San Francisco

Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP is a global law firm of more than 1,500 lawyers focused on helping clients navigate their most complex legal and business challenges. With 11 offices across North America, Europe and Asia, the firm represents many of the world’s largest and most important public and private corporations, asset managers and financial institutions, while maintaining an unwavering commitment to pro bono service. We consistently earn high praise for our collaborative, commercial approach, providing novel and efficient solutions to otherwise intractable situations.

The firm is widely recognized as having internationally recognized core business areas in corporate, litigation and restructuring. Within these areas, we also offer numerous specialized practices. Our firm is committed to legal innovation and offers a full suite of legal services to clients across practices, industries and jurisdictions.

Litigation:

Paul, Weiss’s Litigation Department brings together experienced and accomplished trial lawyers who have handled some of the most significant, high-stakes and complex litigations and enforcement actions. The team regularly represents Fortune 50 corporations and other prominent companies across the financial services, investment, medical device, pharmaceutical, sports, technology, energy, media and insurance industries. Chief executives, board chairs, general counsel, investors and entrepreneurs rely on our litigators’ trial experience, sophisticated business judgment and strategic advice.

We are known first and foremost as trial lawyers, with the experience and confidence to take cases all the way—especially when the stakes are the greatest. Our litigators have tried and argued cases in virtually every forum, including state and federal trial and appellate courts, the U.S. bankruptcy courts and the Delaware Court of Chancery, U.S. and international arbitration panels and mediators, and administrative tribunals of all kinds. While we are always ready to go to trial, we leverage our readiness and reputation to strike favorable settlements and minimize regulatory risks.

Corporations, financial services and private equity firms, investors and leading executives also turn to the Litigation Department when threatened with serious government investigations and enforcement actions. We are deeply experienced in managing the behind-the-scenes interplay between competing regulators and law enforcement agencies, having navigated and resolved some of the largest regulatory matters in recent decades. Our litigators include former senior officials at the U.S. Department of Justice, the White House, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the U.S. Treasury Department, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the New York State Attorney General’s office.

The Litigation Department is also widely recognized for its extensive experience and sensitive handling of internal investigations. We are often among the first called in highly charged situations where boards and corporations face intense regulatory and public scrutiny.

Broader Practice:

We are widely recognized for our knowledge and experience in many specialized areas, including Anti-Corruption & Foreign Corrupt Practices Act; Antitrust; Artificial Intelligence; Commercial Litigation; Congressional Investigations; Copyright & Trademark Litigation; Cybersecurity & Data Protection; E-Discovery; Economic Sanctions & Anti-Money Laundering; Employment, Workplace Investigations & Trade Secrets; ERISA, Pension & Benefits Litigation; False Claims Act & Qui Tam Litigation; Foreign Direct Investment Regulation; Internal Investigations; International Arbitration; Investigations; Investment Funds Litigation; Latin America; Mass Torts & Product Liability; Mergers & Acquisitions Litigation; National Security & CFIUS; Patent Litigation; Restructuring Litigation; Securities Litigation; Supreme Court & Appellate Litigation; and White Collar & Regulatory Defense.

Alto Litigation is a powerhouse litigation boutique based in San Francisco representing some of Silicon Valley’s most coveted companies and entrepreneurs in high-stakes litigation and regulatory matters, ranging from securities litigation, investment disputes, and SEC investigations to trade secrets and general commercial disputes.

Alto’s lead attorneys received degrees from the nation’s most elite law schools (Harvard, Yale), and have successfully represented Fortune 500 companies over the last two decades. The firm represents technology companies, entrepreneurs, officers, directors, employees and shareholders in Silicon Valley and beyond in high-stakes litigation.

Alto prides itself on being lean and efficient, with the close team of litigators achieving positive results for top executives and companies. Alto’s size allows it to offer clients alternative rate structures, including flat fee or contingency arrangements when appropriate. The results speak for themselves. On the plaintiffs’ side, the firm has achieved millions in judgments and settlements. On the defense side, the firm has achieved dismissals, arbitration wins, and early settlements.

