Gibson Dunn & Crutcher

Gibson Dunn & Crutcher enjoys a nationwide status as one of litigation's most dominant entities. While its origins lie in California, the firm has grown in size and stature to transcend any notion of greater importance in any particular jurisdiction. Peers offer accolades for lawyers from virtually all of the firm's domestic offices, and one sums up the firm's overall litigation horsepower with, "Many firms are the leaders in one region, but don't have reach anywhere else. Others set up offices all over the place and yet have no key players in any of them. Gibson Dunn is that rare bird that has managed to cover the US with a substantial network of offices, and has cultivated an awesome team of litigators in just about every one of them."

In the New York office, which has seen a spike in prominence that threatens to eclipse that of many longtime local mainstay firms, standout trial lawyer Randy Mastro remains a figurehead regarding the firm's ongoing representation of Chevron in its successful RICO and fraud suit against the purveyors of a $9.2 billion Ecuadorian judgment against the company for alleged contamination of the Amazon Basin. Mastro is also lead counsel to Lynn Tilton and her investment firm Patriarch Partners in a high-profile three-week trial before the SEC, a six-day trial in Delaware Chancery Court, an ongoing civil RICO case in federal court in the Southern District of New York, and a number of related, ongoing matters. These matters stem from 2015 allegations that the client violated the antifraud provisions of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 in their operation of three collateralized loan obligation funds by reported misleading values for the assets as well as failure to disclose a conflict of interest arising from Tilton's undisclosed approach to categorization of assets. The SEC case was tried in late 2016, and a decision is pending. Decisions are also pending on the Chancery and RICO cases. Mastro's team in these matters includes stars Larry Zweifach, Mark Kirsch, Caitlin Halligan and Reed Brodsky. Brodsky has also been at center stage in a hotly contested case for Partner Fund Management, an investor in the embattled, and ultimately bankrupt, Silicon Valley startup Theranos, which claimed to have revolutionized methods of blood testing, claims that would eventually prove fraudulent. Brodsky investigated, developed viable claims to pursue, and then filed the first lawsuit by an investor against Theranos, its CEO, and its former COO, seeking to recover the lost investment of nearly $100 million and treble damages. Eventually the parties were able to reach a satisfactory settlement, extricating the client entirely. In the intellectual property capacity, New York-based Josh Krevitt is lauded by a peer as someone who has "been winning jury trials all over the place." Krevitt is even purported to "have never lost a patent case, ever!" He, along with Wayne Barsky, recently won a major trial for Fitbit in its ongoing IP litigation against Jawbone, which includes two ITC Investigations, four district court patent infringement lawsuits and one state court trade secret case.

In another lightning-rod matter, the firm represents multi-billion-dollar asset manager Och-Ziff in a massive FCPA investigation. In late September 2016, the client formally resolved the matter with both the SEC and the DoJ, with its parent entity entering into a deferred prosecution agreement with DoJ and a separate settlement with the SEC. In addition, Och-Ziff has since been hit with a securities class action in New York federal court accusing it of selling stock at artificially inflated prices by not disclosing FCPA investigations, and the firm is representing the client in this matter as well. Lead partners on these matters include Mark Schonfeld, Joel Cohen, Lee Dunst and Joseph Warin.

Another area in which Gibson Dunn is an undisputed leader is the appellate practice, primarily concentrated in its DC office. Nearly as impressive as the firm's stunning track record is the magnitude of the cases and their game-changing impact on the country's economic, sociological and political fabric. A newer member of this "all-star cast" is DC-based future star Matthew McGill, who scored a major victory in June 2016 in his first Supreme Court argument, which was on behalf of BlueMountain Capital Management in its fight over the restructuring of more than $20 billion in public debt of Puerto Rico's largest electric utility. Another DC-based partner boasting a recent Supreme Court win, Andrew Tulumello triumphed in this venue on behalf of BNSF Railway, which had been beleaguered by a spate of suits brought under the Federal Employers' Liability Act against the company in the plaintiff-friendly Montana state court. The client suffered rounds of losses in the Montana courts before Tulumello succeeded in scoring a writ of certiorari. In May 2017, the Court issued a ruling that bars state courts from hearing cases against out-of-state corporations if that corporation is not domiciled in that state and the incident in question happened somewhere else. Tulumello also succeeded that month in a separate case, in which he won summary judgement on behalf of PepsiCo's subsidiary Frito-Lay against plaintiffs who demanded roughly $450 million for claims that the company's products were mislabeled.

Gibson Dunn's Texas office has enjoyed a spike in profile in recent years. Dallas partners James Ho and William Dawson lead a team that is post-trial counsel to Facebook's Oculus in a copyright appeal involving claims that Oculus misappropriated trade secrets, infringed copyrights and trademark rights, and breached its obligations under a non-disclosure agreement in developing the virtual-reality headset system known as the Oculus Rift and similar products, and that the defendants therefore must pay the plaintiff a share of the $2 billion price that Facebook paid to acquire Oculus. The matter is currently pending before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. Another Dallas partner, Veronica Lewis is championed by a peer as, "very articulate. I've seen her in some depositions and she is really terrific, an unsung hero who deserves more mention."