Minnesota

Firm overview

Who We Are: BFKN was founded in 1984 with a vision focused on delivering efficient team-oriented services of the highest quality. The firm has continued to focus on this vision and has grown and evolved into a sophisticated, first-class legal practice with a diverse client roster of national and international clients. We’ve accomplished this by practicing law in a different way. Our strategic vision is to continue growing organically by helping our clients succeed, by constantly evaluating and implementing ways to better serve our clients, and by recruiting the highest caliber of diverse talent. Our growth has been steady and measured and we’ve chartered our own unique path to success which is different than any other firm.

BFKN has more than 120 attorneys in ten practice groups. BFKN regularly serves a wide array of industries, but has particular experience serving: Luxury, Financial Services & Fintech, Manufacturing & Distribution, Motor Vehicle, Private Equity & Venture Capital, and Real Estate.

BFKN represents a wide array of clients, from start-ups to Fortune 50 corporations across all industries. Our clients are sophisticated and located across the globe, from the Midwest to the East and West coasts to Europe and Asia. Our firm is lucky to have nurtured several generational client relationships, where we have served as outside counsel to those clients for many decades and have grown with them through changes, challenges, and triumphs. We also have a mix of new generation clients that appreciate our creative and customized approach to representation.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion: BFKN is committed to the establishment, maintenance, and growth of a culture where diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are respected and intentionally valued by implementing initiatives and programs that will foster collaboration and accountability. We strive to attract the most qualified professionals from all backgrounds, perspectives, and abilities and to create a rewarding and fulfilling environment in which our people feel valued and appreciated and can grow and advance their careers. BFKN’s DEI Committee oversees equitable reviews of the firm’s policies and procedures, its accreditation into and implementation of the Midsized Mansfield Rule program, diversity, equity and inclusion training, and holistic recruiting procedures on an ongoing and forward-looking basis.

BFKN is proud to have achieved Midsize Mansfield Rule Certification Plus in 2023 and 2024. The Mansfield Rule, an initiative from Diversity Lab, measures the achievement of certain structural metrics designed to better ensure our paths to leadership – including lateral hiring, client pitch teams, promotions, and appointments – are open and transparent to all qualified attorneys. BFKN remains dedicated to broadening our networks for recruiting highly-qualified candidates from groups that have been historically underrepresented in the legal profession.

Litigation: Our firm has assembled a group of highly skilled trial lawyers – seasoned partners and well-trained associates – who represent clients both forcefully and efficiently. Unlike some litigators, who spend years engaging in expensive discovery only to recommend settlement on the eve of trial, we are always ready to try cases when necessary, but strive to achieve business resolutions early and economically when appropriate.

BFKN is a mid-sized firm that handles many of our clients’ most significant matters. We take pride in our efficient approach to dispute resolution. Even for the biggest matters, our litigation teams are lean, typically comprised of experienced partners and small numbers of associates and paralegals who can manage large amounts of data by leveraging our in-house discovery technology. A litigation team is assembled for each assignment based on the skill and experience required for that engagement.

We represent a diverse group of businesses in resolving these disputes, ranging from the world’s largest luxury goods company to large financial institutions, major telecommunications service providers, REITs, motor vehicle manufacturers, hedge funds, law firms, and consumer goods companies.

Our litigators have extensive experience in state and federal courts throughout the United States, at both the trial and appellate levels. We understand that we are asked to help resolve business problems, and we recognize that a trial is only one potential solution.

Because our clients’ success often rests on our ability to design thoughtful, cost-effective solutions to complex scenarios, a significant part of our time is focused on strategic counseling and alternative dispute resolution.

Alternative Dispute Resolution: Members of our group are experienced in a broad range of alternative dispute resolution techniques, including mediations, binding and non-binding arbitrations, mini-trials, and settlement trials with floors and caps.

