Weil Gotshal & Manges

Weil Gotshal & Manges enjoys a reputation as a firm whose litigation bench is one of the most comprehensive in terms of practice depth. “They have all the bases covered,” confirms a peer. “A nice wide spectrum. And they have the depth and breadth in their personnel to cover it.” The firm’s national reach is spread among offices on the East Coast in New York and DC, throughout several locations in California, two locations in Texas, one in Boston and a location in Miami. Its practice area portfolio also covers a lot of ground, with product liability, bankruptcy, antitrust, commercial, intellectual property, securities and white-collar crime all playing prominent positions in the overall composition of the firm’s litigation service offerings.
     The firm made a notable augmentation to these services within the past couple of years with with the recruits of DC-based Mark Perry and Drew Tulumello, both of whom joined Weil from Gibson Dunn and both of whom provide strategic enhancements to Weil’s appellate capacity. Perry is representing Apple in the civil antitrust appeal of Epic v. Apple, the case referred to by contemporaries as the “World War III of antitrust.”  Epic accused Apple of unlawfully maintaining a monopoly through certain features of the App Store. Following a bench trial, the district court ruled that Apple is not a monopolist in any relevant market and rejected all of Epic’s claims under the federal and state antitrust laws. Epic has appealed that ruling to the Ninth Circuit, while Apple has cross-appealed from an injunction entered under California’s Unfair Competition Law. Perry argued the appeal in November 2022. Tulumello serves as appellate counsel to BNSF Railway in the first case ever to go to trial under Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act.  Following trial, where BNSF was represented by counsel from a different law firm, the jury returned a $228 million verdict in favor of the plaintiffs. Weil currently represents BNSF in its efforts to obtain a new trial or reduction of the verdict and will represent BNSF in the Seventh Circuit should the matter go up on appeal after the court enters judgment on post-trial motions. Tulumello also teamed up with New York white-collar co-head Sarah Coyne to conduct a league-wide investigation – on behalf of the National Women’s Soccer League [NWSL] Players Association, jointly with the League itself – into allegations of sexual harassment, abusive coaches and toxic work environments created by coaches and ownership groups around the league. In December 2022, the joint investigative team concluded its investigation and issued a report confirming widespread misconduct, including sexual and emotional abuse, in the NWSL. The report also identified safeguards and best practices to help prevent and respond to similar abuses in the future.
     Weil’s antitrust muscle was not restricted to the appeals capacity nor to its more senior partners; a relatively young and diverse team composed of Chantale Fiebig, Eric Hochstadt, Michael Moiseyev and Bambo Obaro triumphed for Meta against the FTC in the agency’s attempt to block the tech behemoth’s  acquisition of virtual-reality app developer Within Unlimited. The FTC sued to enjoin the merger in late July 2022, and subsequent to a December 2022 bench trial in which the judge expressed skepticism over the agency’s claims, the FTC officially dismissed its administrative challenge to the transaction in February 2023.
     The firm has had an equally impressive run in the intellectual property capacity, with New York’s Elizabeth Weiswasser garnering a pronounced level of praise on the strength of her increased visibility and demonstrated acuity in the patent arena. In September 2022, a national Weil team composed of Weiswasser, all-purpose trial lawyer Diane Sullivan and IP co-head Anish Desai displayed both the firm’s IP capabilities and its trial prowess when it delivered a $95 million plaintiff jury verdict on behalf of Altria in a competitor infringement suit with RJ Reynolds. The jury unanimously found in favor of Altria on all of Altria’s asserted patents, and awarded past damages based on the 5.25% royalty rate urged by Altria. Weiswasser and Desai also continue to deliver successful outcomes on behalf of Regeneron in its long-running battle with Novartis over the client’s eye-disease biologic EYLEA. In October 2022, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board [PTAB] issued a decision in favor of Regeneron in an inter partes review proceeding initiated by the Weil team on behalf of the client, which held that the sole patent Novartis has accused the EYLEA pre-filled syringe of infringing is invalid. Weil’s IP bench is equally revered on the West Coast, where Silicon Valley-based Ed Reines generates “a lot of respect on the life sciences side,” according to peers. One contemporary declares, “The practice that Ed has built in the Bay Area for life sciences is really just remarkable, and he’s trying cases as well. [He is] very impressive.”
     New York-based Jonathan Polkes has long attended to a practice that straddles securities and white-collar crime and is addressed as “someone who really stands out as a rare breed in this practice because he really can and does try cases.” While much of Polkes’s work is of a sensitive nature, one of his matters drew significant profile: his representation of a key player in the litigation and investigations fallout from Elon Musk’s proposed $44 billion acquisition of Twitter (now X.) Also based in New York, litigation co-head David Lender continues to draw acclaim for his trial abilities as well as his versatility, with a diverse commercial practice that, at one point or another, has touched on almost every one of Weil’s overall litigation offerings. “David Lender can try a case, and he always seems to have something different on the go,” marvels a peer. “None of it seems routine, and it also just seems like he never says, ‘No, I don’t do that type of work.’”