WilmerHale is a leading, full-service international law firm with 1,000 lawyers located throughout 13 offices in the United States, Europe and Asia. Our lawyers work at the intersection of government, technology and business, and we remain committed to our guiding principles of:
Litigation & Trial:
Our lawyers have played an integral role in many of the most significant cases across the globe over the past several years, including internal and governmental investigations; patent, copyright and trademark cases; regulatory, government and public policy disputes; securities class action lawsuits; and federal and state appellate cases. Clients rely on our strong understanding of their industries and business goals, pragmatic and clear advice—even in the midst of complicated issues, complex legal and regulatory regimes, and high-stakes decisions—and ability to deliver practical solutions to real-world problems. Our cases and achievements cut across the litigation spectrum, and we have experience across industries, including aviation; bankruptcy and commercial; communications; defense and national security; government contracts; energy, environment and natural resources; financial institutions; labor and employment; technology; and trade.
WilmerHale’s elite lineup of intensely smart, battle-tested litigators can face down any adversary in the courtroom and win. We combine a mastery of proven trial techniques with the intellectual depth to tackle the most novel and complex legal challenges. Because we draw from a deep pool of talent across multiple regions and disciplines, we can handle cases of any scope or subject matter, in any jurisdiction. In trial after landmark trial, our gift for strategy, and for drawing cogent themes and narratives from even the most impenetrable facts and points of law have won us countless victories and earned us the respect of judges, juries, clients and competitors. In trial after landmark trial, our gift for strategy and our ability to draw cogent themes and narratives from even the most impenetrable sets of facts and points of law have won us the respect of judges, juries, clients and competitors across the United States and internationally.
Related Solutions:
Updated Sep 2023
Saul Ewing’s Litigation Department features approximately 200 attorneys across 18 offices. We handle a wide range of matters including complex business and commercial disputes, bet-the-company legal proceedings, and high-profile cases in state and federal courts and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) forums across the nation. We represent local, regional, national and international organizations as well as individuals across a diverse array of industries, including but not limited to energy and environmental, financial services, construction, insurance, health care, food/beverage/agribusiness, life sciences, cannabis, higher education, sports/entertainment and real estate.
Our deep bench of litigators work to protect the interests of our clients and mitigate the impact of litigation on business operations in all phases of litigation, including investigation, pleadings, motions, fact and expert discovery and depositions, hearings, trials, appeals, settlement negotiations, and enforcement of judgments. Among our ranks are seasoned trial lawyers and former government officials and prosecutors, whose insight and strategic judgment are a valuable resource to our entire team.
Our core areas of focus include:
Consumer Financial Services Litigation
Employee Benefits & ERISA Litigation
Environmental Civil Litigation
Insurance Litigation & Arbitration
Intellectual Property Litigation
Title Claims & Coverage Litigation
White Collar & Government Enforcement
Within these core areas of focus, we have extensive experience representing clients in pursuing and defending claims of breach of contract, tortious interference with contracts and business relationships, fraud and misrepresentation, lender liability, property liability, negligence, unfair competition, unfair trade practices, antitrust violations, conspiracy, RICO violations, breach of fiduciary duty, defamation, trade disparagement, false advertising, malicious prosecution, theft of trade secrets, intellectual property infringement, trespass, conversion, trust and estate controversies, partnership and corporate dissolutions and claims arising in shareholder and partner derivative actions, among others.
Our Approach: We start by tailoring a strategy to meet our clients’ objectives and risk management priorities, whether those focus on litigation avoidance, early settlement, resolution through dispositive motions, or pursuing a case through adjudication at trial. Using early case assessment tools, we develop a detailed roadmap for each case. We recognize that litigation can be expensive, distracting and time-consuming, and that our clients need cost predictability. Depending on client needs, we are able to create customized litigation plans and budgets at the matter, phase and/or task levels. Our project management team carefully monitors work volume and billing metrics to help ensure that our services align with project scope and needs, and to maximize proactive communication with clients about changes in cost, scope and/or strategy.
eDiscovery: For cases requiring electronic discovery, we rely on our in-house Litigation Support Services (LSS) team, which is driven by members with sophisticated technical knowledge and credentialing by the Association of Certified E-Discovery Specialists. With extensive experience managing complex eDiscovery collection, processing, review and production, our LSS team leverages advanced analytics and technology-assisted review to quickly identify and locate relevant information, process and analyze data efficiently, and help reduce overall litigation costs.
