New York

Firm overview

Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP is an elite global law firm with world-class practices across the board. Industry-leading companies and global financial institutions know they can rely on us for their most challenging legal and business matters. The firm’s top-flight capabilities are grounded in a distinguished history of 170 years, and our global, forward-looking focus is supported by offices strategically located in the world’s key financial centers and political capitals. More than 1,000 lawyers collaborate seamlessly across practice groups and geographies to provide clients with exceptional service, sophisticated advice and creative, practical solutions. 

Litigation

Litigation has been a cornerstone of Davis Polk’s practice since the firm’s inception. Our litigators are widely recognized for their creativity, integrity, strategic approach and extensive experience.

Leading companies around the world, as well as their executives and directors, benefit from our numerous partners and counsel who have many years of prior service in a variety of government roles. We also count among our ranks leading trial lawyers who have won landmark verdicts on both the defense and plaintiff sides.

We view matters through the lens of our clients’ business objectives, drawing on the substantial experience of our firm across all major industry sectors. Our approach has created a long track record of success for our clients, from motion practice to strategic settlements, trials and on appeal. Our work has earned the respect of the judiciary, prosecutors, regulators and the bar.

Some recent successes on behalf of clients include: 

• Coordinated resolution of FCPA investigations by the DOJ and SEC concerning a Colombian banking conglomerate’s involvement in an infrastructure project. 
• Complete dismissals of multiple securities fraud actions against issuers from around the world. 
• Rare dismissal of criminal price-fixing and bid-rigging charges brought by the DOJ Antitrust Division against an industry executive. 
• Trial victory for a major medical technology company in a patent infringement case.

Updated Sep 2024

Firm overview

A&O Shearman distinguishes itself by harnessing the intellectual strength and deep experience of its lawyers across its extensive global footprint. The firm represents many of the world’s leading corporations, financial institutions, emerging growth companies, governments, and state-owned enterprises. Those clients, in turn, continue to choose A&O Shearman for its ability to leverage the knowledge and judgment of one of the world’s largest and most accomplished cross-border legal teams—a team ideally situated to help clients on their complex business transactions.

Our lawyers have vast experience litigating, arbitrating, investigating, and resolving disputes across multiple jurisdictions. We have the depth of experience and breadth of knowledge to assist in any significant dispute, having served as counsel in high-stakes, complex cases for some of the world’s most recognizable companies. We focus on meeting our clients’ goals, whether litigating a matter through trial and appeal or negotiating a business resolution. We understand our clients’ immediate and long-term needs and consistently deliver successful results.

In an increasingly volatile world, our understanding of the different legal and political landscapes in which our clients operate drives our approach to dispute resolution. We provide our clients with sophisticated risk-management counsel, and trial-tested teams with a track record of success, who are ready to litigate aggressively to defend our clients’ interests at all costs.

A&O Shearman has experience in a wide range of substantive areas including:

Securities Litigation:
Our securities litigation practice is a core component of our market-leading litigation group. With a deep bench of attorneys focusing on this area of law, we are ready to handle any securities dispute. Through years of success, we have become the go-to counsel for numerous public companies and financial institutions, as well as their officers and directors. We recognize that every securities matter is also a business matter. Each case can potentially pose a significant threat, and – if not handled with the appropriate care and sensitivity – can cause major reputational and financial risks.

White Collar Defense and Global Investigations:
Our preeminent white-collar defense and global investigations practice takes a holistic, coordinated approach to navigating our clients through criminal, regulatory and internal investigations. We have both local depth and global reach, and the majority of our work is cross-border. We bring a deep understanding of the laws of different jurisdictions and investigation practices across the globe, bolstered by the experience and insights from the more than 20 former prosecutors and regulators on our team.

Antitrust Litigation:
Our global antitrust team advises corporates, private equity and financial institutions on their most significant transactions, investigations, and litigation. The breadth and scale of our U.S., U.K., and EU practice together with our global network and industry knowledge makes us uniquely placed to advise on complex multijurisdictional matters involving parallel proceedings and inter-agency co-operation.

