Nancy L. Abell
Partner in the Los Angeles office of Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker
Nancy L. Abell, who heads her firm's employment law department, is one of the nation's most prominent employment litigators. Abell works exclusively for private and public employers in all aspects of employment law, including wrongful discharge, sexual harassment, whistleblower and labor-management litigation. She has also represented employers as plaintiffs suing former workers or other companies over misappropriation of trade secrets or proprietary information. Abell is currently defending Microsoft Corp. in the national race and gender class action filed against it; in November, she defeated class certification. Last year, she won a major appeal for Pacific Bell and the California Employment Law Council, when California's high court determined that an employer can rescind a promise of job security. She has been successful at trial as well, winning nearly 90 percent of the verdicts.
Linda L. Addison
Partner in the Houston office of Fulbright & Jaworski
Linda L. Addison handles complex commercial litigation and intellectual property litigation, representing a wide variety of clients as plaintiffs and defendants in the telecommunications, computer, financial, real estate and oil and gas industries. Addison currently is lead counsel for Bresea Resources Ltd., the parent of Bre-X, in the securities fraud case arising out of the meteoric rise in stock price following an allegedly false announcement of a gold find in Indonesia. Addison's biggest wins include achieving a repeal of the Texas Blue Laws in 1985 and successfully arguing for a j.n.o.v. erasing a $62.5 million jury verdict against her client Schlumberger over rights to a diamond mine -- Addison also won the appeal of this reversal at the Texas Supreme Court.
Elizabeth K. Ainslie
Partner at Philadelphia's Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis
In the 1980s, Elizabeth K. Ainslie was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and chief of the fraud section, before founding her own firm. When she left that firm after 15 years to come to Schnader Harrison two years ago, she was considered a major catch. High-profile criminal cases include representing the chief of the Philadelphia municipal services union in a major racketeering and mail fraud case, and the lead defendant in the federal prosecution of corruption in the Philadelphia police department. Ainslie is also heavily involved in all forms of health care litigation. In her biggest win to date, Ainslie was the lead relator's attorney in the recent $875 million qui tam settlement against TAP Pharmaceuticals Inc.; her client was the primary whistleblower in a false claims and fraud action against TAP and is receiving $77 million of the settlement.
Gloria Allred
Partner at Los Angeles' Allred, Maroko & Goldberg
Gloria Allred is a family law expert and children's and women's rights advocate who litigates employment discrimination, sexual harassment and civil rights actions. Allred is continually pushing the envelope with litigation over women's rights. She represented Suzanne J. Doucette in the first sex harassment lawsuit against the FBI, which was settled in 1995 for nearly $300,000. She won a $4.9 million pregnancy discrimination verdict for actress Hunter Tylo, who sued producer Aaron Spelling, charging she had been dropped because of her pregnancy from a television series in which she was supposed to play a seductress. In 1999, she won an international custody case, persuading the government of Italy to return a child taken out of the United States by an Italian father. Allred has recently filed a claim against American Airlines on behalf of a flight attendant charging discrimination in the denial of health coverage for the cost of contraception, infertility treatment and Pap smears.
Celia Goldwag Barenholtz
Partner at New York's Kronish Lieb Weiner & Hellman
Celia Goldwag Barenholtz concentrates her practice on complex civil litigation and white collar criminal defense. Barenholtz represents Napster in ongoing copyright litigation, having taken over the lead role from David Boies. She also represents Sumitomo Corp. in various aspects of litigation over the attempts by a former Sumitomo copper trader to manipulate the price of copper. She recently won a favorable decision in the Ocean View Capital v. Sumitomo part of the copper market antitrust litigation. She also represents Sumitomo in its claims against Chase Manhattan, charging the bank with complicity in the trading scandal; she recently defeated Chase Manhattan's motion to dismiss Sumitomo's RICO claim against the bank. Prior wins include a trial clearing Republic National Bank of New York in a lawsuit over check forgery, defense of Le Groupe Videotron in an $84 million fraud claim brought by International CableTel Inc., and a defense jury verdict in a real estate limited partnership trial in which the plaintiffs were seeking $30 million.