Updated June 2024
Founded in 1982, Berman Tabacco is a national law firm with offices in California and Massachusetts. The firm has devoted its practice to complex litigation, primarily under the securities and antitrust laws, as well as related services requested by and provided to its institutional clients. The firm also has an active whistleblower practice, among others.
Securities Litigation: Berman Tabacco has over 40 years of securities-litigation experience and has represented public pension funds and other institutional investors in that area since 1998. The firm has prosecuted some of the largest securities cases and has recovered billions of dollars on behalf of investors. Indeed, Berman Tabacco appears as one of the firms with the most settlements on the list of the top 100 largest securities class actions in ISS Securities Class Action Services’ published report, Top 100 U.S. Class Action Settlements of All Time (as of 12/31/2022). The firm has successfully prosecuted and recovered billions of dollars for defrauded investors in some of the most significant shareholder lawsuits of the last 20 years, having been appointed as lead or co-lead counsel in more than 100 actions. Selected successes include:
Berman Tabacco’s dismissal rate for cases brought under the federal securities laws is less than half the overall dismissal rate for such cases (based on the reported dismissal rate by one authoritative study. Securities Class Action Filings: 2022 Year in Review, pp. 22, 34 (Cornerstone Research 2023). The firm serves as monitoring, evaluation, and/or litigation counsel for over 100 institutional investors, which includes 17 statewide public employee retirement systems with more than $50 billion in assets.
Antitrust Litigation: Berman Tabacco’s antitrust practice also has a national reputation for prosecuting class actions that involve anticompetitive conduct and conspiracies to fix or maintain prices. Over the years, the firm has played a major role in the prosecution of numerous landmark antitrust cases and has been at the forefront of some of the largest antitrust settlements—recovering over a billion dollars for class members and changing business practices of defendant companies. The following are examples of the antitrust group’s efforts:
Whistleblower Representation: Berman Tabacco’s whistleblower practice group assists individuals wishing to expose fraud perpetrated against the federal government, states, and corporations, working to obtain the compensation and protections afforded by the False Claims Act, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Whistleblower Program, the Commodities Futures Trading Commission Whistleblower Program, and the Internal Revenue Service Whistleblower Program. Berman Tabacco helps whistleblowers engage appropriate government entities to right wrongs—enforced either by those agencies or through separate litigation. In April 2021, the SEC awarded over $50 million to joint whistleblowers represented by the firm. It was the second largest whistleblower award by the SEC when it was made.
Updated Aug 2023
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We are 800+ lawyers serving clients from 12 offices located in the leading financial and business centers in the Americas, Europe and Asia. The world’s leading organizations, companies and corporations choose us to be their representatives in their most critical situations. But more, they consider Proskauer a strategic partner to drive their business forward. We work with asset managers, major sports leagues, Fortune 500 companies, entertainment industry legends and other industry-redefining companies.
Proskauer’s Litigation Department wins make-or-break cases, changes laws and establishes precedents. Our litigators cover the full spectrum of complex commercial litigation practice areas, including: antitrust, asset management, bankruptcy, copyright, false advertising, insurance recovery, patent, privacy and cybersecurity, products liability, real estate, international arbitration, securities, sports, trademark and white collar. We are also known for our appellate practice, which handles appeals in federal and state court, and advises on trial issues.
Proskauer’s 150+ litigators have built a track record of success both inside and outside the courtroom. We pride ourselves on being trial lawyers, and we have extensive experience trying cases before juries, judges and arbitral tribunals throughout the U.S. and abroad. Where appropriate, we embrace alternative dispute resolution and have achieved significant success resolving challenging matters for our clients.
