New York

Firm overview

Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP is a premier firm of more than 1,000 lawyers with diverse backgrounds, personalities, ideas and interests who provide innovative and effective solutions to our clients’ most complex legal and business challenges. With 10 offices across North America, Europe and Asia, and a robust international network, the firm represents many of the world’s largest and most important public and private corporations, asset managers and financial institutions, as well as clients in need of pro bono assistance. We consistently earn high praise for our collaborative, commercial approach, providing novel and efficient solutions to otherwise intractable situations.

The firm is widely recognized as having market-leading practices in private equity, public company M&A, litigation, white collar and regulatory defense, and restructuring. Within these broad practices, we also offer numerous market-leading specialized practices, including intellectual property and technology transactions, finance, capital markets, private funds, competition/antitrust, tax, executive compensation and real estate, among others. Our firm is at the forefront of legal innovation and offers a full suite of premier legal services to clients across borders.

Litigation:
No other law firm can approach Paul, Weiss’s experience and record of success in the most complex, high-stakes disputes in U.S. federal and state courts and before major arbitration bodies. With a deep bench that includes many of the country’s most accomplished trial lawyers and former senior government officials, our Litigation Department is uniquely positioned to handle multifaceted crises, from sprawling cross-border, multi-regulator enforcement actions to parallel private litigation. We are regularly entrusted with fast-moving, franchise-threatening matters because of our ability to develop and execute a winning strategy, no matter the problem or adversary, and to see the matter through to the ultimate resolution, whether at trial or before the Supreme Court.

White Collar & Regulatory Defense:
Clients facing white collar and regulatory enforcement challenges look to Paul, Weiss to protect their businesses and reputations and manage the behind-the-scenes interplay among competing regulators and enforcement agencies. We handle a vast range of regulatory and enforcement inquiries, including across jurisdictions. Our lawyers are adept at conducting internal investigations on behalf of companies, boards, audit committees and special litigation committees.

Broader Practice:
We are widely recognized for our expertise in many specialized litigation, regulatory defense and investigatory areas, including, among others: Anti-Corruption & Foreign Corrupt Practices Act; Anti-Money Laundering; Antitrust; Artificial Intelligence; Restructuring Litigation; Congressional Investigations; Copyright & Trademark Litigation; Crisis Management; Cryptocurrency & Blockchain; Cybersecurity & Data Protection; Employment, Workplace Investigations & Trade Secrets; ERISA, Pension & Benefits Litigation; False Claims Act & Qui Tam Litigation; Financial Services Litigation & Investigations; Foreign Direct Investment Regulation; Insurance Litigation; Internal Investigations; International Arbitration; Investigations; Investment Management Litigation; Mergers & Acquisitions Litigation; National Security & CFIUS; Patent Litigation; Product Liability & Mass Torts Litigation; Sanctions; Securities Litigation; and Supreme Court & Appellate Litigation.

Updated Sep 2025

Firm overview

Who We Are: Founded in October 2018, Reichman Jorgensen Lehman & Feldberg LLP (RJLF) entered the market as a trial boutique with national reach and a bold ambition to create a new standard for litigation firms. Focusing on high-stakes commercial litigation, intellectual property, and white collar disputes, the firm made national headlines for breaking away from many law firm traditions.  RJLF reinvented the practice of law without the billable hour in favor of fee arrangements that align with client interests. The firm also eliminated two other standard law firm features – the partnership track and lockstep compensation – replacing them with systems that encourage attorneys to advance as quickly as their skills allow. Committed to attracting and retaining top talent, RJLF pays above market.

Diversity is one of RJLF’s founding principles. We believe our diverse talent brings a variety of thoughts, experiences, and perspectives that inevitably improve decision making and communication with our clients, judges, and juries. The firm is majority women-owned and 30% of our firm’s lawyers are racially and/or LGBTQ+ diverse. As part of the firm’s commitment to diversity, RJLF has achieved Mansfield Certification “Plus” status by Diversity Lab. This signifies not only our adherence to the program’s consideration and transparency standards, but also that we have attained 30% representation of historically underrepresented lawyers in our current leadership roles and pathway activities.

RJLF has been recognized as a “Top Trial Boutique” and awarded “Silicon Valley Firm of the Year” for three consecutive years by Benchmark Litigation and named an “Elite Boutique” by The National Law Journal.

Elite Talent Wins Cases: RJLF’s break from industry traditions obviously resonated with the market, as the firm’s size quickly expanded with marquee talent from several esteemed “Big Law” firms such as Finnegan Henderson; Hughes Hubbard & Reed; Allen & Overy; Morgan Lewis, & Bockius; and White & Case LLP, among many others.

