While it operates from offices in Washington, DC, New York, and Los Angeles, Wilkinson Stekloff remains the essence of “litigation boutique.” More specifically, a litigation boutique with a uniquely pronounced emphasis on high-end trial work. Formed in 2016 by veteran DC trial celebrity Beth Wilkinson upon her departure from Paul Weiss, Wilkinson Stekloff has been arguably the most buzz-worthy of law firms, and the appearance of Wilkinson and other firm partners at the forefront of a series of high-stakes trials has more than justified the hype. Wilkinson’s long-held position in the coveted Top 100 Trial Lawyers list remains secure in this edition of Benchmark; she is referenced by other members of that list as an equal on a near-unanimous basis. “Beth Wilkinson is my role model, and she continues to just kill it,” declares one. “She typifies what a trial lawyer is. She is what I aspire to be, she has a real plain-spoken nature in communicating with juries and with clients.”
Wilkinson continues to demonstrate the skills that have earned her these accolades. “She has popped up on a few of these contested-merger cases,” confirms one antitrust-focused contemporary. In one such example, Wilkinson and
Rakesh Kilaru act for Microsoft after the Federal Trade Commission filed an administrative complaint in December 2022 to block Microsoft’s proposed $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the largest acquisition in Microsoft’s history. In another, Wilkinson, Brian Stekloff, Kilaru, and Moira Penzarepresent Altria Group and certain of its subsidiaries in multiple cases arising out of Altria’s minority investment in vaping entity Juul Labs. Stekloff continues to serve as national trial counsel for Monsanto in federal litigation arising out of claims that its popular herbicide Roundup causes non-Hodgkin lymphoma. “Brian can do some of the best crosses I’ve ever seen,” raves a contemporary. “He’s so talented and so likeable.” In another Monsanto-related matter, Cali Arat served as trial counsel in a first-of-its-kind case to go to trial, involving claims that both exposure to the herbicide Roundup from at-home use and exposure to PCBs through the food chain independently and together caused the plaintiff’s non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Both Penza and Arat also made their respective debuts on Benchmark’s Top 250 Women in Litigation list this year, joining Wilkinson, who has been recognized in this list every year since 2016.
