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
