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Key contacts
Business Development Director - Litigation & Trial: Keri Keane
Quick facts
Partners

975

Practitioners (worldwide)

3850

Languages

60+

Key practice areas
PTAB litigation
Life sciences IP
Copyright & related rights
Intellectual property
ITC litigation
Patent disputes
Trade mark
Patent
IP transactions
IP transactions
Top 20 Trial Law Firms
Intellectual property
Dispute resolution
White collar crime
Securities
Competition/antitrust
Appellate
Commercial
Firm overview

The Litigation & Trial Department leverages a global platform to provide unmatched legal services. With over 1000 top-tier litigators, we bring experience, insight, and determination to every client. Our pragmatic approach ensures favorable results through effective collaboration with local counsel, co-counsel, and government regulators. We develop aggressive and creative litigation strategies, often resolving matters before trial. When necessary, clients can rely on our ability to win at trial, arbitration, regulatory proceedings, and on appeal.
Antitrust & Competition: Our distinguished team comprises highly qualified lawyers adept in both local and international antitrust and competition matters. We provide expert counsel on merger clearance, cartel investigations, competition-related litigation, IP antitrust issues, and compliance training. Our team is committed to delivering exceptional client service in cases involving monopolization challenges, rapid-response merger litigation, and innovative, high-stakes theories.

Complex Commercial Litigation: Our team combines trial-ready capabilities and business fluency to tackle complex challenges. We represent public and private companies, financial institutions, private equity firms, governmental entities, and high net worth individuals in commercial disputes. Over the past decade, we have tried or arbitrated hundreds of cases to verdict with an extraordinary success rate in US federal and state courts and arbitration panels. Our team includes more than 350 former federal law clerks and more than 35 former federal prosecutors, providing invaluable institutional knowledge and courtroom experience.

Connectivity, Privacy & Information: Our firm brings together a global team of lawyers addressing the critical legal issues arising from digital technology and services, in disciplines including communications, data privacy and cybersecurity, internet law, and digital copyright. Our team handles high-profile litigation, regulatory investigations and counseling, internal investigations, and technology transactions for clients in multiple industry sectors. We handle matters requiring extensive experience in particular areas of the law governing digital commerce, as well as matters that cut across legal silos to deliver exceptional results for our clients.

Environmental Litigation: We represent clients in administrative and regulatory proceedings, enforcement, litigation, transactions, and legislative matters. We help clients navigate complex agency rulemakings, secure approvals for energy and infrastructure projects, and resolve environmental investigations and compliance issues. Our wide-ranging expertise and unique government experience set us apart, delivering successful outcomes in groundbreaking matters worldwide.

Intellectual Property Litigation: Our litigators have unparalleled experience in IP strategy and disputes, including patent, trademark, copyright, trade dress, and trade secrets. We are actively involved in precedent-setting multijurisdictional litigation on a global scale, including extensive experience across numerous U.S. district courts, as well as proceedings before the Federal Circuit, ITC, and PTAB. Our team is comprised of technically trained lawyers, technical analysts, and dedicated IP paralegals, adept at managing cases in diverse industries across life sciences, technology, and more, including semiconductors, software, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, electric motors, engines, emerging technologies, cloud computing and networking, packaging, building products, and banking technologies, among others.

Securities Litigation & Professional Liability: Our Securities and M&A Litigation team is renowned for its exceptional expertise in handling complex securities class actions, shareholder derivative litigation, and litigation arising from M&A transactions. We have defended more federal securities lawsuits than any other firm in the US in the last five years, and our presence in the Delaware courts is unparalleled among our peer firms (Lex Machina). Recognized as the Securities Group of the Year by Law360 in four of the past five years, and consistently ranked #1 by Chambers and Legal500, our team comprises leading lawyers, former federal prosecutors, and senior SEC staff. We are the go-to firm for Fortune 500 companies, major financial institutions, and the Big Four accounting firms, securing high-profile, precedent-setting victories. We excel at resolving matters before trial through dispositive motions or settlements, and have a proven track record in trial success.

Supreme Court & Appellate: Led by a former U.S. Solicitor General, our Supreme Court and Appellate Practice boasts an outstanding record before the U.S. Supreme Court and other appellate courts. Over the past two decades, our advocates have argued more than 100 cases before the Supreme Court, representing Fortune 100 corporations, state governments, leading educational institutions, and individuals. Recently, we secured certiorari in nearly a dozen cases and have prepared briefs for hundreds of cases in both federal and state appellate courts.

White Collar Defense & Investigations: Our firm is at the forefront of advising on white collar and enforcement matters, offering unparalleled expertise in high-profile, sensitive cases globally. We leverage deep experience with regulators and prosecutors to guide clients through inquiries and investigations, skillfully defending against enforcement actions and prosecutions. Our track record includes avoiding charges and achieving full acquittals, often defeating government prosecutions before trial. We represent clients in actions by the SEC, DOJ, PCAOB, FINRA, CFTC, state attorneys general, Congress, and other global regulators. Our team excels in export controls, economic sanctions, and national security-related work, including CFIUS reviews and FOCI mitigation. Our defense lawyers include former senior prosecutors and government officials from top agencies.

