Winston & Strawn

Winston & Strawn has grown from its Chicago beginnings and has blossomed into one of the nation’s most prominent and prolific litigation hubs. It is also recognized as one of the country’s most trial-centric. “Of all the ‘big-law’ firms, Winston really seems like the one that is focused on building out a bench stocked with true trial lawyers,” observes a peer. “They are also attracting stars in the making, undoubtedly with the agenda of giving them the platform to hone their trial skills further.” The firm has also chosen wisely with its expansion strategy, shying away from going all-in with any particular market and instead maintaining a geographically even roster of trial talent, which is spread among its offices in New York, DC, Texas, Illinois and California.
     The most obvious example of the firm’s trial star power is Chicago’s Dan Webb, long a figurehead within the firm. “Once upon a time, I thought that Winston wouldn’t have the light bulbs changed without consulting Dan Webb first, so big was his gravitas,” quips one peer hyperbolically. “Nowadays, there are plenty of other great trial lawyers at Winston with their own skills and reputations…but I still think they would not change the light bulbs without Dan Webb’s blessing!” Despite his senior status, Webb remains active and visible, with near-annual trial victories to confirm this. Webb represents TreeHouse Foods in one of the largest antitrust cases in food industry history, concerning single-serve coffee pods. In late 2017, the Southern District of New York handed TreeHouse a victory when it summarily denied Keurig’s motion to dismiss the client’s complaint that Keurig engaged in anticompetitive conduct designed to maintain the coffee giant’s monopoly of the single-serve coffee pod market. Another Chicago star, Robert Sperling earns plaudits for his securities and financial institution-focused practice. Sperling represents the former CFO of Valeant Pharmaceuticals in a putative class action brought by holders of Valeant common stock and debt securities. Plaintiffs filed suit after the prices of Valeant securities declined significantly following negative publicity concerning prices that Valeant charged for certain drugs, Valeant’s relationship with a now-defunct pharmacy, and a restatement of certain of Valeant’s historical financial statements. The plaintiffs allege billions of dollars in damages.

     Winston & Strawn recently doubled down in its white-collar capacity, making the auspicious recruit of DC trial veteran Abbe Lowell to its ranks. Lowell, a politically savvy and connected practitioner who attends to both criminal and civil matters, joined the firm in May of 2018 from Norton Rose Fulbright (after that firm had absorbed Lowell’s longtime former firm, Chadbourne & Parke.) Peers view Lowell’s hire as “unquestionably a win-win situation.”
     Lowell’s position within the firm was via an invitation from his old pal from law school, New York-based Jeffrey Kessler, another Winston partner not wanting for recognition. Kessler attends to a unique hybrid of sports and antitrust law. While his work in the latter practice often depends on keeping his clients out of the limelight, the former practice lands Kessler squarely in the headlines. Kessler won a major victory in March 2018 on behalf of college football and basketball players challenging the legality of the National College Athletic Association’s (NCAA) restraints on compensation when the Northern District of California denied the NCAA’s motion for summary judgment and granted partial summary judgment in favor of Winston’s clients. Kessler first brought the suit in 2013. Subsequent to several earlier rulings, a potentially history-making showdown bench trial was held in September 2018 and, in March 2019, Kessler led the Winston team in scoring an historic victory when the court ordered a permanent injunction against the NCAA's limitations on colleges and universities providing education-related benefits beyond tuition. “Jeff Kessler is a huge name, and he’s on board for plaintiffs and defendants,” testifies a peer. “He has a superstar presence in the sports arena, for which he gets all the publicity, but we actually see him a lot more in the defense arena for antitrust matters. He can drive you crazy because he pounds the table to get what he wants. But quite often, get it he does.” Beyond Kessler, Susannah Torpey is noted as someone who is “getting a lot more active on the plaintiff side of antitrust. She just filed two major cases in this capacity.”
     Intellectual property star Michael Elkin secured a major victory for client PNY Technologies and its CEO, who was named individually, when the District of New Jersey entered judgment in PNY’s favor on all 11 claims brought against it by a former consultant. The court also preserved all of our clients’ counterclaims. The protracted and contentious litigation, initiated in state court in Florida in 2015, alleged that PNY had failed to compensate the consultant plaintiff fully and in accordance with certain “secret” terms that were never written down or memorialized, which allegedly entitled the plaintiff to upwards of $500 million in damages.
     Winston has also been making strategic augmentations to its California presence as of late. It has also been observed that some of its strongest players in California are women. In the Los Angeles office, Nimalka Wickramasekera, an intellectual property specialist, is currently representing Alphatec in connection with a patent infringement suit filed by a competitor that filed this suit after a number of key executives left the competitor for Alphatec. The patents asserted are related to spinal surgery systems. After unsuccessfully seeking expedited discovery, the plaintiff filed a motion for a preliminary injunction directed to Alphatec’s lateral surgical instruments and devices. “She has really come up and jumped in,” asserts a peer. “She is really one to keep your eye on.” The San Francisco office will soon be augmented by the arrival of Sandra Edwards, who will soon join the firm from her former post at Farella Braun & Martel. Edwards is a peer favorite, with one remarking, “I worked on a products case with her, and I considered her an experienced trial lawyer. I was impressed by her trial skills and her poise and strategic abilities as well.”

