With a network of international and domestic offices, WilmerHale has built a reputation as a global powerhouse. Nationally, the firm’s original mainstay in Boston continues to secure near-unanimous recognition in litigation, and the New York, DC and California offices have further bolstered the firm’s top-tier standing. It is lauded for its litigation capabilities nationwide, particularly antitrust, white collar, securities and appellate, as well as intellectual property, one of the firm’s most notable practices. The firm has also developed a name for itself in the international arbitration space. “Wilmer is one of the foundational groups in the business,” insists a peer. “A lot of this is through its London office but it is also really gathering strength in the US as well. Keep an eye on this.” Further amplifying the firm’s service offerings, WilmerHale litigators continue to demonstrate a keen prowess with trials, with several key courtroom wins on display from practitioners in several offices and across varied practice areas.
In the firm’s famed IP practice, Boston-based but nationally recognized Bill Lee needs no introduction; he continues to be universally regarded as a celebrity of the patent litigation community. “I tried two Qualcomm cases against him,” testifies a former opponent. “Bill is quite senior but still very active and still very good.” Lee, along with Denver’s
Mindy Sooter and DC’s Amy Wigmore, achieved a significant victory for Comcast in a patent-infringement case brought by NexStep, who sued Comcast in 2019, claiming half a billion dollars in damages for allegedly infringing nine patents relating to a variety of technologies, including remote controls, home automation, and customer-service technology. In May 2022, following a four-day trial in Delaware in late 2021 involving the two patents not eliminated by an earlier summary judgment, the court issued a post-trial decision resulting in a clean sweep of non-infringement for Comcast. Lee also teamed up with Boston’s
Lisa Pirozzolo in representing Exelixis in ANDA litigation connection with generic challenges to the client’s oncology-therapy product. A bench trial was held in Delaware in May 2022, and a decision on that case is pending. This same duo also represents Exelixis in two additional actions against the same opponent alleging infringement of additional patents covering this same product. These cases are set for a consolidated bench trial in October 2023. Boston’s
Joseph Mueller has emerged as “a real contender as a credible successor to Bill Lee”, according to IP contemporaries. “And he’s a trial lawyer! He does the openings, the closings, the putting on of the main witnesses. [He has] Incredible gravitas – he’s the head of the entire litigation group, which is the biggest department in the firm.”
The firm’s unassailable IP roster is bookended on the West Coast by Sonal Mehta, one of the youngest and most championed stars of the Bay Area/Silicon Valley patent community. Mehta, who earned her stripes at celebrated (but now defunct) San Francisco litigation boutique Durie Tangri, has been lead counsel on several groundbreaking patent actions in the past several years and as of late has become a go-to for social media juggernaut Meta – corporate parent of household names Facebook and Instagram – in several cases involving issues of antitrust, privacy and breach of contract, sometimes involving intersection of any of these three.
Wilmer boasts trial firepower in the securities and commercial space as well, with New York’s
Hallie Levinbeing a frequent mention as a standout in these capacities. Levin is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and put her courtroom acuity on display when she led a team (which also included New York’s
Peter Neiman) that secured a complete defense verdict for Reckitt Benckiser in June 2022 following a 17-day jury trial in which the plaintiff sought nearly $500 million in damages. The case involved plaintiff Absorption Pharmaceuticals’ product, Promescent, a spray for the treatment of premature ejaculation. Several years earlier, the client conducted due diligence on a potential transaction to license the Promescent product. After identifying an FDA compliance issue in the formulation, Reckitt elected not to pursue a transaction and later launched its own version of the spray. Absorption claimed that Reckitt’s due diligence process was fraudulent and designed to extract purportedly secret information from Absorption. The plaintiff also alleged that Reckitt disclosed and used trade secrets internally after the company decided not to pursue the transaction. The same WilmerHale pair also achieved a victory for T-Mobile following a five-day bench trial in Delaware Chancery Court in August 2021. The Vice Chancellor granted T-Mobile’s request to enjoin Cox Communications from partnering with any mobile network operator other than T-Mobile to provide wholesale wireless services to Cox. This request stems from a 2017 agreement between the two entities concerning an exclusive provision Cox had with Sprint, subsequently acquired by T-Mobile. Cox breached that agreement by entering into a wholesale wireless agreement with another mobile network operator instead and then sued T-Mobile in January 2021 for a declaration that the relevant provision of the settlement agreement was unenforceable. The Wilmer duo responded by filing counterclaims for breach of the settlement agreement, the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, as well as alternative-equitable claims. T-Mobile requested an injunction enforcing Cox’s exclusivity obligation and sought damages in the alternative. In October 2021, the court held that the agreement was enforceable, that Cox had breached, and issued an injunction prohibiting Cox from providing mobile service with any operator besides T-Mobile. Cox appealed, and in March 2022, the Delaware Supreme Court reversed, but remanded for the Court of Chancery to determine whether Cox negotiated in good faith. T-Mobile filed supplemental counterclaims, and the case remains pending.
