Massachusetts

With seven of its 12 global offices situated strategically throughout the US, Proskauer provides a wide range of services to clients across a broad spectrum of practices ranging from commercial to intellectual property, securities to white-collar crime and investigations, as well as its near-unparalleled status in specialty areas of employment, entertainment and sports law.
     The firm has also seen a pronounced spike in its bankruptcy profile, solidly on the strength of its mammoth appointment as lead outside counsel to the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico, which was created to oversee the restructuring of Puerto Rico's finances, valued at $125 billion, in accordance with the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA.) The Board's mandate is to return Puerto Rico to fiscal health with access to the capital markets, and to initiate pro-growth reforms designed to generate a free flow of capital between Puerto Rico and the US. This long-running and sprawling action involves a team of Proskauer attorneys from numerous offices, including Boston’s Timothy Mungovan, New York’s Martin Bienenstock and Margaret Dale, and Los Angeles’ Michael Firestein, all of whom have played substantial roles in the manifold turns of action in this matter since its beginnings. Dale, a commercial litigator who has made a noted pivot to bankruptcy, is involved in several other Puerto Rico-related issues, primarily dealing with employee retirement issues. Mungovan, the firm’s Chair and immediate past head of litigation, has developed a vocal peer following. One extols, “I think he’s superb. He’s not just a figurehead – the guy is a seriously good lawyer, absolutely dynamite.”
      LA’s Bart Williams, not only one of the firm’s most celebrated trial lawyers but also the country’s, has been at the forefront of several milestone matters every year, with this one being no exception. “Bart is the driver of Proskauer’s litigation practice in LA,” insists a local peer. “His practice is just so spectacular, and what he says is very important.” Williams acted with LA’s Susan Gutierrez as trial counsel for Gilead Sciences, securing a landmark win in a $3.6 billion antitrust case on allegations that the pharmaceutical company struck an anticompetitive "pay-for-delay" patent settlement related to two of its HIV medications. In July 2023, a San Francisco jury delivered a full defense verdict following a six-week trial. Williams, along with swiftly rising New York star Lee Popkin, was also trial counsel for Monsanto in a jury trial that was scheduled to commence in March 2023 in San Francisco. The case was brought by an alleged former user of the Monsanto herbicide Roundup and his wife, who claimed that Roundup caused him to develop non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. The matter settled favorably for the client on the eve of the trial. LA’s Shawn Ledingham, a future star with a burgeoning following, was also part of the team. “I think the world of him,” opines a peer, confiding, “I wish I could hire him! I think he’s going to be heard about in national cases in another five years.” Another LA-based future star, Vinay Kohli, a healthcare-focused partner, is cheered by a peer as “so underrated – more people need to be talking about him, including Benchmark!”
     Proskauer has been particularly active, and successful, in the antitrust capacity as of late. Chris Ondeck, co-head of the firm’s antitrust group and co-head of its DC office, scored big for Wayne Farms when, after nearly seven years of litigation, he secured a complete victory at summary judgment in the broiler chicken litigation, in which plaintiffs alleged that the top 21 chicken producers in the US, including the client, unlawfully agreed to work together to reduce the supply of chicken over a 10-year period as part of a two-hub conspiracy. Plaintiffs claimed damages valued at $45 billion in total. Wayne Farms is one of a small group of defendants that has not settled any part of the case, and instead proceeded to summary judgment. In June 2023, the court granted summary judgment in favor of Wayne Farms and six other defendants, with one additional defendant (who, while being represented by another firm, was not granted summary judgment) is scheduled to proceed to trial in September 2023. Ondeck also led a team that included Ledingham and two other antitrust partners, DC’s Colin Kass and LA’s Colin Cabral, to secure a landmark victory for Sanderson Farms against the same allegations. The Proskauer team defeated a damages claim totaling more than $7 billion, which, had the jury ruled against Sanderson, would have been automatically trebled.
     New York’s Brad Ruskin remains as active as ever in matters concerning the firm’s famed sports practice, with a carousel of cases on the go for various athletic leagues and associations. Ruskinis defending Major League Soccer (MLS) against a federal lawsuit brought by the North American Soccer League (NASL) 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. A trial has been scheduled for September 2024. Sandra Crawshaw-Sparks, who divides her time between New York and LA, helms another celebrated Proskauer pillar practice, entertainment litigation. Crawshaw-Sparks is defending Live Nation and Madonna in a class action alleging breach of contract and false advertising in connection with alleged late starts for shows in Madonna’s Celebration Tour.

