Cali Arat is a Partner at Wilkinson Stekloff. Since joining the firm at its founding in 2016, she has served as a key member of more than half of the firm’s trial teams.
Cali has helped to develop and execute successful trial strategies for corporate clients across a diverse set of industries in products liability and antitrust matters, from pharmaceuticals to sports to social media. Her experience includes jury and bench trials, in both state and federal court, as well as numerous arguments at both the trial and appellate level.
Cali’s work includes serving as trial counsel for Monsanto in its first successful defense of the weedkiller Roundup against claims that it causes non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma; representing the NCAA in negotiations to secure a historic settlement that resolved sprawling name, image, and likeness (“NIL”) litigation against the NCAA; representing former State Department officials in a nationally publicized series of cases brought under the Freedom of Information Act; and securing a full grant of summary judgment for Georgia-Pacific LLC in a multibillion-dollar consumer class action.
In addition to her impressive legal skills, Cali is dedicated to mentoring junior lawyers at the firm and also currently serves as the co-chair of Wilkinson Stekloff’s DEI Committee.
Cali’s work has earned her wide recognition. She is a Benchmark “Litigation Star” and was named to their “Top 250 Women in Litigation” and top “40 & Under” lists. Cali has been ranked by Chambers and Partners as “Up and Coming” in Nationwide Product Liability & Mass Torts, and is recommended by Legal 500 for “Sports.” She was recognized as a “Rising Star” by Law360 for Product Liability, the National Law Journal, and Business Insider, and was selected for Lawdragon’s “500 X — The Next Generation.”
Before joining Wilkinson Stekloff, Cali clerked for Chief Judge John R. Tunheim, United States District Court for the District of Minnesota. She earned her B.A., summa cum laude, from Macalester College and her J.D., magna cum laude, from the University of Michigan.
Cali’s other notable representations include:
- Served as trial counsel in Clark v. Monsanto, a trial involving claims that Roundup causes Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma. Cali argued the general-causation Daubert motion and handled several witnesses. Clark was the fourth case in this mass tort to go to trial, with the three previous trials resulting in verdicts against Monsanto ranging from $81 million to over $2 billion. After a single day of deliberation, the jury delivered the first-ever verdict for Monsanto in the Roundup mass tort litigation.
- Serves as co-lead counsel for the NCAA and helped secure a groundbreaking and highly publicized settlement in a series of overlapping class action lawsuits brought under the Sherman Act, claiming billions of dollars in damages over the NCAA’s rules related to name, image, and likeness payments and “pay-to-play” prohibitio