Our attorneys are from the most prestigious clerkships, including the Supreme Court, the D.C. Circuit, the Federal Circuit, the 2nd, 6th, 7th, and 11th Circuits, and District Courts around the country, as well as prestigious law schools such as Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Columbia, Berkeley, NYU, and others.
The firm’s lawyers have undergraduate and advanced technical degrees in diverse fields including electrical engineering, physics, computer science, computer networks, and biotechnology. RJLF’s lawyers have also been recognized as among the most accomplished trial lawyers by The American College of Trial Lawyers, Chambers USA, The Legal 500, The National Law Journal, and Managing IP, among many others.

Recent Achievements: Punching well above its weight, RJLF often goes toe-to-toe with some of the largest law firms in the world, including Skadden Arps, Morrison & Foerster, Gibson Dunn, and Baker Hostetler, among others. Highlights of the firm’s trial prowess and recent significant wins include:

Commercial Litigation: RJLF secured a precedent-setting victory on behalf of the CRA in the “gas ban on stoves” case against the City of Berkeley. The Ninth Circuit reversed the District Court’s ruling and held that Berkeley’s ban on natural gas hook-ups is preempted by federal law and therefore invalid. The case garnered extensive national attention from major news outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Bloomberg, and Reuters, among others.

Intellectual Property Litigation: RJLF won a landmark $673 million award for Kove IO in a patent infringement case against Amazon Web Services, which involved cloud storage technology. The court upheld a $525 million verdict and added $148 million in interest during post-trial motions. This victory was the largest surviving patent win of 2024, ranked as the ninth highest in the past decade, and recognized as a Top 100 Verdict of 2024 by Law.com’s VerdictSearch.

White Collar Litigation: In an ultrarare price-fixing trial against the Department of Justice (DOJ), the RJLF trial team secured a complete defence verdict after two mistrials. The case stemmed from a high-profile grand jury indictment by the DOJ that charged 10 executives, including RJLF client Roger Austin, a former Vice President of Pilgrim’s Pride, alleging a price-fixing scheme in the $28 billion-per-year broiler chicken industry. The trial win earned the team Global Competition Review’s 2023 Behavioural Matter of the Year (Americas).

Pro Bono: RJLF is deeply committed to public interest litigation. We understand that our privilege of being trial lawyers naturally involves representing those in need, whether it’s high-profile impact litigation or a person who will be evicted from an apartment. We also collaborate and work side-by- side with our clients to develop targeted pro bono and community service programs. Our pro bono activities include handling cases involving civil rights, immigration, prison abuse, indigent defence, homelessness, and veterans’ issues, among others. The firm was honored by The Legal Aid Society as a recipient of the 2025 Pro Bono Publico Awards for its outstanding service to the organization and its clients.

Updated Oct 2025

Firm overview

A National and International Litigation Practice: Wachtell Liption has represented clients in some of the world’s largest and most complex disputes, including domestic and cross-border deal litigation, corporate governance disputes, white collar and regulatory defense, commercial, securities and bankruptcy litigation, complex settlements, appeals, and arbitration. Our litigators have a long history of handling cutting-edge merger litigation, including many of the most significant takeover defense battles in history. We are called upon to play a central role in high stakes and high profile matters generally, including litigation related to the tragic events of 9/11, the recent financial crisis, and other litigations with fundamental consequences for our clients. We also assist our clients with sensitive internal and law enforcement investigations. In addition, our litigators engage in significant pro bono activity at both the trial and appellate court levels, write and speak in areas of expertise, and teach at the nation’s top law schools.

Our Approach to Litigation: A tight-knit group of approximately 75 lawyers, we approach each matter with intensity, thoroughness and creativity and build teams appropriate to the circumstances. We approach our clients’ legal issues within the larger framework of their strategic, business, and financial goals. We specialize in matters that require careful attention, tested experience, and a high degree of expertise. We handle litigation at all stages, from pre-suit counseling and investigations through trials and appeals. Engagements undertaken by the firmare at all times afforded the direct personal attention of partners possessing relevant expertise. Our approach is to achieve the best result for the client as quickly as possible. We regularly take cases to trial and win before judges, arbitrators and juries. But we also know when it makes sense to settle, and we have structured some of the largest and most complex litigation settlements to date.

