Florida - Jurisdiction Review | Benchmark Litigation

Akerman

Firm overview

Akerman LLP is a top 100 U.S. law firm recognized among the most forward thinking firms in the industry by Financial Times. Its more than 700 lawyers and business professionals collaborate with the world’s most successful enterprises and entrepreneurs to navigate change, seize opportunities, and help drive innovation and growth. Akerman is known for its results in middle market M&A and complex disputes, and for helping clients achieve their most important business objectives in the financial services, real estate, and other dynamic sectors across the United States and Latin America.

Commercial Litigation: Akerman offers a leading trial team that includes litigators across the United States. We represent a diverse range of clients across numerous sectors—and we have particular strength in the financial services, private equity and mergers and acquisitions, insurance, real estate and construction, health and life sciences, and energy sectors. Akerman lawyers regularly appear before judges and arbitrators in class action, securities, white-collar, fraud and recovery, product liability, intellectual property, employment, bankruptcy, and general business matters.

Appellate: With a bench that includes one of the largest groups of former appellate judges in the United States, Akerman’s appellate practice is a national powerhouse with demonstrated success in handling appeals related to complex commercial litigation. Akerman team members frequently assist trial lawyers during all phases of litigation, preserving errors for appeal, drafting motions and responses, and providing strategic advice on the best approach for seeking relief on appeal. We also represent clients in highly specialized administrative appeals involving high-profile issues, and we promote their interests through amicus curiae briefs when they are not a party to an appeal but have a substantial interest in the outcome.

International Litigation & Arbitration: Akerman has a long record of accomplishment in resolving complex multijurisdictional disputes. Our team represents multinational, foreign, and domestic corporations and individuals before U.S. federal and state courts, as well as in arbitration proceedings before a wide range of international arbitral bodies in multiple jurisdictions. Akerman litigators help clients successfully address conflicts in a broad range of sectors, including general commercial disputes, power and energy, construction and engineering, and banking and finance, among many others. Our highly responsive, multilingual team works in tandem with experienced local counsel to provide seamless resolution to disputes throughout Latin America, as well as in Europe, Asia Pacific, Africa, and the Middle East.

Employment Litigation: Akerman’s national, multidisciplinary team helps clients navigate claims brought before state and federal agencies and boards as well as trial and appellate courts throughout the United States. Our lawyers regularly defend employers in all types of employment litigation, including complex class-action discrimination cases and collective action wage and hour matters. We also represent employers in connection with administrative charges and audits, and have successfully negotiated and supervised numerous settlements with the U.S. Department of Labor.

Updated Sep 2022

Hunton Andrews Kurth

Firm overview

Hunton Andrews Kurth is a global law firm with over 900 lawyers handling a broad range of complex transactional, litigation and regulatory matters for clients in a myriad of industries including energy, financial services, real estate, retail and consumer products and technology. With offices across the United States and in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, the firm is aligned with clients’ businesses and committed to delivering exceptional service. The firm’s full-service litigation practice is one of the largest in the country, with particular depth in key litigation markets such as Texas, California, Florida and the Mid-Atlantic.

Hunton Andrews Kurth’s skilled litigators focus on strategy over tactics, developing plans that are mindful of each client’s business and legal goals. Since its founding more than 100 years ago, Hunton Andrews Kurth has been a business-focused firm, an approach that continues in today’s litigation climate. The team of more than 400 litigators draw upon decades of experience to handle all aspects of disputes with the goal of achieving successful results whether in the boardroom or a courtroom. Most importantly, Hunton Andrews Kurth collaborates with clients to develop strategies that are comprehensive in scope and aligned with their needs.

Litigation Overview:

Hunton Andrews Kurth has one of the top litigation teams in the country, having litigated and/or arbitrated in each of the 50 states and in many foreign countries. Our diverse team has the collective knowledge, skill, and experience necessary to help businesses identify and manage potential risks, respond to existing or threatened litigation, and pursue resolution in any venue. Hunton Andrews Kurth attorneys are admitted to the American College of Trial Lawyers and listed in ranking guides such as Chambers USA and Benchmark Litigation, and we are named as one of the “most feared firms in litigation” by BTI.