These results have not gone unnoticed. In 2021, Benchmark Litigation ranked Alto as a Tier 1 Firm in San Francisco for Dispute Resolution and a Recommended Firm in California. Alto was also nominated for San Francisco Firm of the Year, California Securities Litigation Firm of the Year, and California White Collar Crime Litigation Firm of the Year. In 2022, Benchmark Litigation again ranked Alto Litigation as a Tier 1 Firm in San Francisco for Dispute Resolution and a Recommended Firm in California, and it added Alto as a Tier 2 Firm in California for Securities Litigation. Alto has also been recognized as a “Top Boutique” law firm by the Daily Journal.

Updated Oct 2025

Founded in 1982, Berman Tabacco is a national law firm with offices in California and Massachusetts. The firm has devoted its practice to complex litigation, primarily under the securities and antitrust laws, as well as other related services requested by its institutional clients and consumer class actions.

Securities Litigation: Berman Tabacco has over 40 years of securities-litigation experience and has represented public pension funds, multiemployer plans and other institutional investors in that area since 1998. The firm has prosecuted some of the largest securities cases and recovered billions of dollars on behalf of investors. The firm prides itself on its client-focused approach, exercising superior legal judgment in advising clients about complex cases. Indeed, the quality of the firm’s evaluations and litigation acumen is evidence by several facts. First, Berman Tabacco’s dismissal rate for cases brought under the federal securities laws is less than half the overall dismissal rate for such cases, based on the reported dismissal rate by one authoritative study, Securities Class Action Filings: 2023 Year in Review, pp. 19, 37 (Cornerstone Research 2024). Second, Berman Tabacco appears as one of the firms with the most settlements on the list of the top 100 largest securities class actions in ISS Securities Class Action Services’ published report, Top 100 U.S. Class Action Settlements of All Time (as of 12/31/2023).

Selected successes include:

• In re IndyMac Mortgage-Backed Sec. Litigation, No. 1:09-cv-04583 (LAK) (S.D.N.Y.). As lead counsel, the firm recovered $346 million on behalf of the class against investment-bank underwriters and officers, which was one of the largest mortgage-backed-securities class action settlements and the largest paid by underwriter defendants.
• California Public Employees’ Retirement System v. Moody’s Corp., No. CGC-09-490241 (Cal. Super. Ct. San Francisco Cty.). As sole counsel, the firm recovered $255 million from Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s entities in this landmark individual action on behalf of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System alleging negligent misrepresentations in connection with rating three structured investment vehicles.
• In re BP plc Sec. Litigation, No. 4:10-md-02185 (S.D. Tex.). The firm recovered $175 million on behalf of the class—one of just four mega securities class action settlements in 2017 (settlements of $100 million or more), according to Cornerstone Research—in this hard-fought litigation on behalf of shareholders of BP American Depository Shares arising out of BP’s Deepwater Horizon explosion, one of the worst oil spills in history. Class members who submitted claims received approximately 115% of their recoverable losses.
• In re Fannie Mae 2008 Sec. Litigation, No. 08-cv-07831 (PAC) (S.D.N.Y.). Representing co-lead plaintiff Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Management Board, the firm resolved claims for $170 million alleging that Fannie Mae failed to disclose (i) growing exposure to high-risk mortgages as well as (ii) problems with the company’s risk controls, both of which led to federal conservatorship in 2008.
• In re Aegean Marine Petroleum Network, Inc. Sec. Litigation, No. 18-cv-04993-NRB (S.D.N.Y.). As sole lead counsel representing a state pension fund, the firm negotiated $41.749 million settlement on behalf of investors in this action involving a Greek company that declared bankruptcy, where the defendants were residents of Greece and where much of the evidence and witnesses were located in Greece. In addition to recouping monies from the two outside auditors as well as insurance proceeds on behalf of the former officer, the firm also succeeded in obtaining a personal cash settlement from the other individual defendant.
• Oklahoma Police Pension and Retirement System v. Sterling Bancorp, Inc., et al., No. 2:20-cv-10490 (E.D. Mich.). As sole lead counsel representing Oklahoma Police Pension and Retirement System, the firm achieved a $12.5 million settlement on behalf of the class in this action which alleged, among other things, that defendants misled investors from its IPO forward regarding its core product, the Advantage Loan Program, and its compliance with the Bank Secrecy Act/Anti-Money Laundering provisions. The settlement is significant because it was reached early in the case and represented approximately 20% of the alleged damages (which is far higher than the median recovery of less than 5% for securities fraud class actions overall) even though the company’s continued viability was in question.

