The Justice Department must have thought that Val Northcutt was nuts. The government had secured guilty pleas from nine co-defendants in its prosecution of price-fixing and bid rigging in the marine hose industry, and here was Northcutt insisting on a jury trial.
The prosecutors were "flabbergasted," according to Michael Pasano, one of the Carlton Fields attorneys who represented Northcutt. "It was literally unheard of for someone to say no [to a plea bargain] and go to trial."
Pasano and his colleague Paul Calli did take the case to trial and, in an impressive feat of lawyering, secured Northcutt's vindication.
"I will always be grateful for the huge leap of faith these guys took for me," Northcutt said of the pair.
Faith, aggression, wiliness, daring courage — these are a few of the qualities we found when compiling this year's edition of "Winning."
We asked our readers to nominate attorneys who could claim at least one significant bench or jury trial verdict within the past 18 months and who had a record of success over many years. We looked for cases in which substantial damages were at stake, that created precedents or in which the attorneys prevailed in a hostile jurisdiction.
After carefully scrutinizing their records, we settled on the 12 attorneys profiled in these pages. Each exemplifies the qualities that make a great trial attorney. Like Arturo J. González, who lends his clients the same drive and determination that brought him from humble beginnings to leadership of Morrison & Foerster's trial practice group; the great Ted Wells, who makes his third appearance on this list; Jeffrey Maltzman and Jeffrey Foreman, who through sheer combativeness and a keen eye for detail turned a sure loser of a liability case into an impressive victory.
González summed up the spirit of this enterprise when, in an interview with our reporter, he recollected a trial that he attended as a kid. "I thought two things. No. 1, I thought, 'I can do this.' And No. 2, I thought, 'I can do this better than these people.' " And so he could.
— Michael Moline
DAVID J. BRADFORD | JENNER & BLOCK
Some cases belong nowhere near a jury
Litigator figured a judge was more likely to get his arguments against rent control.
ARTURO J. GONZÁLEZ | MORRISON & FOERSTER
He thought he could do it better. He was right.
To win over jurors, this Morrison & Foerster litigator reached into his bag of tricks.
DAVID J.F. GROSS | FAEGRE & BENSON
A toy-like exhibit was the key to victory
Defense team turned the tables to defeat a potentially crippling infringement claim.
JEFFREY MALTZMAN & JEFFREY FOREMAN | MALTZMAN FOREMAN
Defense team found the needle in the haystack
A personal injury suit turned on a detail that almost went unnoticed.
ROBERT A. MITTELSTAEDT | JONES DAY
'What it really comes down to is your witnesses'
Litigator showed the human face of a corporate defendant, and the justice of its case.
H. LAMAR MIXSON | BONDURANT MIXSON & ELMORE
A 'Perry Mason' moment in fight over teams
Defense witnesses undermined their own case by coming off as less than credible.
MICHAEL S. PASANO & PAUL A. CALLI | CARLTON FIELDS
Beating up on prosecutors is their art form
Two Carlton Fields lawyers cleared their client's name against overwhelming odds.
WILLIAM PRICE | QUINN EMANUEL URQUHART OLIVER & HEDGES
This Goliath had been genuinely wronged
Mattel couldn't let jurors think that it was beating up an honest competitor.
BRADLEY I. RUSKIN | PROSKAUER ROSE
Only the future of tennis was at stake
An expert witness' quip gave a human face to a complicated point of antitrust law.
THEODORE V. WELLS JR. | PAUL, WEISS, RIFKIND, WHARTON & GARRISON
A debacle becomes a touching human story
What spared Citibank from a crippling judgment was showing the bank's human face.
PAST WINNERS
Two hundred and three lawyers have appeared in Winning special reports.
