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Analysis

Big Peepin': Jay-Z's Lawyer at Quinn Emanuel Hires Private Investigator In Scrum Over Witness's In-Person Testimony

Jay-Z's lawyer Alex Spiro filed a declaration from an investigator who purported to surveil the often maskless meanderings of a former president of a perfume company who cited COVID concerns while seeking to testify remotely in a trial accusing the rap mogul of failing to adequately promote the Gold Jay-Z fragrance.
4 minute read
Best Practices

What PR Pros Wish Litigators Knew About Interacting With the Media

We offered five public relations professionals the opportunity to speak anonymously so they could give litigators their candid feedback about how well they deal with the media. Here's what they had to say.
6 minute read
Q&A

Litigators of the Week: T-Mobile Turns to Wilmer to Put the Kibosh on Cox Communications' Wireless Launch with a Rival

After a five-day in-person bench trial in August, Delaware Vice Chancellor Morgan Zurn last week found Cox "promised that if it wanted to go to the wireless services dance, it would go with Sprint," which has merged with T-Mobile.
9 minute read
Quick Takes

Litigator of the Week Runners-Up and Shout Outs

Runners-up this week include teams from Reid Collins & Tsai, Kasowitz Benson Torres, and Hogan Lovells partner and #appellatetwitter regular Sean Marotta.
4 minute read
Analysis

How Law Firms' Hybrid Work and New Office Arrangements Impact Questions of Attorney-Client Privilege

Speaking at Reed Smith's second annual virtual global disputes conference, partners Janet Kwuon, Peter Kennedy and George Brown laid out some practical tips for lawyers trying to maintain privilege in the age of working from your dining room table and office hoteling.
4 minute read
Analysis

Mayer Brown and the Curious Case of the Sentence Commutation That Wasn't (Quite Yet)

Lawyers at Mayer Brown claim that last December former President Donald Trump commuted multiple life sentences their client, former hip hop mover and shaker James Rosemond, was serving. One big problem: Apparently no one informed the warden of the West Virginia prison where Rosemond is still imprisoned.
5 minute read
Q&A

Litigator of the Week: The Greenberg Traurig Lawyer Who Freed Britney

Mathew Rosengart, who has been dubbed 'Rosengod' by certain fans of Britney Spears, last week got a ruling suspending and removing the pop icon's father as conservator of her estate, a position that had given him an outsized role in her life and finances for a decade-plus.
13 minute read
Quick Takes

An Absolutely Stacked Week of Litigator of the Week Runners-up and Shout Outs

Topping the list of runners-up is the trial team that scored a defense win for Monsanto in a Roundup trial in Los Angeles.
7 minute read
Q&A

The New President of the American College of Trial Lawyers Talks Shop on Judicial Independence and COVID-Era Justice

Michael O'Donnell, the chair of Denver-based Wheeler Trigg O'Donnell, became the 72nd president of the American College of Trial Lawyers last weekend.
9 minute read
Analysis

Harnessing Big Law's Desire to Take on Racial Justice Issues to Make a Dent in the Oncoming Eviction Avalanche

David Lash of O'Melveny & Myers said establishing the link between "housing justice and racial justice" has been key in getting pro bono lawyers geared up to handle tenants' cases as pandemic eviction moratoriums wind down.
5 minute read
Q&A

Litigation Leaders: Carol Goodman Aims to Keep Growing Herrick's Employment and New York Real Estate Disputes Practices

"Our pre-eminence in the New York courts is recognized as a powerful asset for clients, and we are often retained by major international law firms with local offices of their own that nonetheless seek us out as co-counsel for high-stakes litigation filed in New York courts," says Goodman, the co-chair of the litigation department at Herrick Feinstein.
10 minute read
Q&A

Litigators of the Week: Susman Godfrey Fends Off Long-Pending $3.89B Suit from Puerto Rico's Electric Utility for Vitol

In a case that was originally filed in Puerto Rico in 2009, Alex Kaplan, Neal Manne and Weston O'Black of Susman Godfrey got a ruling knocking out claims brought on behalf of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority and awarding $28.4 million plus interest on Vitol's counterclaim.
9 minute read
Quick Takes

Litigator of the Week Runners-Up and Shout Outs

A pair of talc trial wins for J&J and important appellate wins for Hogan Lovells and Wachtell lead the way this week.
4 minute read
Q&A