Ann Beeson
Staff counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union's national legal department in New York
Ann Beeson has become a key player in litigation over the protection of civil liberties in cyberspace. Beeson is lead counsel in Ashcroft v. ACLU, the challenge to the Child Online Protection Act, where she won court rejection of congressional attempts to impose criminal sanctions on protected Internet speech; the Justice Department has appealed this to the U.S. Supreme Court. Beeson was also counsel in the ACLU's successful challenge to the Communications Decency Act, the first federal Internet censorship law, and won a landmark 1997 Supreme Court decision affirming free speech rights in cyberspace. She also represents libraries, patrons and Web sites in litigation to invalidate the Children's Internet Protection Act, and she has won court decisions in three states challenging state laws criminalizing online indecency.
Kathleen A. Behan
Partner at Washington, D.C.'s Arnold & Porter
Kathleen A. Behan handles general civil litigation and criminal and constitutional law. Behan was part of the team that won an acquittal for General Electric Co. in a federal antitrust action, and she represents Major League Baseball as trial counsel in copyright royalty arbitrations. She has also represented numerous clients in internal criminal/civil fraud investigations. Behan, however, is best known for her pro bono work. She is a lead counsel for the plaintiffs in the litigation against the state of Mississippi seeking to force a modernization of the state's indigent defense system. She represents the American Council of the Blind in its efforts to force the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority to install safety provisions for the blind or visually impaired. She is also currently representing the American Civil Liberties Union in an appeal before the Maryland Court of Appeals involving a challenge to the legality of Maryland's first execution in three decades.
Lisa A. Blue
Partner at Dallas' Baron & Budd
Lisa A. Blue is a plaintiffs' attorney specializing in asbestos and toxic torts litigation. Blue has won numerous multimillion-dollar verdicts over the past few years, including a $55.5 million verdict in an asbestos case in August. Blue has up to a dozen jury trials each year, winning about 90 percent of them. Other recent big wins include, in 2000, verdicts of $9.2 million and $10.4 million, and, in 1999, $4.5 million and $9.1 million. Blue is married to Fred Baron, founder of Dallas-based Baron & Budd and former president of the American Trial Lawyers Association, but she has established a reputation as a stellar trial attorney in her own right. She was named Trial Lawyer of the Year in 1999 by the Texas chapter of the American Board of Trial Advocates.
Dale M. Cendali
Partner in the New York office of Los Angeles-based O'Melveny & Myers
Dale M. Cendali, co-chairwoman of her firm's intellectual property practice group, is a nationally recognized IP litigator, particularly in the area of copyright and trademark law. In recent matters, Cendali won a summary judgment for Twentieth Century Fox in a copyright infringement dispute over a poster used on "The X-Files," successfully defended the Gallo Winery on false advertising charges brought by Heublein Wines and stopped the unauthorized sale of "Heart of the Ocean" necklaces copied from the film "Titanic." She also won a summary judgment on liability in a copyright case involving President Eisenhower's memoirs and later achieved a judgment of $3.4 million. Cendali currently represents Warner Bros. in defending and prosecuting high-profile trademark and copyright matters regarding the "Harry Potter" series.
Cynthia B. Chapman
Partner at Houston's Caddell & Chapman
Cynthia B. Chapman is a plaintiffs' attorney who is involved in a wide variety of major litigation. Chapman, who is considered a whiz at handling cross-border litigation, is taking the lead in handling the forum non conveniens and other jurisdiction issues on more than 30 foreign products liability cases over deaths and injuries in Venezuela brought against Ford Motor Co. and Firestone. In another cross-border action, which brought one of her biggest victories, Chapman defeated several pretrial dismissal motions brought by an American company sued in the United States by plaintiffs injured in Mexico. That case ended in a $30 million settlement. She also represented the plaintiffs, along with partner Michael Caddell, in the unsuccessful civil litigation brought over the Branch Davidian debacle.
