Based in the DC office of Paul Weiss, Jessica Phillips attends to a diverse practice composed of a variety of subject matters, encompassing areas such as antitrust and securities, which have been historically recognized as calling cards for the firm, as well as other areas such as intellectual property, health care, employment, and defamation. While her practice covers a wide spectrum, it is ultimately united by a dedication to trial law; by way of illustration, Phillips has taken 12 cases to trial in federal and state courts. In what was arguably her most high-profile appointment to date, Phillips also was one of the lead trial attorneys in the landmark civil rights case, Sines v. Kessler, winning a groundbreaking verdict against the leaders of the neo-Nazi and white supremacist movements in America responsible for the racially motivated violence in Charlottesville, VA in August 2017. Phillips speaks to Benchmark editor Michael Rafalowich about the manifold aspects of her practice as well as some observations on the litigation community.
Can you summarize your major areas of practice?
I’m a trial lawyer who litigates high-stakes disputes in a wide variety of practice areas, including employment law, antitrust, securities fraud, intellectual property, constitutional law, contract law and business torts, defamation and healthcare. I’ve also advised clients in a broad range of regulatory matters and administrative challenges.
You have helped lead some of the largest and most significant trials the firm has handled over the past few years. Can you touch on some of the attributes you bring to trial matters, and your approach to preparing for trial?
Every trial revolves around the narrative themes that we’re going to present, and everything we do to prepare for trial reverts back to whether and how it serves the narrative. The goal is to present a cohesive package to the jury or, if it’s a bench trial, to the judge.
My favorite part of trial prep is preparing the witnesses—and it’s also one of the most important aspects of a successful trial. I’ve worked with a broad range of witnesses, from CEOs at major tech companies to recent college grads, and my approach to preparing each of them is the same.
I work hard to earn their trust and build a genuine connection. Establishing strong relationships with witnesses is key because it allows you to make better game-time decisions at trial, where there is no script and we have no control over when witnesses take the stand. That fundamental trust between lawyer and witness makes for an easy back-and-forth on the stand, and if the witness is properly prepped, they will be able to follow where you’re going regardless of where you are in the narrative. Making sure a witness understands why a certain fact serves various legal points and how it fits into the narrative results in a more seamless and credible testimony.
Can you describe a few of your recent big wins at trial?
In April, I helped win a $100 million jury verdict for International Construction Products (ICP), a now-defunct heavy construction equipment importer, in its long-running tortious interference lawsuit against industry giant Caterpillar in the District of Delaware. ICP launched in 2014 aiming to introduce e-commerce to the heavy construction equipment market, but Caterpillar pressured the online marketplace ICP had contracted with to terminate the agreement, dooming the business. This was a plaintiff-side representation that I was brought onto just three weeks before trial, so I prepared very quickly to put on an expert witness and a fact witness, both of whom proved very important to our winning verdict, and cross-examine the defense’s expert witness during the eight-day trial.
The jury verdict was a not only a huge financial victory for our client, but a very personal one. This was a man who had a remarkably innovative business idea that was completely snuffed out by the defendants, who then argued for the last 10 years of litigation that our client’s idea was worthless. But through the course of the trial, we revealed just how swiftly the defendants acted to crush his nascent business; our client won not just damages but vindication and validation that he had, in fact, created something special.
I also recently represented Oracle as plaintiff in a bench trial in the District of Nevada in its 14-year-old copyright dispute with Rimini Street over software support services. We had previously won a $90 million trial verdict, a permanent injunction and a contempt order against Rimini after it flouted that permanent injunction. In July 2023, we again won a permanent injunction ordering Rimini to shut down a significant part of its business and issue a press release disclosing its false statements to the public. The judge issued an extraordinary 198-page order calling Rimini a “recidivist infringer,” among other things. This was a very satisfying victory for both our team and the client as we successfully demonstrated that this entity was trying to pull a fast one and that they were caught red-handed.
You have defended major clients in a number of major antitrust cases, including some that have gone to trial. Can you discuss this aspect of your practice and what exactly it entails? What are some of the specific challenges in defending clients in antitrust cases?