Our lawyers regularly handle litigation matters in the energy, financial services, healthcare, construction, aviation, consumer products and retail industries. We pride ourselves on our ability to tailor our strategy to the needs of the client’s specific situation. Our commercial litigation docket regularly includes class action defense, commercial contract disputes, white collar defense matters, administrative matters and investigations, and appeals in state and federal courts.

We serve as national or worldwide coordinating counsel for many of our clients. We are engaged by corporations and other large entities across a broad range of matters – from providing advice and counsel about business disputes and torts to civil litigation, trial and appeal, when necessary. We are often engaged in “bet-the-company” cases, complex commercial disputes, multidistrict litigation and coordinated state law proceedings, as well as class actions. Our lawyers have the experience to handle cases that involve multiple adversaries in federal and state courts across the nation and abroad.

Updated Aug 2022

Weil Gotshal & Manges

Firm overview

Weil is a leader in the marketplace for sophisticated, global legal services. Our pioneering “one-firm” approach, which integrates approximately 1,200 attorneys across three continents and multiple practice areas, allows the Firm to partner with many of the world’s most successful organizations on matters as complex and interconnected as the businesses themselves.

Featuring approximately 350 lawyers in more than a dozen practice areas and areas of specialization, Weil’s Litigation Department is one of the largest, most diversified, and highly respected in the legal industry. We provide clients with business-oriented solutions to complex, multi-faceted legal challenges, including business disputes, regulatory actions and investigations, financial distress, and other potentially enterprise-changing circumstances.

Our expertise spans a number of substantive areas:

Antitrust: Weil is regularly retained by some of the largest corporations in the world to handle their antitrust litigation matters. Our Antitrust practice advises clients on the inter-relationship between antitrust, intellectual property, trade, and unfair competition laws and regulations, and litigates and tries those cutting-edge issues in civil and criminal cases before juries and judges in jurisdictions across the United States. Representative clients include Bridgestone, H&R Block, Hilton Worldwide, Meta Platforms, Panasonic, Paramount Global, Pilgrim’s Pride, Sanofi, Simon & Schuster.

Appellate: Weil’s Appellate practice covers all of the Firm’s substantive areas of expertise, including employment, securities, copyright and trademark, patent, tax, bankruptcy, antitrust, civil rights, and constitutional law, among others. With 30 practitioners located across the United States, including former clerks to U.S. Supreme Court justices, over a dozen former clerks to federal appellate judges, a former Assistant Solicitor General for the State of New York, and a former Assistant to the Solicitor General of the United States, we regularly prosecute and defend appeals before the U.S. Supreme Court, all 13 federal circuit courts, and a range of state intermediate and supreme courts.

Bankruptcy: Weil is well-known as the leading restructuring firm in the world. We not only invented much of what is standard today, but we also have been involved in almost every type of consensual and litigated restructuring transaction in the U.S. since the 1970s. Weil has served as chief debtors’ counsel in the largest U.S. bankruptcy filings in history and has represented clients in numerous complicated international insolvencies. Our experience extends to exchange offers, debt for equity swaps, pre-packaged and prearranged chapter 11 cases, as well as conventional chapter 11 reorganizations.

General Commercial: Weil is a one-stop firm for commercial litigation matters, and has achieved significant victories in high-profile disputes for AIG, Carlyle Group, eBay, ExxonMobil Corporation, Farmers Insurance, Nuance Communications, Paramount Global, and WB Discovery, among others. We specialize in trying high-stakes breach of contract, fraud, tortious interference, unfair competition and other business tort claims, class actions, and litigations arising under RICO, the False Claims Act, and numerous other statutes.

