Before Jason Schwartz takes a case to trial, he often runs his arguments by a tough mock jury: his three kids — ages 6, 11 and 14 — and his mother, a former saleswoman. If they find his arguments compelling, Schwartz feels confident that judges and jurors will be sympathetic, too.

“Everybody's had a boss they didn't like,” he explained. “Everybody's had something that happened to them at work that they didn't think was fair. You come in [to a trial] with someone with those thoughts in mind, whether it's the judge or the jury or an [Equal Employment Opportunity Commission] investigator, and you have to tell them the story in a way that they say, 'OK, I understand what happened and that seems fair to me.'”

Co-chair of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher's labor and employment practice, Schwartz and his colleagues scored several high-profile wins last year for their corporate clients. They included a labor dispute against the National Labor Relations Board on behalf of Cablevision Systems, an appeal for AlixPartners centering on an arbitration issue and a jury trial involving an HSBC employee's allegations of retaliation.