A 'Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don't'-Type Thing: ESG Disclosures and the Prospect of Future Litigation

Heidi Friedman and Renee Zaytsev of Thompson Hine, whose firm just surveyed 130-plus corporate leaders about their approach to environmental, social and governance matters, discuss whether the market's current focus ESG issues might spur litigation.
8 minute read
Profile

Latham's Sean Berkowitz Talks Shop About a Rare Criminal Bench Trial Win for a Former CEO Facing Fraud Charges

A decade-and-a-half after he led the prosecution of Enron executives, Berkowitz last week won the acquittal of the former CEO of Power Solutions International Inc. after a four-week federal bench trial in Chicago this summer.
6 minute read
Q&A

Jeffrey Bauer of Huntington Ingalls Industries: 'We Invest in Our Outside Counsel, and We Expect Them to Invest in Us'

"It is uncommon for us to have 'one-off' matters with different firms," says Bauer, an in-house litigation expert at the nation's largest shipbuilder. "Instead, we focus on building relationships with our outside counsel so they become extensions of our law department."
12 minute read
Expert Opinion

4 Ways to Master Virtual Depositions

"With the option of doing depositions in person or virtually, legal teams and their clients now have the option of considering which approach will offer the greatest strategic advantages," writes Avi Stadler, the general counsel of Esquire Deposition Solutions.
6 minute read
Q&A

Litigators of the Week: Motley Rice and Robbins Geller Land an $809M Securities Settlement From Twitter

Dan Drosman and Tor Gronborg of Robbins Geller and Lance Oliver of Motley Rice secured a nine-digit settlement from Twitter in a case accusing two former executives of making misleading statements about user metrics.
11 minute read
Quick Takes

An Almost-Overwhelming Slate of Litigator of the Week Runners-Up and Shout Outs

Latham leads the way this week with a rare acquittal for a former CEO who went to trial on criminal fraud charges.
8 minute read
Analysis

How to Ask for $185M in Attorneys Fees Without Coming Off Like a Jerk

A judge at the U.S. Court of Federal Claims last week granted Quinn Emanuel's request for 5% of $3.7 billion in judgments scored for health insurers owed payments under the Affordable Care Act. Arguments first put forward by the Quinn lawyers led to $12 billion in recoveries industry-wide.
4 minute read
Analysis

The Feds Asked for More Than 20 Years. How Did Kaleil Isaza Tuzman's Team at Gibson Dunn Get a Sentence of Time Served?

Isaza Tuzman, who was arrested in Colombia on a U.S. fraud warrant, was sexually assaulted while in custody. U.S. District Judge Paul Gardephe took Isaza Tuzman's PTSD into account at sentencing, saying "the government had a moral obligation to do everything in its power to ensure his safety."
6 minute read
News

2nd Circuit Panel Casts Doubt on Challenge to New York's Revised Eviction Protections

Comments from the bench seemed to question assertions by Randy Mastro of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher that the new measure was at odds with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last month, which scrapped an earlier iteration that allowed tenants to self-certify that they had suffered financial hardship.
3 minute read
Q&A

This Skadden Litigator Brings a First-Gen Perspective to His Role as One of the Firm's New York Hiring Partners

Matthew Martino, the first member of his family to graduate college, regularly tells first-generation recruits about his background during interviews: "You can see them relax a bit. Then the interview becomes a lot more organic."
13 minute read
Profile

How Does This Reed Smith Citizen-Soldier 'Reload, Refit, Refuel Both Body and Mind' After Deployment? Prepping to Go to Trial is Part of It

Just months off of a year-plus-long deployment centered on helping California fight COVID-19 and wildfires, National Guard Colonel Jesse Miller is gearing up for an in-person trial.
5 minute read
Quick Takes

Litigator of the Week Runners-Up and Shout Outs

Runners-up this week include litigation teams from Cooley; Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher; Kirkland & Ellis and Goldman Ismail Tomaselli Brennan & Baum.
5 minute read
Q&A

Litigators of the Week: Apple Turns to Gibson Dunn and Paul Weiss to Fend Off Fortnite Maker's Antitrust Challenge

Rich Doren and Veronica Moyé of Gibson Dunn and Karen Dunn of Paul Weiss led Apple's trial team against Epic Games in the hotly contested antitrust challenge to its App Store business model.
11 minute read
Analysis

Did Twitter Execs Mislead Investors About User Engagement? A Rare Federal Securities Class Action Trial Is Set to Decide

Jury selection is set for Monday in a rare securities class action trial involving plaintiffs counsel at Robbins Geller and Motley Rice and defense counsel at Cooley and Simpson Thacher.
5 minute read
Analysis

The Civil Jury Trial Is a Dying Institution. Can It Be Revived?

