Kevin Fee and Amy Lally won a victory for a class of immigrant families separated at the border after the federal government officially withdrew its appeal to the Ninth Circuit. The result: the government must provide mental health screenings and treatment to help separated family members address the trauma associated with family separation.

A team from Morrison & Foerster also won a significant immigration case. Partners Colette Reiner Mayer and Jack Londen plus associates Pieter de Ganon, John Douglass and Aaron Bray teamed up with the American Immigration Council, ACLU of Arizona, the National Immigration Law Center, and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area to challenge U.S. Customs and Border Protection. 

They successfully argued that conditions in CBP facilities in the Tucson Sector violate the U.S. Constitution.  In the first ruling from a federal court to address the minimum standards for short-term holding facilities, Senior U.S. District Judge David Bury ruled that CBP must provide a bed, blanket, shower, potable food and water, and a medical assessment if migrants are held for longer than 48 hours.

Congratulations to all the runners up.