Litigator of the Week
Hector Torres of Kasowitz Benson Torres & Friedman
A trustee's $500 million malpractice suit against K&L Gates over the demise of Le-Nature's Inc. sputtered out in 2010, but now it's back on track, thanks to Torres's appellate win this week.
William Savitt of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz
Savitt drew out key witness testimony at trial that helped persuade Delaware Chancellor Leo Strine Jr. to derail Martin Marietta's $5.3 billion hostile bid for Vulcan Materials.
Leo Beus of Beus Gilbert
Beus's 30-lawyer firm doesn't even have a Web site. But he managed to stave off Pfizer's revolving cast of defense lawyers for six years--long enough to for his client, Brigham Young University, to reach a $450 million deal to settle claims that Pfizer breached a research agreement and ripped off trade secrets to develop its blockbuster arthritis drug Celebrex.
Litigators of the Week: Jeffrey Weinberger of Munger, Tolles & Olson; Steven Sunshine of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom; and Eric Grannon of White & Case
On Wednesday the trio of defense lawyers convinced the Eleventh Circuit to shoot down the Federal Trade Commission's suit over a deal to delay generic versions of the testosterone-replacement drug AndroGel. In the process, they won a decisive rejection of the FTC's latest strategy for attacking such "pay-for-delay" deals on antitrust grounds.
Litigator of the Week: James Hurst of Winston & Strawn
With the help of some anecdotal evidence borrowed from a partner's dinner-table conversation, Hurst convinced a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court to make it easier for generic drug companies to challenge the accuracy of patent information that branded drug companies supply to the FDA.
Paul Smith of Jenner & Block and Charles Sims of Proskauer Rose
After a last-minute counsel switch last October, Smith had just three days to prepare to convince the Second Circuit to revive Viacom's $1 billion copyright infringement suit against YouTube and Google. But it was enough for Smith, who along with Sims persuaded the court to pull Google back into the ring.