"We felt that with an analysis of the types of things that were contributing to the decline, that we might actually have an opportunity to reverse it," says Cornell Law School Professor Valerie Hans, the lead author of a new white paper aimed at rejuvenating civil jury trials in the U.S.
5 minute read
Q&A

Applied Materials CLO Teri Little on the Calculus of Cooperating with Prosecutors in a Criminal Trade Secrets Case

"In cases involving export-controlled technology and potential national security concerns, it makes sense to rely on the federal government despite countervailing concerns about delay and impact on the civil case," says Little, in the wake of a former employee's conviction on 11 federal trade secrets counts.
9 minute read
Q&A

Litigation Leaders: How Wilmer Litigators Keep a 'Relentless Focus' on the Storytelling Dimension of Trials

"Our lawyers are expert in the craft of establishing and reinforcing narratives and themes, and in the art of witness presentation—and, together, those are the key ingredients for achieving victory for our clients," says Hallie Levin, who co-chairs the trial practice at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr with Joseph (Joe) Mueller.
14 minute read
Q&A

Litigator of the Week: The Dechert Partner Who Revived the Case of an Asylum Seeker Whose Immigrant Story Echoes His Own

Sozi Tulante secured a precedent-setting victory for B.C., an asylum-seeker from Cameroon, in an immigration appeal centering on B.C.'s primary language, Pidgin English, and the need for an interpreter.
12 minute read
Quick Takes

Another Healthy Dose of Litigator of the Week Runners-Up and Shout Outs

A pair of plaintiffs' teams kick off the runners-up in what turned out to be a rough week in the courts for Boeing and its 737 MAX 8 partners.
3 minute read
Commentary

What Makes the Elizabeth Holmes Trial the Hottest Ticket in Town?

I think I'm wrapping my head around the epic media line. Now those three Holmes' "fans" dressed in black? That's an entirely separate question.
5 minute read
Analysis

Susman's Sex-Trafficking Suit Against Pornhub Headed for Discovery

Despite the company's argument that Section 230 shielded it from liability for sex trafficking claims stemming from underage content uploaded by others, a Southern California judge let the proposed class action move forward.
6 minute read
News

Chief Judge Rolls Out Mandatory Testing for Unvaccinated New York Court Employees

Chief Judge Janet DiFiore noted that many other employers, both public and private, have also started requiring the COVID-19 vaccine or announced that they will.
3 minute read
Q&A

Litigators of the Week: The Kirkland Trial Team That Fought Off a Former Abbott Laboratories Employee's Racial Discrimination Claims

Jim Hurst, Christa Cottrell and Rebecca Fitzpatrick made the case that a former regional sales manager at Abbott Molecular was let go as a part of a reduction in force rather than as a result of any race discrimination or retaliation.
11 minute read
Quick Takes

Litigator of the Week Runners-Up and Shout Outs!

Our first runner-up this week is Josh Rosenkranz of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe who scored a huge win for Gilead Sciences affiliate Kite Pharma at the Federal Circuit last week.
6 minute read
Profile

'Build, Build, Build': What Other Firms Can Take Away from Cadwalader's Rapid Integration of Nick Gravante and His Team

Gravante and partners Philip Iovieno, Karen Dyer and Lawrence Brandman joined Cadwalader from Boies Schiller and brought all their clients with them.
6 minute read
Best Practices

No Peek Behind the Curtain: Requests for Litigation Funding Docs Largely Go Unheeded

A comprehensive survey of 52 cases where judges have considered whether to force parties to hand over their communications with litigation funders finds the "vast majority" deny such requisitions because of the work-product doctrine.
5 minute read
News

With Two New Judges on the Bench, New York's Top Court Hears Arguments in Overdose Death Case

The case's outcome could be the first glimpse at how the court's new makeup will shape criminal justice issues, a focus of intense scrutiny during former Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas' rise to the bench.
3 minute read
Analysis

Is This a Thing? Dozens of New Suits Target Magazine Publishers Under Michigan Privacy Law

Plaintiffs have fired off more than a dozen lawsuits in the Eastern District of Michigan this month claiming magazine publishers violated a state privacy law carrying statutory damages of $5,000 a pop.
7 minute read
Commentary

These New SPAC Suits Really Have Your Firm's Attention, Don't They?