Takeover and Merger Litigation: Wachtell Lipton is known for trendsetting takeover, transactional, and corporate governance litigation. We litigated the Revlon, Household, and other cases in the 1980s that set the doctrinal framework for all subsequent deal litigation. And we continue to lead in the area — year after year, the firm handles the most important corporate governance and takeover cases in the nation, from the seminal case Corwin v. KKR Financial, which recognized the merger ratification defense to the successful Airgas trial (in which the court reaffirmed the “poison pill” takeover defense against a generation of attack) to the successful Vulcan trial (in which the Firm secured an unprecedented order enjoining a hostile takeover bid) to the successful Sotheby’s defense of the company’s shareholder rights plan against an activist investor attack; to Allergan’s closely watched takeover battle with Valeant and Pershing Square, resulting in a groundbreaking preliminary injunction that set new federal precedent against unfair tactics in takeover bids, to Twitter’s successful litigation to compel Elon Musk to complete his $44 billion acquisition of the company. Other leading merger cases we have litigated include: Paramount Communications, Inc. v. Time, Inc.; Paramount Communications, Inc. v. QVC Network, Inc.; and IBP, Inc. v. Tyson Foods. Our litigators also have led the charge against appraisal arbitrage litigation, securing post-trial victories in the appraisals of Ancestry.com, SWS Group, PetSmart, and AOL. And we have been the thought leaders behind innovative corporate litigation developments in books-and-records suits and stockholder forum-selection bylaws.

Complex Commercial and Securities Litigation: Wachtell Lipton's approach to complex commercial and securities litigation also exemplifies our focus on fresh thinking and creative solutions and the fact that we are called upon to handle some of the nation’s biggest and most complex cases. We represented National Australia Bank in the landmark Morrison case, in which the U.S. Supreme Court held that Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act and SEC Rule 10b-5 apply only to purchases and sales of securities in the United States. The decision overturned 40 years of lower-court precedent and eradicated a burgeoning species of securities litigation along with billions of dollars in potential liability for foreign securities issuers. We successfully defended Goldman Sachs in Baker v. Goldman Sachs, a five-week jury trial in federal court in which co-founders and major shareholders of a speech-recognition software company, Dragon Systems, were challenging Goldman’s investment banking advice and seeking over half a billion dollars in damages. We helped Bank of America contain its mortgage exposures arising from the financial crisis, including by negotiating Bank of America’s landmark $8.5 billion settlement of claims involving more than 500 trusts for mortgage-backed securities issued by Countrywide and in resolving multibillion dollar claims arising from the foreclosure crisis with the federal government and 49 state attorneys general. Following the tragic events of 9/11, we were called upon to represent the leaseholder of the World Trade Center in two jury trials with its property insurers that ultimately helped it secure enough money to rebuild the site. And we continue to represent Philip Morris USA in arbitrations and litigation that have arisen under the landmark 1998 settlement between the major tobacco companies and 52 states and territories, after previously  structuring and negotiating this more than $200 billion settlement, and in 2022 successfully defended the company’s successor Altria in defense of the FTC’s effort to unwind Altria’s 2018 investment in JUUL as anticompetitive under the antitrust laws, where we achieved complete victory in the FTC’s own administrative court.

Bankruptcy and Restructuring Litigation: Wachtell Lipton has a long and successful record representing major parties in litigation relating to bankruptcy cases and other debt-related issues. We have represented major companies in the successful defense of actions brought by bankruptcy trustees and creditors. We represented JPMorgan Chase in: (1) the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, where the firm obtained summary judgment dismissing $8.6 billion of estate claims; (2) the Bernard Madoff liquidation, where the firm obtained dismissal of claims by the trustee seeking $18 billion in damages; and (3) the General Motors bankruptcy, where we successfully defended the bank at trial from fraudulent transfer claims seeking $1.5 billion. We represented Campbell Soup at trial and on appeal in defeating a fraudulent transfer challenge to the spin-off of Vlasic Pickles. On behalf of Education Management, the firm defeated an attempt to enjoin the company’s $1.5 billion restructuring and won a precedent-setting appeal from a judgment under the Trust Indenture Act. We have represented private equity firms, hedge funds, and other clients in significant contested matters arising in chapter 11 cases, including Toys “R” Us and Energy Future Holdings. We also represent companies in defending litigation and default claims by activist debtholders.

White-Collar and Regulatory Enforcement: Wachtell Lipton has a leading white-collar criminal and regulatory practice. We have represented major financial institutions and multinational corporations, as well as their boards of directors and senior executives, in a broad range of the most complex and typically high-profile white-collar criminal and regulatory enforcement matters, both nationally and internationally. In the past few years alone, our litigators have handled both U.S. and foreign governmental investigations focusing on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, criminal tax evasion, criminal transfer pricing, the False Claims Act, insider trading, securities fraud, accounting fraud, criminal antitrust, crypto regulation, and export control violations. In addition, we regularly represent boards, audit committees, and special committees charged with conducting special investigations in response to whistleblowers or governmental inquiries.