Saul Ewing saw its genesis as a regional shop primarily focused on the Mid-Atlantic through its offices in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Wilmington and Newark and Princeton, New Jersey. It has since expanded its reach into Boston, West Palm Beach, Minneapolis and Chicago and, as of this past year, into California, officially bringing its national ambitions into fruition. The firm is appreciated by clients for “efficient, high-level legal services that are sensitive to the unique issues in the education industry, with a focus on client-centered advice that is cost effective for a non-profit entity. We use the firm because the lead counsel carefully reviews our needs and brings the necessary resources to help our businesses.”
     The firm’s dominance in the education area is undisputed, and acumen in this practice is frequently demonstrated by various partners. Jason St. John and Mark Simanowith, both in the Baltimore office, lead a team representing the Maryland State of Board of Education in defense of a challenge by a class of Baltimore City plaintiffs who are the parents of Baltimore City school children. Plaintiffs are attempting to revive a lawsuit from the early 1990’s and claim that the State has failed to comply with its constitutional duty to provide adequate education to Baltimore City school children, including adequate funding for Baltimore City public schools. Plaintiffs further claim that the State has failed to fix the crumbling school facilities in Baltimore City that leave children cold from broken heat systems in the winter, overheated from schools lacking air conditioning in the summer, and wet from pipe leaks throughout the year. The court granted the State’s motion for summary judgment on all claims in March 2023, and the case is now on appeal. Simanowith makes his debut as a future star in this edition. A former future star making the leap to litigation star in this edition, Philadelphia’s Josh Richards represents California Lutheran University in a case that arose when members of a softball team performed and placed on social media a routine where they dressed up as the Fresh Prince of Bel Air cast, with some of them coloring their faces darkly for the performance. The school responded to significant student concerns about the content of their performance and condemned its racial insensitivity. A lawsuit ensued, with two dozen plaintiffs suing the school on 13 counts, including defamation. “Josh is a smart, client-focused, fantastic attorney,” extols a client.
     Saul Ewing is plenty busy beyond the education capacity. John Stoviak and Cathleen Devlin, both resident in the Philadelphia office, serve as lead counsel defending Waste Management of Pennsylvania and Grand Central Sanitary Landfill in two putative class actions filed in by two groups of area residents, who alleged claims of negligence and public and private nuisance arising from alleged odors emanating from the client’s operations at a landfill in Pen Argyl, Pennsylvania. Devlin, the firm’s head of litigation, enjoys another year as one of Benchmark’s Top 250 Women in Litigation. Another former future star who is elevated in this edition, Justin Danilewitz was selected as counsel to the Court-appointed monitor in the District of Delaware Bankruptcy Court proceeding involving pharmaceutical entity Mallinckrodt. As part of Mallinckrodt’s bankruptcy and settlement with a broad coalition of state Attorneys General, the Bankruptcy Court entered an operating injunction, which requires the appointment of the monitor to oversee Mallinckrodt’s opioid compliance program and its compliance with the operating injunction more generally.
     Based in the Minneapolis office, Katie Barrett-Wiik is addressed as “a very talented appellate lawyer,” by a peer, who goes on to elaborate, “She is my primary contact with the firm.  I refer appellate matters to her when appropriate. [She provides] responsive, skilled advocacy and client care. She is smart, skilled, dedicated and passionate about representing her clients; she is very well known and highly regarded in the local legal and judicial community.” Hilda Piloto, based in the firm’s West Palm Beach office, is championed as “an excellent technical and practical litigator,” by a peer, who goes on to testify, “I encountered her as we represented adverse clients in a very hotly contested litigation.  She had a very difficult client but managed both that client's temperament and expectations very well.”

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 increasingly developed a name for itself in the international arbitration space as well. “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.” While Lee made headlines as counsel for Apple in the “smartphone wars” litigation, the baton for that client has effectively been passed to another Boston-based patent trial star, Joseph Mueller, tipped by many peers to be Lee’s successor. Mueller triumphed for Apple in a billion-dollar dispute with an entity that was alleged that Apple wrongly acquired its trade secrets from a for pulse oximetry technology incorporated into the Apple Watch. The court decided for the client in a May 2023 decision, although a retrial is scheduled for November 2024. “Joe Mueller has the trial skills and IP know-how to get Bill Lee’s blessing for sure,” asserts a peer. In another high-profile patent win, DC’s Greg Lantier won a sweeping victory for Dropbox in the company’s first-ever trial in May 2023, when a federal jury found all patents not infringed and invalid in a complex patent-infringement case. 
     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 an intersection of any of these three. “Sonal’s practice is tailor made for the Bay Area trendy tech titans,” quips a peer. Mehta added another social media household name to her arsenal of clients with her defense of X (formerly Twitter) in a patent-infringement suit, valued at $600 million and brought by an entity that purchased patents related to online sharing of user-created videos, from a company that had originally filed a case. The initial claims allege that, following talks with X executives about partnering, X instead developed its own products that infringed.

     Beyond IP litigation, Wilmer boasts trial firepower in the securities and commercial space as well, with New York’s Hallie Levin being 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 included Peter Neiman) that secured 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.