A group of 49 law firms came together late last week to issue a statement saying the central claim of the derivative suits targeting certain special purpose acquisition companies are "without factual or legal basis."
4 minute read
Q&A

Litigators of the Week: This Covington Trial Team Protected AbbVie's $8B Per Year Cancer Treatment From a Generic Challenge

Following a seven-day remote bench trial last year, Christopher Sipes, Erica Andersen, and Brianne Bharkhda of Covington & Burling got a ruling from a federal judge in Delaware this week finding the four patents covering cancer treatment Imbruvica were valid and infringed.
10 minute read
Quick Takes

Litigator of the Week Runners-Up and Shout Outs

Last month we gave a Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher team runners-up honors for fending off a preliminary injunction in a high-profile trade secret spat. Welp, it's only fair that we give their opposing counsel at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan a runners-up nod for getting a ruling this week denying a motion to dismiss in the case.
5 minute read
Q&A

How Were the Soccer Federations at the Center of a Global Corruption Scandal Found to Be Its Victims? It's a $201M Question

Sidley Austin's Timothy Treanor, who represented Concacaf, one of the three international organizations at the center of the case, says that he and his colleagues found evidence that corrupt officials had victimized the organization.
9 minute read
Best Practices

5 Tips for Effective, Targeted Cross-Examinations

Zol Rainey, a senior litigation counsel at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, says to think of each cross-examination as a piece of a larger trial puzzle. "Don't try to hit a home run or win your entire case with just one cross-examination," he says.
5 minute read
Commentary

A Litigator's Primer for Blockchain and Crypto

When is a crypto asset a security? Stick around long enough and you just might find out.
5 minute read
Q&A

Litigation Leaders: Munger Tolles Chair Brad Brian on the Virtues of the Firm's 1-1 Partner-to-Associate Ratio

"Since our firm's inception in 1962, our strategy has remained the same: We take on the toughest cases, hire the brightest lawyers, and do it in a democratic environment where, from day one, lawyers are given early responsibility and treated like owners."
17 minute read
Quick Takes

Another Stacked Lineup of Litigation of the Week Runners-Up and Shout Outs

Our first runners up this week are Sam Baxter of McKool Smith and Jason Sheasby of Irell & Manella, who won Litigator of the Week honors last year for landing a $506 million damages verdict for PanOptis in patent litigation against Apple. In a damages retrial. they won $300 million.
5 minute read
Q&A

Litigators of the Week: The Gibson Dunn Duo Who Scored an Extraordinary SCOTUS Win for New York Landlords

Randy Mastro and Akiva Shapiro built on their prior U.S. Supreme Court win for the Diocese of Brooklyn striking down New York's capacity restrictions on religious services to secure another pandemic-related writ of injunction from the court for landlords challenging the state's eviction moratorium.
12 minute read
Analysis

Rubbish In, Rubbish Out: Some Cautionary Thoughts on AI and Judging

"Judges typically act as very independent individuals, but in relation to these significant changes that technology will have on the system into the future, they need to be acting as a cohesive group rather than just in an individualistic manner," says Dean Tania Sourdin of the University of Newcastle School of Law in Australia.
5 minute read
Commentary

If Your Associates Aren't Getting Argument Experience Now, When Will They?

Some barriers to getting junior lawyers stand-up court experience have dissipated during remote practice.
6 minute read
Q&A

Dave Saunders of Juniper Networks Is Willing to Pay Outside Counsel More in Some Cases to Fight Than It Might Cost to Settle. Here's Why.

