With a legal footprint spanning over 16 offices in numerous jurisdictions around the country, including New York, Chicago, DC, Baltimore, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, and West Palm Beach outfits, Saul Ewing’s litigation team is equipped with an arsenal of diverse practice specializations. Among the most notable and active of the firm’s area specializations are its commercial, higher education, real estate, and white collar practices.
Among the firm’s most exalted is litigation chair Cathleen Devlin of Saul Ewing’s Philadelphia office, who emphasizes in her practice complex environmental, commercial contract, and business tort litigation. Devlin currently serves alongside environmental civil litigation and appellate chair John Stoviak as lead counsel to Cyprus Amax Minerals Company in environmental litigation against TCI Pacific Communications regarding Cyprus’s pursuit of more than $14 million of recovery from TCI. The matter arises in connection with Cyprus’s environmental investigation and remediation as to arsenic, cadmium, and lead soil contamination allegedly attributable to 20th century zinc smelting operations in Oklahoma. Following Devlin and Stoviak’s obtainment of an alter ego summary judgement ruling entitling Cyprus to CERCLA contribution from TCI and a corresponding award of $14.2 million, a total which covers 45% of associated cleanup costs through 2017, TCI sought appeal of the ruling on the Tenth Circuit and was met with a complete affirmance. TCI currently seeks a Tenth Circuit rehearing.
On the higher education front, the fount of the firm’s acuity is largely indexable to Joseph O’Dea, Jr. of Chicago; Wilmington, Delaware-based litigation vice chair and co-chair of the higher education practice group James Taylor, Jr.; and, also serving as co-chair of higher education in addition to co-chair of the K-12 schools practice, Chicago’s
James Keller. Whereas O’Dea continues in the critical role of counsel for Pennsylvania State University in all litigation regarding the Jerry Sandusky sexual abuse scandal, Keller is active in the role of counsel to Pennsylvania College of Technology (PCT) in a bellwether class action filed against PCT wherein plaintiffs seek partial tuition reimbursement as a result of the transition to online learning following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The matter will address novel and salient questions as to the contractual obligations of an institution to its students and the legal approximations of remote education’s quality.
Also hailing from the firm’s Chicago office, commercial litigator
Amy Kline directs her focus on the representation of insurance and reinsurance companies, as well as institutions of higher education. Joined by Boston partner
Joseph Lipchitz, Kline currently represents Merck & Co. in litigation filed against Bayer AG regarding Merck’s sale of the Dr. Scholl’s line of products to Bayer under a stock and asset purchase agreement (SAPA). The matter arises following Bayer’s refusal to honor the terms of the SAPA, which stipulate that certain product-related claims in connection with currently unfolding and highly public talcum powder liability actions would transition to Bayer’s purview in 2021 after a specified period during which they remained Merck’s responsibility. Following an attempt on Bayer’s part to dispel itself of liability, Merck retained the firm and filed suit in the Delaware Court of Chancery.
At the firm’s Baltimore office, partners Jason St. John and
Charles Monk, II are currently defending the Maryland State Board of Education against a landmark government and education class action brought by parents of City of Baltimore schoolchildren in an attempt to revive a suit dating back to the 1990s, regarding claims that the state’s allegedly inadequate levels of funding and vital resources constitute a violation under Article VIII of the State Constitution.
In Boston, complex commercial litigators Lipchitz and Jeffrey Robbins recently defended Muslim civil rights advocate Lori Saroya in a defamation suit filed against Saroya by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), of which she previously served as a member of the national board, in connection with Saroya’s censuring of CAIR’s purported conduct of negligence as to sexual harassment and discrimination. Lipchitz and Robbins were successful in obtaining CAIR’s unconditional withdrawal with prejudice from the suit following two hearings before a US Magistrate and another before the US District Court Judge presiding over the matter.
