I totally understand your attention has been somewhere besides litigation headlines this past week. But since it's kind of my job to keep an eye on those headlines, I have to tell you it's been one heck of a week in litigation land. Just look at these runners-up.

First up, there's Moe Fodeman and Michael Sommer, the Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati duo I wrote about yesterday. The pair of former prosecutors secured $136 million dollars in restitution for their clients, former shareholders of a Canadian mining company, who lost their valuable stake in mining rights in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as a result of bribes paid to judges there. Fodeman and Sommer harnessed the Mandatory Victim Restitution Act to get their clients paid despite the initial opposition of the DOJ and the defendant, hedge fund manager Och-Ziff Capital Management Group. Bravo.

Also landing a runner-up spot this week is Brad Caldwell of Caldwell Cassady & Curry who scored a $502.8 million patent jury verdict last week against Apple for client VirnetX. A Tyler, Texas jury found that Apple infringed two network security patents and that Apple should pay damages of 84 cents per accused device going back to the 2013 launch of its iOS 7 mobile operating system. The win extends the firm's win streak against Apple for VirnetX to five patent cases, including two 2016 verdicts of $625 million and $302 million each. The plaintiff's team included firm principals Jason Cassady, Austin Curry, Hamad Hamad, Justin Nemunaitis, Daniel Pearson, Chris Stewart, and John Summers and associate Warren McCarty, as well as Johnny Ward from Ward Smith & Hill.