Intellectual Property: Weil offers market-leading capabilities in IP litigation – including complex patent, trade secrets, copyright, and trademark disputes – and counseling. For decades, Weil’s prestigious IP/Media group has been at the forefront of hot-button intellectual property and media issues. The group’s work in the area of digital media has been trailblazing, touching on multiple areas of commercial significance including e-commerce, digital rights management, and digital content licensing. We are also recognized for our expertise in false advertising, music licensing, television/ motion picture and other content distribution, and privacy/data protection issues. Representative clients include Alibaba, eBay, Getty Images, Meta Platforms, Pandora Media, Sirius XM Radio, and Twitter. Weil’s Patent Litigation group focuses on high-stakes patent and IP disputes, whether they involve winning a key patent infringement action at trial or on appeal before the Federal Circuit, litigating a complex investigation at the U.S. ITC, or trying contested IPR proceedings at the PTAB. Our team includes more than 30 attorneys, many of whom have technical degrees, allowing us to identify critical issues, understand the technology at the forefront of a case, and become trusted advisors to our clients, which include Altria, Bio-Rad, HP, Johnson & Johnson, Illumina, Regeneron, and Sanofi.

International Arbitration: Weil’s International Arbitration practice possesses vast experience, having been involved in more than 200 major international disputes – including scores of arbitrations – dealing with the laws of dozens of nations. Leading multinationals involved in important international disputes repeatedly turn to Weil for its business-oriented approach, understanding of specific cultural issues, extensive government and trade experience, and recognized skill in handling complex investment and commercial arbitrations before all major arbitral institutions, including the ICC, AAA, LCIA, and ICSID.

Product Liability: Weil’s Product Liability practice handles significant product liability and complex mass tort matters, including nationwide class actions, MDL proceedings, and joint state/federal litigations, and has won some of the largest consumer fraud class actions involving alleged product defects in the United States. Our experience extends to a broad range of areas, including automotive products, industrial chemicals, medical devices, toys, food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, heavy equipment, and airlines. Notable clients include Core-Mark, Dometic, ExxonMobil Corporation, Johnson & Johnson, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, Repsol, and Sanofi.

Securities: Weil’s Securities Litigation group has handled numerous high-stakes, precedent-setting assignments including those relating to the insolvency or restructuring of major financial institutions, high profile SEC enforcement proceedings, white-collar securities prosecutions, proxy contests, busted-deal and other M&A litigation, and class action and derivative litigation. The group continues to tackle complex litigation and investigations for clients such as AIG, AMC Entertainment, General Electric, Morgan Stanley, Sanofi, Signet Jewelers, Walgreens, and Willis Towers Watson, as well as shareholder suits arising out of large, sophisticated M&A and SPAC transactions.

White Collar Crime: Led by an elite group of highly ranked criminal defense lawyers with extensive government experience, Weil’s White Collar Defense, Regulatory & Investigations practice conducts complex internal investigations and handles an array of criminal, civil, and regulatory investigations and parallel litigation arising out of accounting and securities issues, allegations of insider trading, money laundering, fraud, market manipulation, and cartelization, and allegations related to U.S. criminal and regulatory laws with international and extra-territorial dimensions, such as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Updated Sep 2022

Review

Dispute resolution

Akerman

Constituted of a brawny network of outfits up and down the East Coast, Akerman focuses its litigation vigor within the Southeast and boasts additional offices in New York and throughout the Northeast. The firm’s team is continuously recognized for its formidable presence in jurisdictions around the country, and Akerman’s clients – numerous of which have regularly retained the firm’s trial and litigation services for over a decade – applaud en masse “the depth and breadth of their expertise,” one even noting that, “There is nothing else that they can do to improve service.” Among the most highly esteemed of Akerman’s several and diverse areas of practice are its commercial, labor & employment, and securities litigation groups.

Akerman’s Florida offices, including locations in Miami, Orlando, Tallahassee, Naples, Jacksonville, Tampa, West Palm Beach, and Boca Raton, are among both its most active and revered. In Jacksonville, bankruptcy and commercial specialist Christian George, serving as office managing partner, leads the charge. Centralizing his practice around the upholding of the rights of shareholders, equity investors, corporate affiliates, and companies from local businesses to Fortune 500s,George attends to such matters as, inter alia, fraud disputes, breach of contract, tortious interference, misappropriation of trade secrets, class actions, and breach of fiduciary duty. He recently served as defense counsel to SouthState Bank (formerly known as CenterState) in a spate of discrete matters, all of which were successfully defended against, including a lender liability lawsuit which sought a seven-figure damages award. The matter, arising in connection with allegations against SouthState, which purported that the institution aided and abetted an international wire fraud and boiler room operation, was swiftly defeated by George and the Akerman team utilizing a forceful motion practice which obtained early dismissal of all claims prior to answering the operative complaint or attending any court hearings.