Updated Sep 2023

Firm overview

Founded less than two years ago, Groombridge, Wu, Baughman & Stone LLP is already widely recognized as one of the nation’s leading patent litigation firms. Our partners have worked together for many years, most recently as the majority of Paul Weiss’s patent litigation group and have a combined 165 years of experience in trials and patent litigation. From small molecules to biologics, from manufacturing to purification to commercial scale-up, and in single-cell sequencing, GPS, medical devices, semiconductors, satellites, and network technologies, we have deep substantive expertise in both the law and in the science. Our lawyers are known for their rapport with juries and judges, for the care and devotion with which they approach their clients, for the scientific expertise they bring, and for their thought leadership in patent law and policy.

The firm’s devotion to clients, commitment to collegiality and diversity, and growing string of victories have propelled it from 21 lawyers at its inception to 32 lawyers today, and from four partners to 10. Founded with offices in New York and Washington, D.C., Groombridge Wu’s success has driven geographic expansion; the firm opened an office in Tokyo’s Marunouchi business hub in December 2023, bringing on long-time Japan-based patent litigator Maxwell (“Mac”) Fox. This firm’s success has not gone unnoticed: it has already been named Benchmark Litigation’s Intellectual Property Law Firm of the Year and shortlisted for that honor by both Chambers USA and Managing IP. Groombridge Wu was also named the 2024 Inter Partes Firm of the Year by LMG Life Sciences and was selected as a Litigation Department of the Year finalist by the New York Law Journal, not to mention dozens of individual recognitions for its partners, such as all partners being named to the Lawdragon List of 500 Leading Litigators of America, and LMG Life Sciences naming Megan Raymond as 2024 Inter Partes Lawyer of the Year.

The firm handles the most significant innovations in the life sciences sector, including, among many others, representing Novo Nordisk in district court and PTAB proceedings involving Ozempic® and Wegovy®, the revolutionary diabetes and weight loss treatments; 10x Genomics in district court and PTAB proceedings concerning 10x’s groundbreaking technology for single-cell DNA and RNA sequencing; Amgen in numerous cases concerning biologic products; Genentech in several high-stakes matters involving its breakthrough cancer and hemophilia treatments; Acuitas in a district court proceeding involving Comirnaty®, Pfizer and BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine, for which Acuitas invented the “lipid nanoparticle” that is used to protect and deliver the mRNA; and Fennec in a district court proceeding involving Pedmark® (sodium thiosulfate injection), the only FDA-approved treatment for the prevention of ototoxicity (i.e., deafness) in children with localized, non-metastatic tumors who receive cisplatin chemotherapy. The firm’s expertise spans far beyond the life sciences sector as well, representing, for example, Nearmap in Federal Circuit, district court, and PTAB proceedings involving aerial imagery technology.

The firm also has unsurpassed experience before, and insights into, the PTAB—critical expertise demanded by our marquee technology, biotechnology and pharmaceutical clients. The team includes the country’s preeminent PTAB lawyers, Steve Baughman and Megan Raymond, who have been pioneering trial practice at the PTAB since its first minutes of operation in 2012 and have continuously appeared of record before the PTAB in hundreds of high-stakes proceedings on behalf of both petitioners and patent owners. Our preeminence in intricate, franchise-threatening disputes—typically spanning multiple forums—drives our continued growth. We also have extensive experience in ex parte re-examinations.

Beyond the courtroom, Groombridge Wu partners are leaders in the legal community. Jennifer H. Wu is the president of the Federal Circuit Bar Association (FCBA) president, a position that Nick Groombridge previously held. Jennifer is also a member of the NYU School of Law Board of Trustees, and a member of the board of the Asian American Bar Association of New York (AABANY). Nick and Eric Stone have co-taught Patent Litigation at New York University School of Law. Steve Baughman helped create and is past president of the PTAB Bar Association; Megan Raymond is the association’s current vice-president and is the primary author of PLI’s Post-Grant Proceedings Before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. Megan also serves on the steering committee of WIN DC (Women in IP Network) and chairs the FCBA’s Patent Litigation Committee. Jennifer Rea Deneault is a junior board member of the New York Intellectual Property Law Association and chairs its membership committee. She is also vice chair of the Patent Litigation Committee for the FCBA. Jenny C. Wu is chair of the Diversity Committee and vice chair of the Mock Argument Committee of the FCBA, and just finished her tenure as the chair of the Litigation Committee of the Asian American Bar Association of New York. Daniel Klein serves as Vice Chair of the Rules Committee and as a member of the Patent Appeals Subcommittee of the FCBA.

Updated Sep 2024