Antitrust Litigation: Berman Tabacco’s antitrust practice also has a national reputation for prosecuting class actions that involve anticompetitive conduct and conspiracies to fix or maintain prices. Over the years, the firm has played a major role in the prosecution of numerous landmark antitrust cases and some of the largest antitrust settlements—recovering billions of dollars for class members. The following are examples of the antitrust group’s efforts:

• Automobile Antitrust Cases I and II, JCCP Nos. 4298 and 4303, Nos. CJC-03-004298 and CJC-03-004303 (Cal. Super. Ct. San Francisco Cty.). Berman Tabacco was lead trial counsel for plaintiffs in a California state court action (and was previously chair of the executive committee for plaintiffs in the federal multidistrict class action, In re New Motor Vehicles Canadian Export Antitrust Litig., No. 03-md-1532 (D. Me.)), against leading automakers for alleged violations of the antitrust laws with regard to the pricing and importation of automobiles from Canada into the United States. In advance of trial and after almost 20 years of litigation, Plaintiffs settled with the final defendant for $82 million, which received Court approval on October 31 2022. This brought total settlements in the related federal and state cases to $137.85 million.
• In re Lithium Ion Batteries Antitrust Litigation, No. 13-md-02420-YGR (N.D. Cal.). Berman Tabacco was co-lead counsel for the class of direct purchasers of lithium-ion rechargeable batteries in a class action alleging that defendant manufacturers participated in a conspiracy in violation of federal antitrust laws to fix the prices of lithium-ion rechargeable batteries (which are commonly used in devices such as note-book computers, cell phones, and digital cameras). The firm successfully negotiated settlements totaling $139.3 million, which was approved in May 2018.

Moreover, in the past decade, the firm’s antitrust and securities attorneys have been prosecuting class actions on behalf of its institutional clients alleging that class members suffered investment losses due to violations of the antitrust laws. Select examples include:

• Dennis, et al. v. JPMorgan Chase & Co., et al., No. 1:16-cv-06496-LAK (S.D.N.Y.). Berman Tabacco was Plaintiffs’ Counsel representing Orange County Employees Retirement System in this action alleging that defendants conspired to manipulate the Australian Bank Bill Swap Reference Rate (“BBSW”) and the prices of BBSW-based derivatives. The firm successfully negotiated settlements in the total amount of$185.875 million, which were approved by the court on November 2, 2022.
• Sullivan v. Barclays PLC, et al., No. 13-cv-02811 (PKC) (S.D.N.Y.). Berman Tabacco represents California State Teachers’ Retirement System in this action alleging that over a dozen major banks colluded in violation of the antitrust laws to manipulate the EURIBOR, a global reference rate used to benchmark and price over $200 trillion of financial products. As of July 2024, partial settlements totaling $651.5 million have been approved by the court.
• Laydon v. Mizuho Bank, Ltd., No. 1:12-cv-03419 (GBD) (S.D.N.Y.) & Sonterra Capital Master Fund, Ltd. v. UBS AG, No. 1:15-cv-05844 (GBD) (S.D.N.Y.). Berman Tabacco is counsel for plaintiffs representing California State Teachers’ Retirement System in these actions alleging that bank traders and their affiliates colluded in violation of antitrust laws to manipulate the Euroyen TIBOR and Yen LIBOR rates—benchmark rates used to determine interest rates and to price Japanese Yen-based financial instruments. As of July 2024, partial settlements totaling $364.5 million have been achieved and approved by the court.
• In re European Government Bonds Antitrust Litigation, No. 19-cv-2601 (S.D.N.Y.). Berman Tabacco is Interim Co-Lead Counsel and counsel for plaintiff San Bernardino County Employees’ Retirement Association in this action alleging defendant banks conspired with each other for years to manipulate the prices at which they transacted European Government Bonds in the secondary market with U.S investors. The Court has approved the first $40 million in settlements and the final approval hearing for $80 million in settlements with the remaining defendants is scheduled for December 6, 2024.
  