Counseling: The Litigation Group also has extensive experience in strategic counseling designed to minimize the likelihood of litigation or reduce the exposure to litigation when potential problems arise. For engagements requiring a certain legal or industry focus, we assemble strong interdisciplinary teams designed to leverage the talents of attorneys in other practice areas. BFKN’s Litigation Group is often involved in complex corporate and real estate disputes that benefit from the comprehensive experience of our corporate, real estate, and bankruptcy attorneys. Such a cross-functional approach has proved successful in resolving controversies ranging from dissenting shareholders’ rights disputes to take-over litigation.

Firm overview

Husch Blackwell’s litigators are active coast to coast, asserting and defending client interests in virtually all types of litigation. We feature more than 400 litigators across more than 20 offices across the United States and are capable of taking on the most complex matters, ranging from bet-the-company cases to large portfolios of litigation spread across multiple jurisdictions. Clients around the world trust us to understand their businesses, their objectives, and their unique ways of working and to develop solutions that are practical, efficient and comprehensive in scope.

The efficiency and effectiveness of our case management capabilities are well attested. Both in 2017, 2018, and 2022, our firm’s Litigation Department was honored by the Association of Corporate Counsel with its prestigious Value Champion award, an accolade that recognizes collaborations that delivered substantial value to client organizations by cutting spending, improving predictability and achieving better legal results. Again in 2020, Husch Blackwell was recognized for its litigation teams’ innovation and design excellence in legal operations by the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC), which chose the firm as a showcase firm for the 2020 Legal Innovation in Operations (LIO) Project designees. Husch Blackwell received the recognition on the basis of its management of a large portfolio of asbestos-related litigation for a client. In the ten months our team handled the portfolio, we posted results that vastly outperformed the client’s prior efforts, including over a 30 percent reduction in legal costs.

Area of practice:

• Antitrust & Competition
• Appellate
• Banking & Finance
• Capital Markets
• Class Action Defense
• Commercial Contracting
• Construction
• Consumer Financial Services
• Corporate
• Data Privacy & Cybersecurity
• Education
• Energy & Natural Resources
• Environmental
• ERISA & Employee Benefits
• Food Systems
• Government Contracts
• Healthcare Regulatory
• Insolvency & Commercial Bankruptcy
• Insurance
• Intellectual Property
• International Trade & Supply Chain 
• Labor & Employment 
• Life Sciences 
• Mergers & Acquisitions 
• Political Ethics & Election Law 
• Private Equity 
• Product Liability & Toxic Torts 
• Real Estate & Development 
• Securities & Corporate Governance 
• Tax 
• Tax Credits 
• Trusts & Estates 
• White Collar, Internal Investigations & Compliance 

Other offices: 

• Austin, TX
• Boston
• Chattanooga, TN
• Chicago
• Dallas
• Denver
• Houston
• Jefferson City, MO
• Los Angeles
• Madison, WI
• Milwaukee
• Minneapolis
• Oakland, CA
• Nashville, TN
• Omaha, NE
• Phoenix
• Providence, RI
• St. Louis
• The Link Virtual Office
• Washington, D.C.

Updated Sep 2024

Firm overview

Thompson Hine LLP, a full-service national business law firm with approximately 400 lawyers in nine offices (Atlanta, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Los Angeles, New York, Washington, DC), is widely recognized for its innovative, value-driven approach to delivering legal services. The firm’s groundbreaking SmartPaTHTM program was created to respond to clients’ needs for a more predictable, efficient and transparent service experience. It combines legal project management, value-based pricing, flexible staffing and process efficiency to align service delivery with clients’ business goals. Thompson Hine has made significant investments in talent, proprietary technology and processes, and infrastructure to increase efficiency and provide greater value.