While antitrust litigation is just one part of my practice, it is certainly an important area for me. In the last few years, I’ve represented Apple in both its high-profile antitrust trial win in Epic v. Apple, and in several parallel antitrust challenges brought in what was a multifaceted assault on Apple’s App Store. I recently represented Ultimate Fighting Championship in a major antitrust class action, where we are in the process of securing approval of our settlement. I just finished a three-week antitrust bench trial in which we defended Google in the government’s blockbuster antitrust challenge over an alleged advertising technology monopoly.
Antitrust is a very hot area right now because the DOJ has been focused on antitrust enforcement, particularly with regard to technology companies. This makes each case fascinating and dynamic. What makes it different from some other parts of my practice is that there are often parallel challenges on multiple fronts, domestic and international. Our job is to make sure we’re being strategically cohesive across all cases—so this could mean using the same expert witnesses and making sure their opinions are consistent across all proceedings, while also paying attention to differences in competition law abroad and negotiating with international enforcement agencies.
You were recently shortlisted by Euromoney in its “Women in Business Law” awards as a “Technology Lawyer of the Year.” Can you expound upon your work with technology clients?
I love working with tech clients because they play such a huge role in everyone’s lives. Everything is tech, and the pervasive nature of tech means that we’re exposed to these companies and their products and services every day. So when issues arise, tech-related cases often present some of the most cutting-edge legal questions that may ultimately touch all of us in some way. I’ve been fortunate to have worked with some of the biggest tech companies in the world, including Google, Apple, Oracle and Uber, among many others, on some of their most significant cases.
HBO recently released a documentary about you and your team’s work in the Sines v. Kessler trial, which resulted in a historic verdict against the leaders of the neo-Nazi and white supremacist movements in America responsible for the racially motivated violence in Charlottesville, Va. in 2017. Can you talk about why this case is so important to you, and give an update on the status of the case?
The Charlottesville case was possibly the most important case I will ever try. Our clients—the nine plaintiffs in this case—were victims of the violence planned and perpetrated on August 11-12, 2017, in Charlottesville, Virginia by the neo-Nazi and white supremacist defendants. It was an emotionally difficult trial for the plaintiffs—many of whom had been diagnosed with PTSD after the events of that weekend—and for the trial team, but an incredibly necessary one: we successfully held the defendants to account and won a groundbreaking $26 million jury verdict in November 2021.
Not only was the four-week trial held in the middle of the pandemic, but there was intense press interest in the proceedings as well as security concerns around potential violence due to the nature of the defendants. In addition to the emotional challenges of having to relive their experiences in court amid this chaos, our clients—and the trial team—were subject to constant racist and antisemitic vitriol espoused by the defendants and their supporters, both inside and outside of court. Our clients are exceptionally brave and it has been an honor to fight on their behalf.
Following our landmark verdict, the district court applied a Virginia punitive damages cap, reducing the award to just $350,000 for all plaintiffs combined. We appealed that decision to the Fourth Circuit and, in July, won a reversal of that ruling that found that the damages cap must be applied on a per-plaintiff basis. The Fourth Circuit’s decision restores at least $2 million in punitive damages for our clients and establishes important precedent that will enable future plaintiffs to seek damages that adequately deter violent misconduct like this.
Our next steps are to track down the defendants and to collect on judgment owed to our clients. We’re doing this through Paul, Weiss’s newly-launched Center to Combat Hate, of which I am a founding member, marking one of the Center’s first major undertakings.
Can you identify any attorneys in this practice area that you admire?
Bill Isaacson and Karen Dunn are the most spectacular trial lawyers I’ve ever seen, and I feel lucky to call them my partners and mentors. I’ve worked closely with them for much of my career, and they have helped shape the lawyer I am today. They’re not only phenomenal teachers, but wonderful people. I also greatly admire my peers Meredith Dearborn, with whom I’ve worked for several years and who is doing fantastic things in the antitrust and tech spaces, and Brette Tannenbaum, who is an antitrust specialist but has really carved out a cool niche for herself in sports law.