"On the commercial side, we're not going to pay someone if we didn't do anything wrong," says Saunders, the director of litigation at Juniper Networks, a multinational computer networking company based in Sunnyvale, California.
11 minute read
Analysis

Finnegan Taps Its Federal Circuit Chops for Military Vets in Disability Cases

Finnegan's Charles Collins-Chase recently won two Federal Circuit appeals for pro bono veteran clients, including a decision finding the VA shouldn't be granted deference when it puts forward a position for the first time in litigation.
4 minute read
Q&A

Litigators of the Week: Quinn Emanuel Clears the Decks for Norwegian Cruise Line to Ask for COVID Vaccination Docs in Florida

A Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan team led by Derek Shaffer, Olga Vieira and John O'Sullivan this week convinced a federal judge in Miami to grant an injunction blocking a Florida law barring the cruise line from requiring passengers to show proof of Covid-19 vaccination.
9 minute read
Quick Takes

Litigator of the Week Runners-Up and Shout Outs

Our first runner-up this week is a joint team from the ACLU of Illinois, King & Spalding and Kirkland & Ellis that secured a victory last week on behalf of a certified class of all transgender individuals incarcerated by the Illinois Department of Corrections.
7 minute read
Analysis

Regulatory Compliance Teams Are Linking Up With Their Sometimes-Less-Compliant Colleagues in Litigation

Relationships between in-house compliance teams and their litigation colleagues have grown tighter, particularly during the pandemic.
5 minute read
Q&A

Caroline Teichner Describes How Litigators at Kraft Heinz Aim to Be the 'Most Reasonable People in the Room'

"When you're in private practice, you often are thinking purely from a legal strategy standpoint about what arguments are going to win," said Teichner, litigation counsel at the world's fifth-largest food and beverage company. "When you're in-house you're thinking: 'Is this dispute important to the business?'"
10 minute read
Analysis

'Women Empowering Women': Touching Base With a New Wave of Leaders on the Plaintiff-Side of the Mass Torts and MDL Bar

"I really love what seems to be a movement now where the older guard is really having to move out of the way, whether voluntarily or not, to allow younger, more diverse attorneys to come through, and it's begun to enrich the legal field," said Harper Segui of Milberg Coleman Bryson Phillips Grossman.
5 minute read
Profile

Meet the Austin, Texas Litigator Helping Mexico Take on the Gun Industry

The case Steve Shadowen filed on behalf of Mexico in the District of Massachusetts appears to be the first brought by a sovereign nation against the gunmakers.
4 minute read
Analysis

Much Ado About Andy: Should Amazon's New CEO Sit for Deposition in a Patent Case Targeting His Old Division?

Andy Jassy is hardly the household name that Jeff Bezos is. But lawyers for Amazon contend he shouldn't be deposed in a patent case in Chicago against Amazon Web Services, the division he used to head.
6 minute read
Q&A

Litigators of the Week: The Skadden and Nelson Mullins Team that Landed a Win for J&J in the First In-Person Talc Trial of the Pandemic

Jurors in St. Clair County, Illinois gave the company a complete defense win even though the judge overseeing the trial held the company and a key witness in contempt.
8 minute read
Quick Takes

Litigator of the Week Runners-Up and Shout Outs

Latham's rare trial win fending off a "holder's" claim for client NextGen Healthcare Inc. leads this week's runners-up.
5 minute read
Profile

Meet the Quinn Emanuel Litigator Doing Her Part to Broaden the Pipeline into the Legal Profession

After emigrating to the U.S. from the Soviet Union in the 1980s, Quinn's Victoria Maroulis went from community college to Stanford University to Yale Law School. Now she's supporting first-generation professionals following in her footsteps.
5 minute read
Analysis

California Plaintiffs Bar Pours $1 Million Into Campaign to Defeat Newsom Recall

Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy led anti-recall contributions among plaintiffs firms with a $250,000 donation July 15.
3 minute read
Q&A

Yoon Ettinger of Southern Company Gas Prefers to Keep Her Roster of Outside Litigation Counsel Lean

"The way I see it, my outside counsel is the face of the company in the legal proceedings," Ettinger says. "I expect them to conduct themselves not only ethically and in accordance with the rules of professionalism, but also in accordance with our company values."
12 minute read
Best Practices

A Case Study in Navigating Shifting COVID Courtroom Protocols at Trial During the Delta Variant Surge

Orange County Superior Court mandated that lawyers and jurors wear masks just as a Latham & Watkins team was set to put their defense on in a novel, multiweek securities case.
4 minute read
Q&A

Litigation Leaders: DLA Piper's Loren Brown Explains the Firm's 'Growth Mindset' and Focus on Client Relationships

"Those attracted to our firm often see a bigger vision for the expansion of their client relationships," Brown says. "They want to be able to collaborate with others and to work in teams that utilize a broad range of skill sets and that draw from multiple jurisdictions where their clients do business."
7 minute read
Q&A

Litigators of the Week: This Durie Tangri Trio Scored a $177.8M Verdict for the Maker of a Novel Skin Cancer Treatment

