Through its office in New York and a smaller office in DC, Debevoise & Plimpton has etched itself a position of prestige in the legal market among peers, many of whom laud the firm’s approach as well as its practitioners’ proven skills across the board. “Debevoise is a very classy bunch,” opines one peer. “Always has been. The lawyers there all are very respectable.” It is also noted that Debevoise “has one of the more genuinely diverse benches around,” and that the firm “is not just playing catch-up. They put their money where their mouth is a long time ago.” Indeed, the firm has one of the highest percentages of women appearing as lead counsel on matters and nominated as star players, a metric that has quantified since Benchmark’s first edition in 2008. “It’s pretty remarkable,” observes a peer. “You can look at pretty much any department over there and find it’s populated by women leaders.”
This dedication has historically been exemplified through the manifold matters attended to by the various team members.
Maura Monaghan, a versatile partner whose practice emphasizes commercial and product liability, is representing Columbia University in a consolidated class action brought by former students alleging that Columbia submitted falsified data to US News & World Report for its college rankings in an effort to elevate its status in the industry’s most influential rankings publication. Plaintiffs in this action claim that they decided to enroll at Columbia largely due to the prestige associated with its extremely high ranking and, had they known of Columbia’s “misreporting of data and deceptive practices,” they would have “not agreed to pay premiums for tuition, fees and costs.” A motion to dismiss, filed in March 2023, is pending. Monaghan also represents certain former directors and shareholders of Purdue Pharma in defending litigation regarding prescription opioids in numerous fora across the country, including a federal multi-district litigation and actions brought by states attorneys general, and in efforts to negotiate a global settlement in bankruptcy court.
International arbitration has also been a mainstay practice for Debevoise, with the firm boasting one of the deepest and most active teams in this capacity of any domestically headquartered entity. Another of Debevoise’s consistently acknowledged female stars, Catherine Amirfar is a leading figure in this capacity. Amirfar successfully represented a group of Italian investors in ICSID proceedings against Albania arising out of arbitration regarding the claimants’ investments in a hydroelectric plant and a media company. Another noted leader in this group, Mark Friedman represented Gramercy Funds Management and an affiliate in a complete arbitral award win, valued at $100 million, on jurisdiction and merits in an UNCITRAL arbitration against the government of Peru under the US-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement, arising out of Peru’s efforts to evade payment of agrarian bonds issued in exchange for property expropriated by the government in the 1970s.
Securities star Maeve O’Connor represents VMware and certain of its officers and/or directors in a class-action and a related shareholder derivative action. In the securities-enforcement-related capacity, a team led by
Andrew Ceresney (and also including SEC-focused luminary
Mary Jo White) scored big for Ripple, a private technology and payments company developing digital currency payment solutions, in litigation against the SEC, who alleged that Ripple raised more than $1 billion through the sale of an unregistered security. The Debevoise team secured a July 2023 win for the client, considered a watershed moment for the cryptocurrency industry as a whole. White, along with
Helen Cantwell, was also appointed by the National Football League to conduct various independent investigations into allegations of sexual harassment and other workplace misconduct made against three separate teams.
Debevoise has also made its mark in the intellectual property area, specifically concerning the trademark sphere. “Debevoise might fall under the radar for IP because they don’t do any patent work, which is more widely reported on, but in the trademark world, they are as good as it gets,” insists a peer. “And they are growing! Watch for them.” In this capacity, David Bernstein has long been the firm’s premier player. Bernstein was engaged to assist Fox Corporation with respect to the launch of a new football league, the United States Football League. Bernstein assisted with the acquisition, protection and management of Fox’s trademark portfolio, the development of their media strategy, and the preparation for the launch, and is now is defending Fox against trademark infringement, false advertising and tortious interference claims asserted by “The Real USFL,” an entity formed by some owners and executives who were connected with the defunct United States Football League of the 1980s, solely to seek an injunction against Fox’s new football league. Bernstein, along with Jyotin Hamid and new IP star Megan Bannigan, is also representing H&R Block in a trademark infringement suit against payment app Square, which recently announced that it was changing its name to Block and that it would start to offer free tax preparation and filing services through its Cash App. Bannigan is enjoying a rising profile; “She is coming up fast,” insists a peer. “She represents Mischief, the company that distorts sneaker logos and designs, and is doing a bang-up job with that.” Support is also strong for other younger members of the Debevoise team.
Erica Weisgerber focuses primarily on matters related to bankruptcy and restructuring. “She has done a very good job dealing with some very difficult lawyers,” testifies a peer. Broad-based commercial litigator
Will Taft is someone that contemporaries insist “is one you need to keep your eye on going forward. He’s on the come-up for sure.” One confirms, “We’ve worked a lot with him, on a matter concerning Argentine bonds, and he’s a lawyer’s lawyer.”