Updated Oct 2025

Practice Areas & Sector Specialisations
Other offices

Austin
300 Colorado
St. Suite 2400
78701, USA
T: 1.737.910.7300
 
Boston, MA
200 Clarendon Street
02116, USA
T: 1.617.948.6000
 
Chicago, IL
330 North Wabash Avenue
Suite 2800
60611, USA
T: 1.312.876.7700
 
Houston, TX
811 Main Street
Suite 3700
77002, USA
T: 1.713.546.5400
 
Los Angeles, CA
10250 Constellation Blvd.
Suite 1100
90067, USA
T: 1.424.653.5500
 
New York, NY
1271 Avenue of the Americas
10020, USA
T: 1.212.906.1200
 
Costa Mesa, CA
650 Town Center Drive
20th Floor
92626, USA
T: 1.714.540.1235
 
San Diego, CA
12670 High Bluff Drive
92130, USA
T: 1.858.523.5400
 
San Francisco, CA
505 Montgomery Street S
Suite 2000
94111, USA
T: 1.415.391.0600
 
Menlo Park, CA
140 Scott Drive
94025, USA
T: 1.650.328.4600
 
Washington, D.C.
555 Eleventh Street, NW
Suite 1000
20004, USA
 

Address:
355 South Grand Avenue, Suite 100
Los Angeles, CA 90071
Tel:+1 213 485 1234 Fax:+1 213 891 8763 Web Address:http://lw.com
2027 Edition
Appellate
22 firms ranked
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Commercial
38 firms ranked
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Competition/antitrust
43 firms ranked
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Constitutional
11 firms ranked
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Consumer class actions
14 firms ranked
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Intellectual property
44 firms ranked
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Securities
28 firms ranked
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Top 20 Trial Law Firms
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White collar crime
48 firms ranked
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Linked Reviews
Dispute Resolution
Latham & Watkins continues to distinguish itself as one of the nation's most formidable litigation platforms, pairing a deep bench of trial lawyers and appellate advocates with nationally recognized strength across antitrust, securities, intellectual property, commercial and white-collar disputes. The firm's footprint stretches from California to New York and Washington DC, with highly recommended rankings in its core litigation markets and top-tier national standings in appellate, commercial, antitrust, intellectual property, securities and white-collar litigation. Few firms are cited as frequently by peers across such a broad range of practices and jurisdictions.

The firm's appellate and antitrust capabilities were particularly visible this year through a series of headline-generating matters. Washington DC's Gregory Garre secured a significant US Supreme Court victory for Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond in the closely watched dispute over the creation of the nation's first religious public charter school. The case attracted nationwide attention because it tested whether states that establish, fund, and oversee nonreligious public charter schools must also do the same for religious public charter schools. The Supreme Court ultimately affirmed the Oklahoma Supreme Court's ruling, thereby blocking the proposal and preserving Oklahoma's existing “nonsectarian” charter school framework. Garre also played a leading role in Latham's representation of NASCAR in a high-profile antitrust challenge brought by racing teams contesting the organization's charter system. Alongside San Francisco's Chris Yates, New York's Lawrence Buterman and other colleagues, the team defeated efforts to obtain preliminary relief and secured a favorable resolution following trial proceedings.

Latham's antitrust bench continues to earn market recognition. One commentator notes that Buterman "has been very effective" in antitrust litigation involving the sugar industry. The firm's ability to handle novel competition issues was further demonstrated in its victory for Cendyn before the Ninth Circuit. Buterman, alongside colleagues from DC, California, Texas, and New York, successfully defended the dismissal of claims alleging that hotel-pricing software facilitated unlawful coordination among Las Vegas casino operators. Because courts continue to grapple with antitrust theories involving algorithms and pricing technology, the ruling stands as an important development in a rapidly evolving area of law.

The securities litigation practice likewise remains a cornerstone of the firm's disputes offering. Orange County's Michele Johnson was among the leaders behind a notable victory for DocuSign in a securities class action alleging that the company misled investors about post-pandemic demand. Latham notably secured dismissal with prejudice after the matter had already survived earlier dismissal efforts, progressed through discovery, and achieved class certification. The result reinforced the firm's ability to step into complex litigation at an advanced stage and secure a complete victory for its client.

Depth across the platform remains one of Latham's defining characteristics. Chicago's Sean Berkowitz continues to command market respect, with one peer remarking that his "reputation precedes him." Former US District Court Judge Gary Feinerman, who joined the firm during the period, has already attracted attention from contemporaries, one of whom described him as "obviously top rate." In the environmental and product liability space, Illinois-based Mary Rose Alexander earns particularly strong praise from peers, with one lawyer who has worked alongside her describing her as "outstanding."

The next generation of talent is also contributing to the firm's continued prominence. Peers point to Texas-based Scott Thomas, a newly-ranked litigation star, as a "rare younger lawyer with significant trial experience," underscoring the firm's ability to develop emerging talent alongside established national figures. California litigator Blair Connelly was likewise referenced by market sources for her effectiveness in complex, high-stakes disputes.

Taken together, the firm's work this year reflects the qualities that have become synonymous with Latham's litigation practice: the ability to handle precedent-setting appeals, high-profile antitrust battles, sophisticated securities disputes, and complex trial work. As one peer succinctly summarized Latham's standing in the market, the firm simply "has lawyers everywhere," a reflection of both its scale and the depth of talent that continues to drive its national reputation.


Updated October 2026
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The ceremony honored the continent’s leading litigation firms and attorneys in front over 170 people in London, with the Hall of Fame awards making their debut
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