A federal jury in Oakland sided with Daralyn Durie, Eugene Novikov, Kira Davis and their client, Berkeley, California-based Plexxikon, finding that Novartis willfully infringed patents for the first FDA-approved targeted therapy for metastatic melanoma.
8 minute read
Quick Takes

A Boatload of Worthy Litigation of the Week Runners-Up and Shout Outs

A Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher team lands this week's first runner-up spot for fending off a preliminary injunction in a closely watched trade secret case in the nascent market for electric vertical takeoff and landing, or eVTOL, aircraft.
5 minute read
Analysis

Proskauer Reaches Milestone in Long-Running, Wide-Ranging Assignment for Puerto Rico Financial Oversight Board

"It's not just a single case. It's not just a single mandate," said Proskauer Rose litigation Chair Tim Mungovan. "It's like we're part of the government. And sometimes we're aligned with them and sometimes we're adverse."
5 minute read
News

Data: While New Securities Filings Took a Dramatic Dip in the First Half of 2021, SPAC Suits Surged

Cornerstone Research reports plaintiffs filed 112 new class action securities cases in federal and state courts in the first half of 2021, 25% fewer than in the second half of 2020. Despite the overall dip, there were 14 federal filings involving special purpose acquisition companies in the first half, twice as many as there were all of last year.
4 minute read
Analysis

As Vaccine Requirements Become More Common, Could a Mandate Be on the Way for New York Court Workers?

Recent pronouncements from New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio left observers asking whether the New York state court system might issue a vaccine mandate of its own.
3 minute read
Analysis

What Do Judges Want? Georgia Appellate Jurists Discuss Their Decision-Making Processes

"I always tell people to request oral argument," said Court of Appeals of Georgia Chief Judge Brian Rickman. "You've just gotten a judge additional time to look at your case."
4 minute read
Q&A

In-House Grocery Chain Litigator Neal Cope on Getting 'Comfortable in an Uncomfortable Environment'

"That might mean working in an area where you don't have as much experience as somebody else," Cope says, "but you're handling the matter, you know who to go to if you need help, and to really push to grow and support the business."
10 minute read
Profile

Miami Attorney Who Once Lived On $2-a-Day Now Runs an Insurance Defense Firm

"I said, 'OK, I'm going to sleep in the parking lot of this building until I can make the money that I need to pay the rent and the deposit. And I did," said Tanaz Salehi, who's now managing shareholder of Salehi Boyer Lavigne Lombana.
8 minute read
Commentary

Barnstorming Litigators Were the Profession's Remote Work Pioneers. Look Who's Shaping the Future of the Legal Workplace ...

Law firms had the capacity to go virtual and remote as quickly as they did in part because of their experience accommodating plane-hopping litigators with national and international trial practices. As trial work picks up, it's those same litigators figuring out what firms will look like going forward.
8 minute read
Q&A

Litigators of the Week: The Plaintiffs' Team Behind the Revamped $26B Proposed Opioid Settlement

The lawyers representing municipalities across the country played a central role in getting the proposed deal with Johnson & Johnson and three opioid drug distributors back on track. "With this settlement and the injunctive relief terms, we have the potential to improve public safety for the country," says Motley Rice's Joe Rice.
9 minute read
Quick Takes

Litigator of the Week Runners-Up and a Shout Out

Latham and Paul Weiss score an antitrust win and a Weil partner continues his winning interlocutory ways.
3 minute read
Analysis

What Is Big Law's Role In Solving the Access to Justice Puzzle?

Two judges who participated in a national roundtable suggested that large law firms can play a pivotal role in creating better access to the justice system for the indigent in the United States — and have plenty of incentive to do so.
4 minute read
Q&A

AAA GC Douglas Kelly Wants His Outside Litigators to Treat In-House Lawyers Like Team Members, Not Just Clients

"Yes, I may be general counsel now and may have lots of other responsibilities, but I speak litigation. And I have lawyers who speak privacy, and I have lawyers who speak antitrust," Kelly says.
13 minute read
Analysis

United by Fraud

A new report out from ISS Securities Class Action Services lists the largest federal securities class action settlement by state. The report's lead author and one of the country's lead plaintiffs lawyers weigh in on the relative dearth of new blockbusters on the map.
5 minute read
News