  

Updated Oct 2025

The Litigation & Trial Department leverages a global platform to provide unmatched legal services. With over 1000 top-tier litigators, we bring experience, insight, and determination to every client. Our pragmatic approach ensures favorable results through effective collaboration with local counsel, co-counsel, and government regulators. We develop aggressive and creative litigation strategies, often resolving matters before trial. When necessary, clients can rely on our ability to win at trial, arbitration, regulatory proceedings, and on appeal.
Antitrust & Competition: Our distinguished team comprises highly qualified lawyers adept in both local and international antitrust and competition matters. We provide expert counsel on merger clearance, cartel investigations, competition-related litigation, IP antitrust issues, and compliance training. Our team is committed to delivering exceptional client service in cases involving monopolization challenges, rapid-response merger litigation, and innovative, high-stakes theories.

Complex Commercial Litigation: Our team combines trial-ready capabilities and business fluency to tackle complex challenges. We represent public and private companies, financial institutions, private equity firms, governmental entities, and high net worth individuals in commercial disputes. Over the past decade, we have tried or arbitrated hundreds of cases to verdict with an extraordinary success rate in US federal and state courts and arbitration panels. Our team includes more than 350 former federal law clerks and more than 35 former federal prosecutors, providing invaluable institutional knowledge and courtroom experience.

Connectivity, Privacy & Information: Our firm brings together a global team of lawyers addressing the critical legal issues arising from digital technology and services, in disciplines including communications, data privacy and cybersecurity, internet law, and digital copyright. Our team handles high-profile litigation, regulatory investigations and counseling, internal investigations, and technology transactions for clients in multiple industry sectors. We handle matters requiring extensive experience in particular areas of the law governing digital commerce, as well as matters that cut across legal silos to deliver exceptional results for our clients.

Environmental Litigation: We represent clients in administrative and regulatory proceedings, enforcement, litigation, transactions, and legislative matters. We help clients navigate complex agency rulemakings, secure approvals for energy and infrastructure projects, and resolve environmental investigations and compliance issues. Our wide-ranging expertise and unique government experience set us apart, delivering successful outcomes in groundbreaking matters worldwide.

Intellectual Property Litigation: Our litigators have unparalleled experience in IP strategy and disputes, including patent, trademark, copyright, trade dress, and trade secrets. We are actively involved in precedent-setting multijurisdictional litigation on a global scale, including extensive experience across numerous U.S. district courts, as well as proceedings before the Federal Circuit, ITC, and PTAB. Our team is comprised of technically trained lawyers, technical analysts, and dedicated IP paralegals, adept at managing cases in diverse industries across life sciences, technology, and more, including semiconductors, software, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, electric motors, engines, emerging technologies, cloud computing and networking, packaging, building products, and banking technologies, among others.

Securities Litigation & Professional Liability: Our Securities and M&A Litigation team is renowned for its exceptional expertise in handling complex securities class actions, shareholder derivative litigation, and litigation arising from M&A transactions. We have defended more federal securities lawsuits than any other firm in the US in the last five years, and our presence in the Delaware courts is unparalleled among our peer firms (Lex Machina). Recognized as the Securities Group of the Year by Law360 in four of the past five years, and consistently ranked #1 by Chambers and Legal500, our team comprises leading lawyers, former federal prosecutors, and senior SEC staff. We are the go-to firm for Fortune 500 companies, major financial institutions, and the Big Four accounting firms, securing high-profile, precedent-setting victories. We excel at resolving matters before trial through dispositive motions or settlements, and have a proven track record in trial success.

Supreme Court & Appellate: Led by a former U.S. Solicitor General, our Supreme Court and Appellate Practice boasts an outstanding record before the U.S. Supreme Court and other appellate courts. Over the past two decades, our advocates have argued more than 100 cases before the Supreme Court, representing Fortune 100 corporations, state governments, leading educational institutions, and individuals. Recently, we secured certiorari in nearly a dozen cases and have prepared briefs for hundreds of cases in both federal and state appellate courts.

