California

With 21 offices throughout the US, Europe and Asia, Skadden has long been a totem of excellence in the global legal community as a full-service one-stop shop. While its capabilities span a wide spectrum, litigation is a key pillar. “Skadden has so much deal flow,” observes a peer, “that an equally strong litigation bench is essential. [Skadden] certainly has that to spare.” Virtually all of the firm’s domestic offices house an ample grouping of litigation stars, with peers noting that Skadden has strategically doubled down on the Los Angeles market as of late. “LA is a dynamic market right now, and it is increasingly the tip of Skadden’s litigation spear.”
     The observation of the firm’s bench strength in LA can arguably be best exemplified by the recent hire of Manuel Cachán, who boasts a proven trial lawyer pedigree. “He was a ‘must-get’,” quips a peer. “Skadden really scored there. He’s going to be trying the biggest and most important cases.” While Cachán, who earned his stripes at revered LA boutique Munger Tolles as well as a stint at Proskauer, is a multifaceted business litigator, he has most recently minted himself a pole position in the product liability area.
     Skadden is also known for its blue-ribbon securities practice, mainly operating from New York. Jay Kasner has long been a leading figure in this area and continues to be. A peer marvels, “Jay is still humming along strong! He still shows up and delivers the goods like someone half his age. I don’t know how he does it.” Perhaps more remarkably, Kasner has demonstrated his prowess with newer and more novel industries like cryptocurrency. He recently represented Coinbase, who was sued in March 2022 by plaintiffs who alleged that the client operates as an unregistered securities exchange because 79 digital assets traded on the platform are actually securities. The plaintiffs sought to rescind their transactions and to recover monetary damages, as well to force Coinbase to register as a national securities exchange or broker-dealer. In February 2023, the claims were dismissed in their entirety, with prejudice. While Kasner remains the firm’s most seasoned securities partner, others are quickly becoming the names of the next generation. Alex Drylewski has developed and demonstrated a particular prowess in the crypto area. Drylewski and Tansy Woan secured the dismissal with prejudice of a securities class action brought against crypto-focused investment advisor, Paradigm Operations, and other investors in Uniswap Labs, the developer of Uniswap, a decentralized digital asset protocol. The plaintiffs claimed that defendants profited from the sale of scam tokens while users lost money to anonymous issues of the tokens traded on the Uniswap protocol. The Southern District of New York ruled that the backers did not sell the tokens at issue and were therefore not at fault, and plaintiffs concerns should be addressed by Congress rather than the courts. In September 2023, the plaintiffs appealed the district court’s decision to the Second Circuit. In February 2025, the Skadden duo secured a decision affirming the dismissal of the putative class action.  Scott Musoff has become particularly prominent in terms of visibility and activity. “Scott Musoff is awesome,” extols a peer. “[He’s the] nicest guy in the world, easy to work with, and still relatively young.” The duo of Kasner and Musoff were enlisted to replace existing counsel representing theme park entity Six Flags and certain directors and offices, who were faced with a class action alleging the company and the defendant officers issued false and misleading statements concerning the progress and accounting for certain Six Flags-branded theme parks to be built in China. The Skadden pair triumphed for the client in June 2023. A bi-coastal team composed of Kasner, Susan Saltzstein, Los Angeles partner Peter Morrison and Palo Alto partner Mark Foster scored an October 2024 victory with the dismissal of a putative securities class action filed against Hawaiian Electric Industries and certain of its current and former officers stemming from the devastating August 2023 wildfires in Lahaina, Hawaii. The plaintiffs broadly allege that the client misled investors to believe that the utility was taking appropriate action to mitigate wildfire risks. The court held that the client could neither be held liable for statements made by its subsidiaries nor had the plaintiffs sufficiently plead falsity or scienter. Musoff and Los Angeles partner Winston Hsiao represented Myriad Genetics and certain current and former board members and executives in derivative litigations arising out of public statements Myriad made regarding its flagship pharmacogenetic test GeneSight. In 2023, the Skadden duo parachuted into a related federal securities litigation and brokered a favorable settlement. In 2024, the team took over settlement negotiations in the tagalong derivative actions and negotiated a settlement comprised of corporate reforms and a minimal attorneys’ fee award to the plaintiff’s counsel. The Delaware Court of Chancery approved the settlement and dismissed the action with prejudice.
     A New York team of Saltzstein and Patrick Rideout scored on behalf of Johnson & Johnson in a case concerning a shareholder’s proposal that J&J's shareholders adopt a bylaw requiring individual arbitration of securities class actions against the company and its officers or directors. Rideout has developed his own fan base as well. “If I had a bet-the-company case of any kind that had a likelihood of going to trial, that’s who I’d call,” insists a peer. “He is a problem solver and a no-nonsense litigator but has a sense of humanity to him that I find gets lost in a lot of those large, complex cases of the type that he gets involved in.”
     Skadden has seen an increased level of activity in other areas as well. New York’s Timothy Nelson and Julie Bédard, who works out of the firm’s New York and São Paulo offices, are noted standouts. Both are experienced and active with tribunal matters such as ICC and ICSID. The firm also scored a key recruit in the antitrust arena, James Fredericks, who joined the DC office after decades acting as a prosecutor with the DoJ. A peer in this capacity advises, “Look into him! He’s only been with the firm about four weeks so far [as of spring 2024] but this is a major feather in Skadden’s cap.”