We are a 900+ lawyer business litigation firm with offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco , New York, Silicon Valley, Tokyo, London, Chicago, Mannheim, Washington, Hamburg, Hong Kong, Munich, Paris, Sydney, Brussels, Houston, Seattle, Shanghai, Zurich, Doha, Perth, Stuttgart, Boston, Salt Lake City, Atlanta, Austin, Miami, Neuilly la Defense, Riyadh, Berlin, Dallas.
We aggressively litigate a wide variety of business disputes for Fortune 500 companies as well as smaller companies. We do not simply “handle” cases for years before settling them on the courthouse steps. Our goal is to seize the initiative and resolve them quickly, because it is in our clients’ interests to do so. If a case cannot be resolved short of trial, we have the experienced trial lawyers who can try it. Our business is winning cases—and we do.
Our Lawyers:
Attorneys at our firm have tried over 2,500 cases and won 86%. When we represent defendants, our trial experience gets us better settlements or defense verdicts. When representing plaintiffs, our lawyers have won over $70 billion in judgments and settlements. We have also obtained seven 9-figure jury verdicts, fifty-one 9-figure settlements, and nineteen 10-figure settlements.
Our attorneys include top graduates from Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Chicago, Michigan, Columbia and other distinguished schools. At last count, 221 of our attorneys (or 25%) were law review editors in law school and/or clerked for judges; nineteen have taught law; and many have been or are general counsel for corporations. Over 25 of our attorneys are former Assistant United States Attorneys. Three of our partners have worked in the White House: two for Democrats, one for Republicans.
Trial Lawyers, Not Paper Litigators; Why Trial Lawyers Are Also Best for Settlement:
Trying cases is a key element of our firm culture. Trials are zero sum games – they are no place for beginners. We try more major business cases than any other law firm. At least once each year, we are in a trial or an arbitration pursuing or defending against a claim for over $1 billion in damages. Many of our partners are very highly experienced trial lawyers, having tried dozens of cases to verdict. Seven have taught trial advocacy. We do not believe the same level of jury trial experience can be found at any other business law firm. Our trial experience is an obvious advantage in the courtroom, and is important both for the relatively rare case which must be tried and for the cases which settle. Plaintiffs’ lawyers know we will not hesitate to go to trial and know what we can do in a courtroom. Our well-known ability to try cases diminishes the lawsuit “hold up” factor and causes adversaries to re-think their demands. We believe that our firm can get better settlements because of our credibility as trial lawyers.
McDermott Will & Emery partners with leaders around the world to fuel missions, knock down barriers and shape markets. Our team works seamlessly across practices and industries to deliver highly effective solutions that propel success. More than 1,200 lawyers strong, we bring our personal passion and legal prowess to bear in every matter for our clients and the people they serve.
Key capabilities:
Litigation and Dispute Resolution: Our litigation and dispute resolution lawyers are dedicated to providing passionate client advocacy through superior trial skills and incisive industry knowledge. Our litigation lawyers collaborate with colleagues across the Firm, to bring our clients fully developed solutions that make meaningful progress toward their business goals, in and out of the courtroom.
White Collar: Our white-collar team has tried hundreds of cases in courts throughout the United States and internationally, and draws on the unmatched insights of our lawyers who previously served as senior federal prosecutors. We are able to assemble strong, lean teams of seasoned legal counsel, to spot—and mitigate—potential compliance risks, respond quickly to government investigations and provide world-class defense in qui tam actions, criminal charges and parallel proceedings.
Antitrust Litigation: We provide effective, coordinated counsel on US antitrust law, EC competition law, China’s Anti-Monopoly Law and other competition regimes worldwide to help our clients eliminate roadblocks and achieve business goals. Our top-ranked lawyers are deeply familiar with all major US and international regulatory frameworks and dispute-resolution forums. We assist clients with challenges resulting from increasing antitrust activity, cross-jurisdictional government investigations and private litigation.
Intellectual Property Litigation: For business leaders leveraging intellectual property to drive growth or defend market position, we are your secret weapon in the boardroom and the courtroom. We help you respond quickly to changing market dynamics with actionable recommendations designed to capitalize on opportunity and mitigate risk. We work to uncover value at every stage of the IP lifecycle and we marry our business savvy, technical acumen and personal passion to help you benefit from it.
Employment: Pairing deep resources with broad geographic coverage, we meet the rapidly evolving needs of employers in virtually every sector, delivering a complete legal offering covering the full spectrum of employment and labor issues. We help develop and implement effective employment policies, defend clients in government investigations and compliance audits, and bring first-chair trial skills when defending employers in courts around the world.
Our team engages in every aspect of civil, regulatory and commercial defence litigation, including:
Updated Oct 2022
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 execute on this vision while growing and evolving into a sophisticated, first-class law firm 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, while 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 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 participated and is awaiting certification for the 2022 Midsize Mansfield certification program. The overall goal of the Midsize Mansfield Rule is to increase the representation of diverse attorneys in leadership by broadening the pool of women, LGBTQ+ attorneys, attorneys with disabilities, and/or racial/ethnic minority attorneys who are considered for entry-level and lateral attorney job openings, leadership opportunities, equity partner promotions, and opportunities to connect with clients. In addition to our participation in the Midsize Mansfield Rule program, our co-managing partner, Roger H. Stetson, committed to the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity’s (LCLD) Leaders at the Front Pledge. The LCLD is an organization of more than 400 corporate chief legal officers and law firm managing partners who have pledged themselves, through the Leaders at the Front initiative and other means, to creating a diverse U.S. 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.
Our litigators 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.
Counseling: BFKN’s Litigation Group also has extensive experience in strategic counseling and training 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. The 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.
Awards & Recognition:
Updated Aug 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 Sep 2023