White Collar Defense & Investigations: Our firm is at the forefront of advising on white collar and enforcement matters, offering unparalleled expertise in high-profile, sensitive cases globally. We leverage deep experience with regulators and prosecutors to guide clients through inquiries and investigations, skillfully defending against enforcement actions and prosecutions. Our track record includes avoiding charges and achieving full acquittals, often defeating government prosecutions before trial. We represent clients in actions by the SEC, DOJ, PCAOB, FINRA, CFTC, state attorneys general, Congress, and other global regulators. Our team excels in export controls, economic sanctions, and national security-related work, including CFIUS reviews and FOCI mitigation. Our defense lawyers include former senior prosecutors and government officials from top agencies.

Updated Oct 2025

King & Spalding helps leading companies advance complex business interests in more than 160 countries. Working across a highly integrated platform of more than 1,300 lawyers in 26 offices globally, we deliver tailored commercial solutions through world-class offerings and an uncompromising approach to quality and service.

Trial and Global Disputes: Our experienced disputes lawyers try and arbitrate high-stakes cases every year across the globe in the most challenging jurisdictions for corporate clients.  Recognized for creativity, meticulous preparation, and top-rate advocacy, our lawyers help clients navigate the litigation lifecycle, working together from day one to identify business objectives, develop a strategy to meet those objectives, and then execute that strategy.  With more than 450 lawyers in 17 offices worldwide, we are uniquely able to staff and manage large and cross-border disputes from filing, to trial, and through appeal.  Our lawyers have a variety of expertise across substantive areas, including Appellate Law, Class Action Defense, Commercial Litigation, Construction & Engineering Disputes, Corporate & Securities Litigation, E-Discovery, Insolvency Litigation, Insurance Coverage & Recovery, Intellectual Property, International Arbitration, Labor & Employment, Product Liability, Professional Liability, and Toxic & Environmental Torts.  Working together—one area of expertise informing another—our disputes lawyers provide clients with seamless and efficient representation in the most complex and sensitive matters.

Capabilities:

• Appellate, Constitutional and Administrative Law 
• Bankruptcy and Insolvency Litigation
• Class Action Defense
• Commercial Litigation
• Construction and Engineering Disputes
• Corporate and Securities Litigation
• E-Discovery
• Insurance Coverage and Recovery
• Intellectual Property, Patent, Trademark and Copyright Litigation
• International Arbitration and Litigation
• Labor and Employment
• Product Liability
• Professional Liability
• Toxic & Environmental Torts

Government Matters: Clients ranging from Fortune Global 50 corporations to high-profile individuals in every region of the world entrust King & Spalding’s Government Matters practice to guide them through rapidly changing regulatory landscapes, complex investigations by U.S. and foreign enforcement authorities, highly sensitive internal investigations and related, often parallel civil proceedings. 

Hundreds of lawyers across the United States, Europe and Asia bring decades of prior government service and industry experience to our regulatory and investigative practices, which serve the financial services, pharmaceutical and medical device, healthcare, energy, automotive and technology sectors in particular. The team includes six U.S. Attorneys, 24 Assistant U.S. Attorneys, and former senior officials from the highest ranks in regulatory and enforcement organizations that are most significant to our clients.

Our experienced team includes former leaders at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Commerce, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the Bank of England, the U.K’s Financial Reporting Council and the World Trade Organization.

Capabilities:

• Antitrust
• Data, Privacy and Security
• Environmental, Health and Safety
• FDA and Life Sciences
• Government Advocacy and Public Policy
• Government Contracts
• Healthcare
• International Trade
• National Security and Corporate Espionage
• Securities Enforcement and Regulation
• Special Matters and Government Investigations

Corporate, Finance and Investments: Our Corporate, Finance and Investments team brings a collaborative approach to help clients execute complex, high-value transactions. We have a fully integrated platform with more than 330 lawyers in 17 offices, offering clients the benefit of global specialists with local knowledge and industry expertise. We work side by side with our clients to execute transactions efficiently and effectively—we understand what matters to both our clients and opposite parties and we explain the actual, practical risks to our clients.

Capabilities:

• Activist Defense
• Alternative Capital and Credit Funds
• Capital Markets
• Construction and Procurement
• Corporate Governance
• Emerging Companies and Venture Capital
• Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation
• Energy and Infrastructure Projects
• Financial Restructuring
• Investment Funds and Asset Management
• Leveraged Finance
• Mergers and Acquisitions
• Middle East and Islamic Finance and Investment
• Private Equity
• Real Estate
• Securitization
• Tax

 

Updated Sep 2024