The Litigator of the Week Runner-Up and a Bunch of Shout Outs

Our first runners-up this week are Wesley Powell and Jordan Wall of Willkie Farr & Gallagher, Joshua Block of the American Civil Liberties Union, and Christine Wee of the ACLU of Arizona. Since 2019 their team has represented transgender people employed by the state of Arizona pursuing a class action against the state and the Arizona Board of Regents for denying gender-affirming healthcare deemed medically necessary. The joint Willkie/ACLU team successfully fought off the state’s motion to dismiss, won class certification, and briefed summary judgment before U.S. District Judge Rosemary Márquez in Tuscon prior to the postponement of the summary judgment hearing early this year to allow the parties to pursue settlement talks. In June, independent of the negotiations, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs issued an executive order removing an exclusion for “gender reassignment surgery” in the state employee health plan. Márquez signed off on a settlement in the litigation last week that includes a consent decree barring the state from reinstating that exclusion. In addition to Powell and Wall, the Willkie team also included partners Matthew Freimuth and Nicholas Reddick, associates Justin Garbacz, Ciara Sisco, Natalia Benitez, Brandon Villa, Jacob Pargament and Kim Aquino. The ACLU team included Block of the ACLU Foundation, as well as Wee, Victoria Lopez and Gloria Torres of the ACLU Foundation of Arizona.

Shout out to a group of firms that got a win for RMBS investors in  Manhattan Supreme Court. Supreme Court Justice Andrew Borrok of the Commercial Division found this week that the deferred principal created through loan modifications should be included as part of the purchase price of certain residential-backed mortgage securities—following a similar decision from a judge in California in August 2022 and another from Borrok in September 2022. The team representing investors included Uri Itkin, Richard D’Amato, Michael Chen and Andrew McWhorter of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld for HBK Master Fund, McKool Smith principals Courtney Statfeld and Robert Scheef and associate Daniel Hendler representing 400 Capital Credit Opportunities Master Fund Ltd. and Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp., Sam Lieberman of Sadis & Goldberg representing Deer Park Road Management Co., among others.