Judy Clarke
Executive Director of the Federal Defenders of Eastern Washington and Idaho
Judy Clarke has represented clients in federal criminal cases ranging from major white collar crime to immigration offenses, though she is perhaps best known for her representation of such high-profile defendants as Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber, and Susan Smith, the South Carolina mother convicted of drowning her children. Clarke has more recently been involved in defending Buford Furrow, the white supremacist accused of shooting five people at a Jewish community center in Los Angeles in 1999. Clarke has argued two cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, including U.S. v. Rojas-Contreras, involving a Speedy Trial Act statutory construction issue, and U.S. v. Munoz-Flores, involving the constitutionality of the special assessments provision. She is a co-author of the "Federal Sentencing Manual" and is a former president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
Grace R. Den Hartog
Partner at Richmond, Va.'s McGuireWoods
Grace R. den Hartog is considered by other defense litigators as one of the nation's best products liability defense trial attorneys. Den Hartog is a national counsel for Ford Motor Co. in fuel system fire litigation and has tried cases in California, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas. Den Hartog is called in when the lawsuits seem destined for trial and Ford is facing high publicity, high exposure for damages and possible punitives. Last year, she won a defense jury verdict in Sacramento, Calif., for Ford, in which the severely burned plaintiff was seeking $40 million in compensatories and unspecified punitives. Her last loss at trial was in 1997; it was the only loss before a jury in her career. She has also represented General Motors Corp. in products liability cases.
Denise M. Dunleavy
Associate at New York's Weitz & Luxenberg
Denise M. Dunleavy is a plaintiffs' attorney who commonly litigates cutting-edge issues in the area of women's health. Dunleavy was a pioneer in breast implant litigation and is a lead attorney in products liability litigation involving the lactation-suppressing drug Parlodel. She has won multiple million-dollar verdicts, including a $2.5 million premises liability verdict earlier this year against a landlord for a woman who was raped in her own apartment. In 1999, Dunleavy won the first jury verdict nationally against a gun maker for injuries caused by a properly functioning gun; for her work achieving this $4 million verdict, later reduced, she received the 1999 Trial Lawyer of the Year award by the Trial Lawyers for Public Justice.
Carol L. Forte
Partner at Chatham, N.J.'s Blume, Goldfaden, Berkowitz Donnelly, Fried & Forte
Carol L. Forte is a plaintiffs' attorney who specializes in medical malpractice litigation, with a particular emphasis on birth trauma lawsuits. She is often cited by other attorneys as the leading woman trial lawyer in New Jersey and one of the most successful plaintiffs' attorneys of either gender in the state, with more than two dozen settlements and verdicts of $1 million or more. These wins include a $12.68 million verdict in 1999 for the parents of a severely brain-damaged boy whose twin died in utero. Other recent wins include a $2.15 million settlement for a boy with cerebral palsy, a $3 million settlement for a child who was left severely retarded after a failure to detect meningitis, a $1.3 million settlement for another boy with cerebral palsy and a $1.5 million verdict for a man who claimed his pancreatitis was caused by a surgical procedure.
Dana H. Freyer
Partner at New York's Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom
Dana H. Freyer is a leading practitioner nationally in the area of alternative dispute resolution. She was also named by Euromoney as one of the world's leading experts in commercial arbitration. Freyer developed and has led Skadden's ADR practice and is considered a pioneer in integrating ADR into corporate law firms. She has represented numerous companies in arbitrations before the International Chamber of Commerce, the American Arbitration Association and other such organizations and has served as an arbitrator for the AAA in six international and domestic arbitrations. Other cases include serving as lead counsel representing Indonesia's state-owned telecommunications company in an International Chamber of Commerce arbitration in Geneva involving more than $1.3 billion in damages claims. Freyer has a long list of high-profile clients in a variety of industries.
Barbara E. Hadsell
Partner at Pasadena, Calif.'s Hadsell & Stormer
Barbara E. Hadsell is a plaintiffs' attorney and name partner in an innovative civil rights litigation boutique. She continually represents underdogs against giant corporations or government agencies and was a pioneer in sexual harassment litigation. Hadsell also pioneered lawsuits against slumlords in California, developing, and winning on, the theory of the breach of the warranty of habitability. She is currently lead counsel for the plaintiffs in the suit brought by Nigerians against Chevron Corp., claiming Chevron workers killed Nigerian dissidents on an oil rig off the coast of Nigeria. She is also known for frequently filing, and usually winning, suits against police departments over allegations of civil rights violations.