Originally a Chicago-based institution, Winston & Strawn has since blossomed into one of the nation’s most prominent and prolific litigation hubs. “Winston has a very balanced litigation team,” observes a peer, “and they are not just paper pushers and pushovers for settlement. They breed a true trial lawyer culture.” Clients concur; one references the comprehensiveness of the firm’s service offerings by noting, “There is nothing comforting about litigation, but it is a relief to have partnered with a firm like Winston that seems like it would have me covered if I was in an IP dispute, an antitrust proceeding, or a quasi-criminal investigation. My relationship with them has brought additional partners to my attention that I find impressive.” The firm has also chosen wisely with its expansion strategy, shying away from going all-in with any particular market and instead maintaining a geographically even roster of trial talent, which is spread among its offices in New York, DC, Texas, Illinois and California.

Lending further weight to the claims regarding the firm’s diversity of services as well as its position as a truly trial-tested shop, Winston & Strawn recently doubled down in its white-collar capacity, making the auspicious recruit of DC trial veteran Abbe Lowell to its ranks. Lowell, a politically savvy and connected practitioner who attends to both criminal and civil matters, joined the firm in May of 2018 from Norton Rose Fulbright (after that firm had absorbed Lowell’s longtime former firm, Chadbourne & Parke.) Peers view Lowell’s hire as “unquestionably a win-win situation,” with one elaborating, “Although time will tell how it plays out, it seems like a perfect fit. Abbe is first call for a lot of ‘important’ people - particularly government and other high-ranking officials - when they are in urgent need of help. And Winston seems like a ‘just-right’ place for him - they have just enough of an infrastructure and international reach without being too much of a colossus, and they seem to really be ‘the place to be’ for trial lawyers these days.”

As much of a celebrity trial lawyer as Lowell is, for the moment he will have to share the limelight with another brand-name trial lawyer, Chicago’s Dan Webb, who has enjoyed an unassailable reputation for decades. “Even as Winston continues to grow and augment, Dan Webb is still the central figure, the ‘sage,’ that everyone looks to.” In the latest of his extensive streak of high-profile appointments, Webb delivered an historic victory in June 2017 for client BPI in its defamation lawsuit against ABC and other defendants in a lawsuit focused on a month-long series of broadcasts by ABC about BPI’s product—lean finely textured beef—which ABC described as “pink slime” and falsely implied was not beef and not safe to eat.

New York-based Jeffrey Kessler is another Winston partner not wanting for recognition. Kessler recently defeated class certification for Panasonic in a $1.7 billion antitrust case alleging that Panasonic conspired with other manufacturers to fix the price of lithium ion battery cells. Panasonic was the only defendant that had not settled with plaintiffs when the court denied class certification. Kessler’s practice also frequently involves some aspect of sports law, and in a recent matter bridging the antitrust and sports capacities, Kessler triumphed when a federal judge denied the National College Athletic Association (NCAA)’s motion for summary judgment in a case Kessler first brought five years ago on behalf of college sports players challenging the legality of the NCAA’s compensation restraints.