M&A Litigation:
We have unparalleled expertise in representing major international companies, investment banks, private equity firms, boards of directors, special committees, and other parties involved in high-stakes transactional litigation. We advise on all aspects of M&A disputes, from pre-deal due diligence, risk assessment and mitigation to post-closing claims and remedies, and shareholder disputes. Our deep expertise in M&A litigation across the globe, including in the Delaware Court of Chancery and state and federal courts across the U.S., distinguishes us in the market.

Complex Commercial Litigation:
We have represented corporations, partnerships, joint ventures, and other entities in a variety of business-related disputes relating to breach of contract, fraud, professional malpractice, business torts, and insurance and reinsurance matters.

Intellectual Property Litigation:
We represent the world’s leading businesses, helping them to invest in and protect their critical intellectual property as well as defending them when plaintiffs allege that they have violated intellectual property rights. Whether developing, acquiring, registering, licensing, or enforcing IP rights – or defending against alleged IP violations – we help our clients to navigate the legal and commercial challenges they face globally.

Employment Litigation:
We handle disputes arising from terminations, team moves, whistleblowing, and trade-restraint matters, as well as allegations of misconduct, discrimination and harassment. We have a track record of delivering successful outcomes whether via obtaining or defending injunctions, resolving claims through mediation or arbitration, or litigating in court or before employment tribunals.

Cybersecurity:
We help multinational organizations identify, mitigate, and manage cyber threats. We work with our clients to build their operational resilience and cyber-readiness with robust, tailored compliance programs and governance processes, which address both their own risks and those posed by their supply chain partners.

Arbitration:
We have decades of experience advising and representing clients in complex cross-border commercial arbitrations and investor-state disputes under the rules of all the leading institutions. We are known for our skill in arbitration-related court proceedings - including multijurisdictional enforcement strategies - ensuring we can take cases from inception to their ultimate conclusion. We also regularly advise on complex issues of public international law.

Updated July 2024

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 global 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 interrelationship between antitrust, IP, 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, GrubHub, Hilton Worldwide, Meta Platforms, Panasonic, Paramount Global, Regeneron, Saks Fifth Avenue, Simon & Schuster, and Warner Bros. Discovery.

Appellate: Weil’s Appeals and Strategic Counseling practice covers all of the Firm’s substantive areas of expertise, including employment, securities, copyright and trademark, patent, tax, bankruptcy, antitrust, civil rights, and administrative and constitutional law, among others. With 33 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. We are regularly called upon to provide essential support before lower courts and regulatory agencies, as well as to assess whether litigation is advisable. Representative clients include BNSF Railway, Comcast, Elanco, Grubhub, Regeneron, Saks Fifth Avenue, Sanofi, Sears Holdings, Speedcast, Washington State University, and many major technology companies.

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 United States 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 BNSF Railway, Burger King, eBay, ExxonMobil, Paramount Global, PepsiCo, Repsol, Sanofi, Serta Simmons, and Warner Bros. 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 secret, copyright, and trademark disputes, as well as counseling. For decades, Weil’s prestigious IP/Media group has been at the forefront of hot-button industry issues. The group’s work in the area of digital media has been trailblazing, touching on multiple areas of commercial significance including artificial intelligence, 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 A&E Television Networks, AIG, Alibaba, eBay, Getty Images, Meta Platforms, Pandora Media, and SiriusXM. 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 ITC, or trying contested IPR proceedings at the PTAB. Our team includes 39 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, BeiGene, Bio Rad, Comcast, HP, Illumina, Johnson & Johnson, , Palo Alto Networks, Regeneron, and Sanofi.

International Arbitration: 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 & Mass Tort practice handles nationwide class actions, MDL proceedings, and joint state/federal litigations, among other matters, 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 issues – including product defects, environmental remediation and indemnification, natural disasters, chemical contamination, PFAS (forever chemicals), and crisis management – in sectors that include automotive products, industrial chemicals, medical devices, toys, food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, heavy equipment, and airlines. Notable clients include Alibaba, Dometic, ExxonMobil, Johnson & Johnson, L'Oréal, Nike, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, Repsol, and Sanofi.

Securities: Weil’s Securities Litigation practice has handled numerous high-stakes, precedent-setting disputes, including those related 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, Brookfield, Digital Currency Group, Elanco, Getty Images, Marathon Digital Holdings, Morgan Stanley, Sanofi, Walgreens, and Warner Bros. Discovery, 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, executive misconduct, 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 Aug 2024

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