Our lawyers include former senior government officials and prosecutors with formidable trial and regulatory experience. Our litigators have served as the U.S. Attorneys for New Jersey and the Southern District of Illinois; chiefs and deputy chiefs of divisions of U.S. Attorney’s offices in New York and the District of Columbia; General Counsel of the SEC; New York Deputy Attorney General; the Corporation Counsel of the City of New York; and clerks for justices of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Our litigators have consistently earned top rankings from Chambers and The Legal 500, U.S. News Best Lawyers, Daily Journal, Los Angeles Business Journal and The American Lawyer. The Firm was also noted in the New York Law Journal as a General Litigation Finalist for Litigation Department of the Year.
Select recent representations include:
Lead outside counsel to the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico. The Oversight Board was created under PROMESA, a federal statute enacted in 2016, to oversee the restructuring of Puerto Rico’s finances. The Oversight Board represents the Commonwealth and related public entities in the largest ever municipal restructuring in the United States. Puerto Rico had approximately $74 billion of bond debt and $55 billion of underfunded public pension liabilities. The litigations surrounding Puerto Rico’s fiscal crisis, pending in the District of Puerto Rico, likely represent the single most active docket in the federal courts over the last six years. This is the first territorial debt restructuring in the history of the United States, which put an end to its bankruptcy, while cutting billions in debt and fixing a broken pension system.
Secured a decisive victory for Gilead Sciences in a $3.6 billion antitrust case on allegations that the pharmaceutical company struck an anticompetitive “pay-for-delay” patent settlement related to two HIV medications. A jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California delivered a full defense verdict following a six-week trial. The verdict affirms that a 2014 patent settlement between Gilead and Teva did not violate antitrust law and was not a reverse payment.
Lead counsel to Miramax in a groundbreaking lawsuit against director Quentin Tarantino, involving allegations of intellectual property infringement and breach of contract related to the offering of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) for the film Pulp Fiction. The team achieved a pioneering copyright settlement, marking the first of its kind involving NFTs.
Lead trial counsel for Gilead Sciences in various California state and federal product liability actions brought by ~17,000 plaintiffs related to Gilead’s HIV prevention and treatment drugs. The cases allege that Gilead drugs were defectively designed and failed adequately to warn about the increased risk of potential kidney disease and bone injury that could result from use of its highly effective and FDA-approved HIV medications.
Lead counsel for the National Football League in actions filed by apparel distributors and NFL merchandise purchasers in federal court in New York alleging that the NFL’s agreements with Fanatics, Inc., a manufacturer, supplier and distributor of licensed sportswear and merchandise, violate state and federal antitrust laws.
Defense of Major League Soccer against a federal lawsuit brought by the North American Soccer League against MLS and the US Soccer Federation following US Soccer’s decision not to sanction NASL as a Division II professional league for the 2018 season. NASL alleges that MLS and U.S. Soccer are engaged in an antitrust conspiracy to ensure that MLS is the sole Division I soccer league in the United States, and further alleges that MLS is an illegal monopoly in violation of the Sherman Act.
Complete victory at summary judgment on behalf of Wayne Farms in the broiler chicken litigation, one of the largest U.S. antitrust cases after seven years of litigation. The plaintiffs alleged that the top 21 chicken producers in the U.S. unlawfully agreed to work together to reduce the supply of chicken over a 10-year period as part of a two-hub conspiracy. The court granted summary judgment in favor of Wayne Farms and 6 other defendants, and also granted our motion to eliminate two of the three hubs of the conspiracy alleged by the plaintiffs.
Secured a significant victory for Shamrock Capital Advisors, in a high-profile case brought by founders and other minority shareholders of bookmaker and fantasy sports provider, FanDuel, a portfolio company of Shamrock. FanDuel’s founders and other minority shareholders alleged breach of fiduciary duty, aiding and abetting and unjust enrichment claims against Shamrock, a preferred shareholder in FanDuel, and other defendants. In a $1 billion lawsuit, the founders and early employees of FanDuel claimed that certain directors undervalued the company during its merger with European sportsbook Paddy Power Betfair.
Representation of ATP Tour and WTA Tour on a myriad of issues, including:
Updated Sep 2023