Benchmark Litigation Q&A with Staci Yablon
Based in the New York office of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, Staci Yablon is a partner in the Litigation Department who specializes in guiding international financial institutions and global corporations through complex commercial disputes, securities litigation, antitrust litigation, white collar and regulatory matters, and government and internal investigations.
You attend to a fairly broad practice that is composed of financial institution litigation, antitrust and securities work. Could you elaborate on this multi-disciplinary practice and some of the issues that typically give rise to litigation in it?
My practice is focused on the financial services sector, and, within that sector, I do a lot of work in securities and antitrust law. One of the most essential skills for practicing in financial services is that you have to be nimble, because you’re addressing a lot of different areas of the law. You become expert in many different things. Crucially, you need to have a very deep understanding of your client’s business and what their priorities are, and to be able to pivot quickly and effectively among many different strands.
Litigation can arise from many different areas. Developing that deep familiarity with individual clients or types of clients means you develop an understanding of the types of cases that tend to be brought against them. There’s also a cyclical nature to some kinds of litigation—for example, antitrust litigation can ebb and flow depending on the enforcement priorities of different administrations. Part of what I do is to help my clients understand how to stay abreast of trends and proactively address issues as they arise, or even before they arise.
Are there any standout cases in these areas that have been particularly noteworthy or novel? Any examples of work that illustrates an intersection of all of your sub-specialties?
There’s rarely a case that involves the intersection of all of my subspecialities, but a fairly recent case involved two: financial services and antitrust.
I represent a large financial institution in a very high-stakes, longstanding multidistrict antitrust case. We succeeded in defeating class certification, which is rare in these kinds of cases. The case had been pending in district court for years. We gave the judge thousands of pages of documents, and he was laser focused and came back with a decision denying class certification, which led to an almost immediate favorable seulement.
We fight class certification in every one of these cases. Doing so represents an added expense for the client, but the potential benefit if you succeed is very substantial. This was an inspiring result that was a real exemplar of what’s possible when you are able to draw upon the resources a firm like ours has in terms of legal talent.
Can you discuss how your practice started and how it’s developed and grown over the years? Where do you see your practice going?
I started out in this sector almost by happenstance, when the first case I was assigned to as a first-year associate involved working for a very large financial institution. I worked on that case for five years and it ended up encompassing multiple strands—regulatory issues, investigations and civil cases. It was the kind of multipronged financial services sector case that so many junior associates worked on in the early 2000s.
If I had to single out one thing that has defined and given my career direction, it’s probably been building strong working relationships, both with colleagues and clients. Junior lawyers who take the time to foster these kinds of relationships will be in a much beuer position to steer the trajectory of their careers. In terms of the future, I foresee a few potential trends. Over the past 10 to 15 years, there’s been a tremendous amount of antitrust litigation against large financial institutions, but that’s starting to dwindle. We’re also seeing these types of antitrust cases being filed in other jurisdictions, outside of New York.
Another trend is that the same plaintiffs-side firms are targeting other product lines and sectors, whether in tech or other areas, instead of the same financial institutions.
So I anticipate that the kind of litigation mauers I work on will continue to evolve, reflecting these developments, and that I will be representing new kinds of companies in novel jurisdictions.
Does your practice interact with other core practices outside litigation? If so, can you elaborate on what and how?
Yes, there is overlap, and increasingly so. For example, I’ve worked on merger clearance cases from an antitrust perspective, and those mauers originate with M&A colleagues as part of a transaction. More and more frequently, we are being brought into transactions in the early phases of some of the largest M&A mauers the firm handles to help assess and address antitrust risk and avert litigation.
We also increasingly work alongside colleagues from the firm’s private equity practice, advising sponsors and portfolio companies on a wide variety of high-stakes investor or deal- related disputes. Given the breadth of Paul, Weiss’s private equity platform, we partner seamlessly with our PE colleagues to anticipate, mitigate and manage litigation risk across every stage of the deal lifecycle.
Could you comment on the firm’s approach to mentorship? Can you cite examples of either what you do in your practice or what the firm does to actively engage younger partners in litigation to help foster the next generation of talent?
Paul, Weiss has a very strong tradition of mentorship, both formal and informal, and it does a great job of creating opportunities to have conversations in both formal and informal seuings. For me personally, I found that the most significant mentors were those who took an active interest in my career, whether by ensuring that I got great substantive experience or on my feet training in the court or with clients. I try to pay it forward the same way—to give people the opportunity to try new things while ensuring that there is a supportive safety net should it be needed (which it almost never is).
Are there any Paul, Weiss partners either in your practice or not that you would like to take the opportunity to reference, particularly any colleagues or peers that you work closely with?
It’s very hard to single out individual colleagues, because doing so means excluding others, and so many colleagues reached out to welcome me both personally and professionally, from the day I walked in (in 2022).
For example, Audra Soloway, who is an exceptional securities litigator, took me out for coffee when I was thinking about coming here and invited me and my husband to dinner. She and so many colleagues were so welcoming and helped ease the transition for me by introducing me to clients and helping me understand what it’s like to work here.
And I’ve had the privilege of working at two different firms with Bob Sperling, who has been a mentor for much of my career.
What do you enjoy most about your work? What skills do you think are necessary to be successful in your line of work?
I’m a bit of an anomaly, but I love managing very large case teams and that’s really where I shine. I like thinking through all the things that have to happen and fall into place and how we’re going to get from here to there. I manage all of this against the backdrop of ensuring that our work matches the overall strategic goals of the client. For large litigation mauers, it’s critical to have really strong management skills, both internally, in terms of managing the team, and externally, for the client-facing aspects. The case teams can get quite large, and you also need to know how to delegate. It’s a very specific skill set. You also need to understand how your day-to-day work impacts the client more generally and the litigation specifically.
One of the great things about being at a firm with such an impressive bench of talent is that it facilitates some of the work of building out a top-flight case team. It’s inspiring to manage a team of expert practitioners, with everyone operating at peak performance levels, all focused on delivering the best result for our client.
People skills are also important, because different clients have different temperaments and expectations, and calibrating your approach to each client is important. Some clients are extremely hands-on, others much less so. Figuring out the client’s needs not just in substantive legal terms, but also in terms of how to build a relationship with them, is part of effectively managing the relationship.
What drew you to Paul, Weiss? What stood out about the firm’s platform?
I had worked alongside Paul, Weiss lawyers on some big antitrust and securities matters, so I knew and liked them personally. And of course, I knew the firm by reputation—both its history as a litigation powerhouse and its presence as a firm with a truly enviable bench and client base across transactional and litigation practice areas. It was this depth of legal talent and industry- leading clients that drew me to the firm—the chance to work on a broad range of the most interesting, complex and significant legal matters, alongside colleagues who are at their top of the game.
The firm is also a very collegial place, with partners who are extremely supportive of one another. The weekly partner lunch is a wonderful and unique tradition that encapsulates the firm’s culture. I know I can call any partner at any time for help, and they are willing to offer their full auention. That’s not always the case at large firms.