As part of its ongoing efforts to enhance service delivery, Thompson Hine continually collects feedback from in-house counsel about what innovations align best with clients’ needs and has conducted three formal analyses of the state of innovation in the legal market. The firm commissioned detailed surveys and interviews of in-house counsel and other senior executives and published its findings in comprehensive reports. These surveys aim to monitor developments in the corporate legal market and identify opportunities to further refine the firm’s delivery of efficient, predictable and transparent legal solutions.

In an industry first, Thompson Hine in 2024 transitioned its leadership from Deborah Read, one of the first women to lead a large U.S. firm, to Tony White, who will be one of a handful of African Americans currently occupying the top role at an Am Law 200 firm and one of only about a dozen to have held the position at any point.

Thompson Hine. Always Innovating.

www.thompsonhine.com/innovation

Updated Sep 2024

Firm overview

With more than 225 attorneys in seven major cities, Robins Kaplan LLP is among the nation’s premier trial law firms. Our attorneys litigate, mediate, and arbitrate client disputes, always at the ready for an ultimate courtroom battle. When huge forces are at play, major money is at stake, or rights are being trampled, we help clients cut through complexity, get to the heart of the problem, and win what matters most.

Our attorneys are experienced in a wide range of litigation. A few key areas in which we practice include:

Antitrust and Trade Regulation: The Antitrust and Trade Regulation group is one of few national practices to have obtained landmark successes on behalf of both plaintiffs and defendants in major antitrust litigation and at trial, including in several of the most significant antitrust cases ever litigated. With nearly $10 billion in recoveries for antitrust plaintiffs in the past several years alone and a long history of successfully defending Fortune 100 companies in antitrust disputes, Robins Kaplan regularly ranks as one of the top firms in the United States for antitrust litigation.

On the plaintiffs’ side, Robins Kaplan antitrust attorneys represent businesses and individuals in classes and direct actions in courts throughout the country, where we have achieved historic recoveries in some of the largest antitrust cases in U.S. history. Our lawyers secured the first settlement between a state and Big Tobacco using an antitrust theory, and our plaintiff successes have forced critical structural reforms in many other industries. As court-appointed co-lead counsel, we recently reached the largest settlement of a private antitrust action in the 130-year history of the Sherman Act in In re Payment Card Interchange Fee and Merchant Discount Antitrust Litigation.

Robins Kaplan antitrust attorneys also have a proven track record of successfully defending clients in high stakes antitrust cases and government investigations. Among our notable defenses, we successfully represented UnitedHealth Group and PacifiCare in an antitrust lawsuit alleging price-fixing and fraud related to prescription drug reimbursement, with claimed damages in excess of $1 billion.

Intellectual Property and Technology: The Intellectual Property and Technology Litigation group has a long history of extraordinary courtroom victories in high-stakes intellectual property and technology disputes. Our lawyers have led multiple enforcement campaigns on behalf of IP rights holders where recoveries in each exceeded $100 million. We are known for zealously representing and sharing risk with a broad range of clients, including some of the world’s largest technology-oriented companies, and innovative emerging companies, as well as individual inventors, authors, and developers.

Robins Kaplan’s attorneys represent clients across a full range of intellectual property matters, including patent litigation, strategic IP monetization, Hatch-Waxman litigation, trade secret litigation, copyright litigation, trademark litigation, and more. We have litigated and monetized technologies as diverse as software, microprocessor design, telecommunications equipment, drug and other therapeutic technologies, and imaging hardware. We have an established record of winning in federal and state courts, the International Trade Commission, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, and both national and international arbitration forums. 

Commercial Litigation: The commercial litigation attorneys are no strangers to high-stakes, mission-critical litigation. They know how to litigate and efficiently resolve cases with a view to the bottom line. Our clients include an enviable sampling of Fortune 500 companies along with multinationals, technology superstars (and iconoclasts), and mom-and-pop success stories. Agile across a wide range of business sectors, we have developed particular depth serving entertainment, financial, food and beverage, insurance, manufacturing, and retail industry members as well as a nationally recognized government and internal investigations practice. 

Updated Sep 2023