New Crop of Older New York Judges Seeking Approval to Stay on Bench

A total of 29 state court judges are seeking certification or recertification this year, according to a list from the state court system. Last year, the process became a point of contention after the court system's Administrative Board forced out 46 older judges by denying them certification.
3 minute read
Q&A

How This Boies Schiller Litigator Has Come to See His Stutter as an Asset

Bill Marsillo, who has been at Boies Schiller for nearly 22 years, says his stutter probably forces him to prepare for oral argument more than most lawyers. But he says that extra practice also provides him an opportunity "to play the chess game out repeatedly" in his head and be better prepared for unpredictable moments.
8 minute read
Q&A

Litigators of the Week: The Davis Wright Tremaine Duo Who Made a Joke of Roy Moore's $95M Suit Against Sacha Baron Cohen

DWT's Elizabeth McNamara and Rachel Strom successfully argued that a release the former Alabama chief justice signed prior to his appearance on the satirical Showtime program "Who is America?" barred precisely the claims he was bringing.
7 minute read
Quick Takes

Two Weeks' Worth of Litigator of the Week Runners-Up and Shout Outs

A big Quinn Emanuel First Amendment win at SCOTUS leads our latest batch of runners-up.
5 minute read
Analysis

The Dangers of 'Prosecution by Soundbite': Dropped Charges Against Forex Trader Strike a Cautionary Tale for Antitrust Enforcers

The U.S. Office of Comptroller of the Currency dropped its regulatory case against former currency traders at JPMorgan and Citigroup last week. The move came nearly three years after they were acquitted of criminal antitrust charges. The traders' lawyers at White & Case and Wilmer wonder what took so long.
4 minute read
News

Veteran Commercial Litigator Jack McElroy Elevated to Firmwide Managing Partner at Shutts & Bowen

"The demand for legal work has grown tremendously, and we have to compete with our fellow law firms to get and retain legal talent," said McElroy, who is based in Orlando.
2 minute read
Best Practices

3 Tips to Keep Remote Arbitrations from Running Off the Rails

Nicole Westbrook of Jones & Keller has some suggestions about how to overcome screen fatigue to put on an effective case for clients during remote arbitrations.
4 minute read
Q&A

Non-Profit In-House Lawyer Stephanie Phillips Discusses the Cross-Company Bonds Forged in the Fires of Litigation

"Some of the greatest relationships I have with divisions at the company are with the divisions that have had the most litigation," says Phillips, the associate generate counsel of VEIC, a Vermont-based non-profit focused on energy efficiency. "How do we get people to understand how important this is without them going through the pain of having to prove it in discovery for example?"
13 minute read
Q&A

Litigation Leaders: What the 'Cravath System' of Talent Development and Generalist Approach Mean to Gary Bornstein and Kevin Orsini

"For our litigation department, associates at all levels of seniority rotate through practice areas, building a broad base of experience, working with partners and clients on various kinds of matters and across industries, and developing the agility that we believe is crucial to our lawyers' ability to master new areas of the law throughout their career," says Orsini, who co-heads the firm's litigation department with Bornstein.
10 minute read

Litigators of the Week: The Morrison & Foerster Duo Who Went on the Offensive for a Client Targeted in a Short and Distort Attack

Scott Llewellyn and Michael Birnbaum of Morrison & Foerster unmasked the short-seller behind an attack article posted on financial website Seeking Alpha targeting their client Farmland Partners Inc. They also recovered a multiple of the profits the short-seller made when the price of FPI stock dropped 39% on the day of publication.
8 minute read
Quick Takes

A SCOTUS-Heavy Edition of Litigator of the Week Runners-Up and Shout Outs

Highlights this week include U.S. Supreme Court wins by Kirkland & Ellis and Sidley Austin.
5 minute read
Q&A

What a 'No Surprises' Approach to Litigating Looks Like to Greg Cornett of LG&E and KU Energy

"We have a sophisticated, experienced in-house team, and we expect our outside lawyers to work alongside us to fully evaluate the options presented by any given legal issue, and to keep us informed of developments, big and small, in real time."
9 minute read
Q&A

Consumer Outrage Knows No Borders: Lessons from the Global VW Clean Diesel Litigation

"I think practitioners will become more sophisticated in the way that they use what happened in one jurisdiction to give them more traction in another jurisdiction when there is an advantage," says Deborah Hensler of Stanford Law School who co-authored a new report about the VW litigation and the prospect of future cases like it.
12 minute read
News

Outgoing Georgia Chief Justice to Join Troutman Pepper's National Litigation Practice

"I'm excited about the new challenge of life in the private sector," said Georgia Chief Justice Harold D. Melton, whose new position at the firm was announced on his next-to-last day on the bench.
3 minute read
Commentary

Kudos on Your 2020 Pro Bono Efforts Am Law Firms. Now, Keep It Up!

