Our first runners-up this week are Liz McNamara, Linda Steinman and their team at Davis Wright Tremaine who won a high-profile copyright fight for book publishers against the Internet Archive over its practice of scanning and lending print library books called "controlled digital lending." U.S. District Judge John Koeltl in Manhattan this week sided with the publishers—Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, John Wiley & Sons and Penguin Random House—on summary judgment. The judge found the Internet Archive's fair use defense depended on the notion that lawfully acquiring a copyrighted print book entitles the recipient to make and distribute an unauthorized digitized copy, so long as it retains possession of the print book. "But no case or legal principle supports that notion," Koeltl wrote. "What fair use does not allow … is the mass reproduction and distribution of complete copyrighted works in a way that does not transform those works and that creates directly competing substitutes for the originals," he wrote. The DWT team representing the publishers also included Jack Browning, Jesse Feitel and Carl Mazurek, with co-counsel from Oppenheim + Zebrak. 

Agnieszka Fryszman and Nicholas Jacques of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll and Edward MacAllister of the Perles Law Firm get a runners-up spot for their work paving the way for diplomatic negotiations to secure the prison release of client Paul Rusesabagina, the inspiration for the film "Hotel Rwanda." Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington, D.C. denied a request by Rwandan officials to dismiss Rusesabagina's lawsuit claiming they conspired to surveil, kidnap and imprison him. The judge found certain officials weren't protected by diplomatic immunity. Rusesabagina's legal team also includes John Arthur Eaves Jr. and Brady Eaves from the Eaves Law Firm and Steve Perles, founder of the Perles Law Firm.

Runners-up honors also go to a Kirkland & Ellis team led by Ragan Naresh and Anna Rotman. Chief U.S. District Court Chief Judge Algenon Marbley in Columbus, Ohio denied class certification this week in a case involving more than 1,200 oil and gas leases in Eastern Ohio facing their client Rice Drilling D, a subsidiary of energy company EQT. Plaintiffs claim the leases allowed for drilling in the Marcellus Shale and Utica Shale formations, but the company and codefendants drilled deeper than allowed. The judge found that the plaintiffs' claims of common law trespass, conversion, and unjust enrichment require individualized inquiries. The judge also pointed to a $40 million award won by an individual plaintiff in a similar case against Rice Drilling and codefendant Gulfport that's currently on appeal. The judge wrote: "[T]his type of award indicates that class members could be motivated to not only pursue litigation individually, but individual litigation would be feasible given the size of the potential awards and the presence of both individuals and entities in the putative class." The Kirkland team included Kenneth Young, Grace Brier and Dustin Womack. A separate team at Kirkland led by Dan Donovan represents Gulfport, while a team at Reed Smith represents codefendants Ascent and XTO.