From its sole office in Washington, DC, Williams & Connolly generates national-level recognition and prestige – arguably the only single-office firm in DC to do so. The firm also stands out in the variety of litigation services on offer, with star partners in nearly every capacity, including but not limited to commercial, securities, product liability, white-collar crime, intellectual property, antitrust, appellate, and even an increasing presence in the international arbitration space. Perhaps more impressive still is the firm’s dedication to, and recognition for, trials. “Day in, day out, Williams & Connolly just does great trial work,” offers one peer in summation. Indeed, the firm has a remarkable five candidates on Benchmark’s Top 100 Trial Lawyer list.
One such trial star, Heidi Hubbard, generates considerable acclaim across the board, particularly, but certainly not exclusively, from the product liability capacity. “We just love her,” extols one fellow Top 100 Trial Lawyer. “She had a recent reverse-payment win, which are so complicated and don’t go to trial very often. She has Amazon. [She is] Lovely to work with and super smart.” The alluded-to matter found Hubbard, along with
Benjamin Greenblum, logging a July 2022 trial victory on behalf of Endo Pharmaceuticals in an alleged reverse-payment antitrust class action in which plaintiffs claimed billions in damages. The three-week trial adjudicated claims of class plaintiffs challenging a patent settlement. Plaintiffs alleged the settlement unreasonably delayed the entry of Impax’s generic version of Opana ER and sought more than $5 billion in treble damages. After less than three hours of deliberation, and despite the fact that co-defendant Impax settled for $265 million three days into the trial, the jury returned a verdict in Endo’s favor.
Another Top 100 Trial Lawyer, Enu Mainigi continues to serve as lead and national counsel for Cardinal Health in all things opioids, including civil litigation, Attorney General litigation and investigations, Congressional investigations, and other matters relating to the company’s distribution of opioid medications, and secured multiple landmark victories on behalf of the company over the past year. She secured a complete defense victory for the client in a federal bench trial in West Virginia. In July 2022, the court ruled in favor of the client, rejecting the plaintiffs’ contention that the distributors’ actions constituted a public nuisance and ruling that the distributors substantially complied with their duties to report suspicious opioid orders, and held that plaintiffs failed to prove that the distributors did not maintain effective controls against diversion.
Yet another Top 100 Trial Lawyer, Joe Petrosinelli,
secured a complete victory on behalf of Pfizer in one of the largest personal injury multidistrict litigations (MDLs) ever
– the closely watched product liability MDL concerning the antacid medication Xantac, with
plaintiffs claiming that use of Zantac causes cancers. This massive MDL included approximately 50,000 claims against multiple pharmaceutical defendants,
coordinated proceedings in several state courts with another 30,000 cases, and cases pending in a dozen different states. The MDL Court appointed Petrosinelli as one of four co-lead counsel for all defendants, and as coordinating counsel for all defense groups. The first case set for trial in the overall litigation was set for August 2022, but two weeks before, the court granted Pfizer’s motion for summary judgment on several claims against it on statute of repose grounds, after which the plaintiff voluntarily dropped his case.
Robert Van Kirk, still another Top 100 Trial Lawyer, along with future star
Jessica Rydstrom, represents industrial supply company W.W. Grainger in a myriad of matters arising out of a chemical plant explosion in Houston that occurred in April 2019, allegedly as a result of the failure of a piping fixture sold under a Grainger brand. The claims include product liability, property, bankruptcy and insurance matters, as well as various government investigations. The product liability claims involve nearly 20 different complaints brought by about 200 individual plaintiffs who allege they were hurt or suffered other damage in the explosion. Those cases have been consolidated in a state MDL proceeding. There are also separate property damage, bankruptcy and insurance claims brought by the now defunct former owner of the plant and its insurers. The parties settled the majority of the action in early 2023, with a subset remaining to be tried in May.
Williams & Connolly also boasts considerable firepower in the appellate capacity.
Lisa Blatt enjoys a reputation as one of the top Supreme Court strategists in the country, with peers and clients turning out in full throat to sing her praises and a full plate of high-level appointments to support this acclaim. While Blatt’s celebrity is undisputed, the firm is also grooming a next generation of talent in this capacity.
Sarah Harris is developing an elevated profile among peers in the DC appeals community. “Sarah is spectacular and she’s only going to get better,” insists one contemporary.
Harris secured an important victory for CVS Health subsidiary Caremark and others before the Ninth Circuit in a case concerning whether claims brought by pharmacies run by federally recognized tribes were subject to arbitration. In August 2022, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s order granting the client’s petition to compel arbitration of a dispute with the Chickasaw Nation and five pharmacies that the Nation owns and operates. The Ninth Circuit held that the parties had validly delegated to the arbitrator the authority to resolve threshold issues regarding the scope and enforceability of the arbitration provision and rejected the Nation’s argument that tribal sovereign immunity precluded enforcement of that delegation provision.