However, Kessler is far from being Winston’s only antitrust practitioner earning acclaim. DC’s Heather Lamberg (previously Kafele), who the firm recently lured away from Shearman & Sterling, is representing online real estate listing entity Zillow in an action brought by the owner of a renovated mansion in New Jersey. The plaintiff has consistently listed the property for sale at high nine-figure prices, but Zillow’s Zestimate—an algorithmically generated estimation of market price displayed on the property’s Zillow webpage—valued the house at a reduced figure. Despite several price reductions, the property has remained unsold since January 2017, which the plaintiff claims is attributable to an illegal conspiracy between Zillow and real estate brokers. Assisting Lamberg in this matter is future star Eva Cole. Lamberg, along with Webb and yet another antitrust luminary, Paul Victor, is also involved in a sprawling series of cases concerning the auto parts price-fixing saga.

Winston’s intellectual property practice has been “on fire” as of late, with firm vice chairman Michael Elkin laying claim to some groundbreaking matters involving copyright disputes, with a particular niche in new media. A veteran of the precedent-setting Aereo matter from 2014, Elkin is currently poised for trial counsel on a matter for Cox Communications, an ISP that provides broadband content to consumers, for alleged copyright infringement for ostensibly having bit torrent music file sharing.

The firm has seen a particularly inexorable rise in profile in Texas, with a Dallas office being opened in March 2017 when the firm lured former Fish & Richardson “trial ace” Tom Melsheimer to its ranks. Revered for his string of high-level representations, including the Dallas Mavericks basketball team and its billionaire owner, Mark Cuban, Melsheimer juggles a portfolio composed of commercial litigation and intellectual property. Another hire in this office, Steve Stodghill was an erstwhile colleague of Melsheimer’s at a separate firm and is acknowledged by peers as, “someone who manages to be everywhere, with everyone you’ve ever heard of - in films, sports, music, you name it - and yet remains very charming and self-effacing. He manages to curry favor and do business development like you wouldn’t believe, and yet still just gets down to it and does his job, which happens to be commercial litigation.” In the Houston office, Paula Hinton remains a perennial favorite. “Paula is another one who juggles a sharp skill set that, intentionally or not, is masterfully concealed behind an upbeat and engaging personality. Hinton recently triumphed on behalf of her client in a long-fought arbitration matter concerning power purchase agreements.

Full-service law firm Winston & Strawn regularly counsels and represents employers in labor and employment law disputes.  The firm’s broad based practice is comprised of dedicated lawyers throughout the US. In California, the firm’s presence is particularly notable, a peer says, “Winston has an employment practice more on the West Coast.” Serving clients from offices in San Francisco and Los Angeles, the labor and employment lawyers are highly experienced and exceptional in litigation related to the practice area.

Among the firm’s top talent in California are three distinguished and highly experienced labor and employment litigators. In Los Angeles, Laura Petroff and Monique Ngo-Bonnici represent and counsel clients on the full spectrum of labor and employment challenges. Both Petroff and Ngo-Bonnici have recently been engaged in several employment-related lawsuits. Petroff’s clients hail from numerous industries, including finance and healthcare. Ngo-Bonnici has represented client Coty in both single-plaintiff matters and class actions; recently she successfully defended the client in an administrative complaint with the EEOC and California DFEH, which after investigation closed the case as it was unable to conclude that there was a violation of the law. In another case, Ngo-Bonnici took over a complex wage and hour class action, in which she successfully obtained a very favorable settlement for client Healthy Spot on an extremely tight timeframe. The client was facing 27 claims, including wage and hour as well as other extremely difficult allegations.
In San Francisco, Joan Tucker Fife serves as head of the office’s labor and employment group. Tucker Fife brings a deep expertise in class and collective actions for clients facing all types of claims, including FLSA and wage and hour.

The Chicago office of Winston & Strawn houses the largest concentration of labor and employment lawyers at the firm. The full-service firm is equipped with the experience and expertise to handle the full gamut of labor and employment matters. The Chicago labor and employment practice counsels and represents employers of all sizes and industries.

In Chicago, partners Daniel Fazio and Michael Roche are recognized for their significant work in employment litigation. Fazio recently handled a significant and complex case that was originally filed in 2015 and went up to the Supreme Court in 2017. Fazio represented defendants Neighborhood Housing Services in the lawsuit and was granted summary judgment; however, the case transformed into a question of the appellate court’s jurisdiction of Rule 4(a)(5)(C) regarding the time limit of deadline extensions for appeals. As lead counsel, Fazio represented Chicago-based headhunter firm Spencer Stuart as plaintiffs in two lawsuits alleging multiple breaches, including non-compete agreements and non-solicitation agreements. Roche serves as chair of the labor and employment practice, providing clients with his deep experience in employment law, especially class action litigation.