Among the firm’s most active partners, complex commercial and securities litigator Michael Marsh is accomplished both as litigation counselor and trial representation. One of several notable matters successfully argued by Marsh in the last year, he recently secured an appellate victory on behalf of Catalyst Pharmaceuticals, Inc. in litigation against the US Food and Drug Administration, obtaining a ruling which granted protection under the Orphan Drug Act fora medication produced by Catalyst for the treatment of the rare, autoimmune condition known as Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome.

Other key partners in Akerman’s Florida offices include litigation chair Lawrence Rochefort, environment and natural resources chair Robyn Neely, founder and chair of the financial services, data, and technology practice William Heller, deputy chair of litigation Katherine Giddings, appellate practice chair Gerald Cope, and cannabis practice group chair Jonathan Robbins.

Hunton Andrews Kurth

Hunton Andrews Kurth, the product of a recent merger between two prominent firms (the Southeast institution Hunton & Williams and the Texas-centric Andrews Kurth), with the combined entity bringing together each firm’s strengths in a complementary fashion and doubles down on its comprehensive coverage regionally. Clients cheer the firm’s “expertise in our area and consistent excellence in client service and communications exceeded expectations,” calling out the individual lawyers’ “thorough, responsive and concise work product,” and testifying that they are “always available”.
     Hunton’s concentration of litigation talent in its Richmond office is particularly notable. Mike Shebelskie garners praise from well beyond Virginia and is noted nationally for his presence in high-stakes matters often containing an environmental element, an area in which Hunton & Williams was particularly well versed. Shebelskie has cases with Elbert Lin, another Richmond partner who has been particularly visible as of late. Lin argued for Maui County at the Supreme Court in a case exploring the parameters of the Clean Water Act, Lin triumphed in a favorable decision that was rendered in April 2020. “This is a milestone,” claims a peer. “It’s time to recognize Elbert Lin!” Another environmental litigator (and leader of the practice) based in the DC office, Deidre Duncan led a team that won a significant victory for Mosaic Fertilizer in the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in a suit challenging the federal authorizations and reviews issued for Mosaic’s South Pasture Extension mine under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), Clean Water Act (CWA) and Endangered Species Act (ESA.)The underlying suit, filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and other environmental groups, raised more than a dozen claims under NEPA, CWA and ESA. The Hunton team defeated those claims in the district court in November 2018, and the environmental groups appealed. In a comprehensive opinion, a divided panel of the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court’s decision and, in doing so, established important precedent governing the scope of NEPA reviews.
    Kelly Sandill in the firm’s Houston office led an all-female firm team that scored a milestone win in a hotly contested lawsuit for the Houston Police Officers’ Union when, in May 2019 after months of litigation, a Harris County District Court Judge awarded summary judgment in the client’s favor by ruling that Proposition B, which was a City Charter Amendment passed by the voters that tied firefighter pay to police pay, was preempted by Texas state law and unconstitutional. The ruling follows a year’s worth of contentious debate surrounding Proposition B and the financial effect on the City of Houston and Houston police officers. In the Miami office, all-purpose commercial litigator Sam Danon continues to be viewed as “a force,” with one local peer elaborating, “Sam is very savvy – he’s a native Spanish speaker, which you need to be around here, but Sam is particularly good at using this to his advantage not only in litigation but for building business.”
     The firm’s geographic footprint is not limited to the South. Partners in the firm’s Boston office Harry Manion and Martin Gaynor led a team that won a June 2019 jury verdict of more than $20 million against the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center over dredging related to construction of a marine terminal.