While mortgage-backed securities investors were still dusting themselves off from the financial crisis more than three years ago, Kathy Patrick of the small Texas law firm Gibbs & Bruns was busy doing something about it.

Patrick orchestrated a $8.5 billion settlement with Bank of America Corp. that promised to serve as a template to hold banks liable for their roles in the subprime debacle. Last Friday, after a hotly contested bench trial and two-and-a-half years of litigation, Patrick’s road map won judicial approval, thanks in no small part to a massive effort by Patrick and a platoon of other lawyers, most prominently Matthew Ingber of Mayer Brown and Hector Gonzalez of Dechert.