Lawyers at Am Law 200 firms upped their pro bono efforts year-over-year in 2020. There are signs of even greater demand for those services this year.
4 minute read
News

SDNY Judge, Pointing to Lack of Diversity in Grand Jury Pool, Dismisses Indictment

U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres said the defendant and his attorneys had produced "clear statistical evidence" to show that Black and Hispanic people were underrepresented in the White Plains courthouse's grand jury pool.
3 minute read
News

Calif. Court Labor Unions, Judges Split Over Future of Remote Courtroom Technology

Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to allow courts to continue using remote technology in civil proceedings after the pandemic state of emergency ends. Court employees' groups oppose the proposal.
5 minute read
Q&A

A Federal Appellate Judge Who Embraces Simple Language and 'Thwacks' Legalese

"I just think that it's a myth—that many of us have now dispelled—that we're writing for some far more sophisticated audience that has to have a law degree to understand it," says Tenth Circuit Judge Robert Bacharach, who has a new book out on legal writing that draws lessons from the field of psycholinguistics.
8 minute read
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Who Got The Work

Michael G. Bongiorno, Andrew Scott Dulberg and Elizabeth E. Driscoll from Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr have stepped in to represent Symbotic Inc., an A.I.-enabled technology platform that focuses on increasing supply chain efficiency, and other defendants in a pending shareholder derivative lawsuit. The case, filed Oct. 2 in Massachusetts District Court by the Brown Law Firm on behalf of Stephen Austen, accuses certain officers and directors of misleading investors in regard to Symbotic's potential for margin growth by failing to disclose that the company was not equipped to timely deploy its systems or manage expenses through project delays. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton, is 1:24-cv-12522, Austen v. Cohen et al.

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Who Got The Work

Edmund Polubinski and Marie Killmond of Davis Polk & Wardwell have entered appearances for data platform software development company MongoDB and other defendants in a pending shareholder derivative lawsuit. The action, filed Oct. 7 in New York Southern District Court by the Brown Law Firm, accuses the company's directors and/or officers of falsely expressing confidence in the company’s restructuring of its sales incentive plan and downplaying the severity of decreases in its upfront commitments. The case is 1:24-cv-07594, Roy v. Ittycheria et al.

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Who Got The Work

Amy O. Bruchs and Kurt F. Ellison of Michael Best & Friedrich have entered appearances for Epic Systems Corp. in a pending employment discrimination lawsuit. The suit was filed Sept. 7 in Wisconsin Western District Court by Levine Eisberner LLC and Siri & Glimstad on behalf of a project manager who claims that he was wrongfully terminated after applying for a religious exemption to the defendant's COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The case, assigned to U.S. Magistrate Judge Anita Marie Boor, is 3:24-cv-00630, Secker, Nathan v. Epic Systems Corporation.

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Who Got The Work

David X. Sullivan, Thomas J. Finn and Gregory A. Hall from McCarter & English have entered appearances for Sunrun Installation Services in a pending civil rights lawsuit. The complaint was filed Sept. 4 in Connecticut District Court by attorney Robert M. Berke on behalf of former employee George Edward Steins, who was arrested and charged with employing an unregistered home improvement salesperson. The complaint alleges that had Sunrun informed the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection that the plaintiff's employment had ended in 2017 and that he no longer held Sunrun's home improvement contractor license, he would not have been hit with charges, which were dismissed in May 2024. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Jeffrey A. Meyer, is 3:24-cv-01423, Steins v. Sunrun, Inc. et al.

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Who Got The Work

Greenberg Traurig shareholder Joshua L. Raskin has entered an appearance for boohoo.com UK Ltd. in a pending patent infringement lawsuit. The suit, filed Sept. 3 in Texas Eastern District Court by Rozier Hardt McDonough on behalf of Alto Dynamics, asserts five patents related to an online shopping platform. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap, is 2:24-cv-00719, Alto Dynamics, LLC v. boohoo.com UK Limited.

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