Lynne C. Hermle
Partner in the Menlo Park, Calif., office of San Francisco's Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe
Lynne C. Hermle handles litigation and counseling on employment matters for a number of major high-technology companies. She specializes in defending wrongful termination, discrimination and sexual harassment cases and has had notable success before juries and judges. Recent wins include a defense jury verdict for IBM in a sexual harassment and retaliation trial, a directed verdict for Inland Container in a federal employment trial, a directed verdict for the city of Tracy, Calif., on civil rights/employment claims and a dismissal of all wrongful discharge claims brought by a former Varian Associates manager. In this latter case, she then obtained a $3.5 million verdict on Varian's cross-claim for trade secret theft. Hermle also counsels employers on all aspects of employment practices, including how to avoid litigation.
Nancy Hollander
Partner at Albuquerque, N.M.'s Freedman Boyd Daniels Hollander Goldberg & Cline
Nancy Hollander is a criminal defense lawyer who began her career with the public defender's office in Albuquerque, but has since gained a national reputation as a top-flight defender. Hollander was a member of the team representing Wen Ho Lee, the Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist who was accused of espionage; the government dropped prosecution on 58 of the 59 counts and Lee pleaded guilty to a minor claim, illegal downloading. Hollander averages two to three cases to verdict per year, with a success rate significantly better than most criminal defense lawyers. She is currently using a First Amendment defense for a Santa Fe, N.M.-based religious organization accused of drug law infractions for using tea in religious sacraments that included hallucinogens. Other recent defense clients include Blue Cross/Blue Shield on charges of Medicare fraud and a Santa Fe priest on sexual molestation charges -- both ended in pleas.
Patricia M. Hynes
Partner at New York's Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach
Patricia M. Hynes represents plaintiffs in complex securities and commercial litigation. Hynes was the first woman name partner at Milberg Weiss and at the time, in 1993, was the first woman name partner at a national law firm. She began her career as a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York in 1967. By the time she left in 1982, she had risen to the number three position and was the first woman to hold an executive position in the office. Hynes was lead trial counsel for San Jose, Calif., in its battle against brokerage firms involving losses through speculative bond trading; she was one of the lead counsel for plaintiffs in the Drexel bankruptcy case, which ended in a $1.2 billion settlement; and she was co-lead counsel in the MTC Electronics Co. shareholders class action, which ended in a $70 million settlement. Hynes is now lead counsel in the securities class action involving Oxford Health Plan.
Judith A. Livingston
Partner at New York's Kramer, Dillof, Livingston & Moore
Judith A. Livingston has long been one of the most successful plaintiffs' attorneys in the United States, regardless of gender. She became the first woman member of the Inner Circle of Advocates in 1992, a group of outstanding plaintiffs' attorneys limited to 100 members nationally. To date, she has had 25 verdicts in excess of $1 million, plus more than 60 settlements of $1 million or more, in personal injury and medical malpractice cases. Most of these are medical malpractice cases, including a $16.25 million verdict in a wrongful death action and a $21.15 million verdict in an obstetrical death case. Of 60 cases to verdict, she's lost only a handful.
Joan A. Lukey
Partner at Boston's Hale and Dorr
Joan A. Lukey defends corporations, law firms and other organizations in employment contract and discrimination claims. In these matters, she has had more than 50 trials, with only three losses; in two of these the juries came in well below the plaintiffs' claims and well below the defendants' pretrial offers. Lukey represents plaintiffs in medical malpractice and whistleblower cases and has won several groundbreaking victories. In 1991, for instance, she successfully challenged the constitutionality of New Hampshire's $875,000 cap on noncompensatory damages in personal injury cases. The following year, she tried that medical malpractice action to a $3 million verdict; at the time it was the largest-ever personal injury verdict in New Hampshire. Last year, she reset the New Hampshire record, winning a $5 million verdict in a medical malpractice case. Overall, Lukey has won nearly 90 percent of her trials. She is the immediate past president of the Boston Bar Association.
Maureen E. Mahoney
Partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Los Angeles-based Latham & Watkins
Maureen E. Mahoney is head of her firm's appellate and constitutional practice. She is a highly regarded appellate and constitutional law litigator who represents clients before the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as other courts nationwide. She has argued 11 cases before the Supreme Court, starting with a win in her first case there in 1988. Her most recent victory at the Supreme Court came while representing the U.S. House of Representatives in a challenge to the Commerce Department's plans for sampling in the 2000 Census. Other wins include the defense of a constitutional challenge to U.S. immigration policies in which the government's decision to return refugees to Haiti was upheld. Mahoney was deputy solicitor general in the first Bush administration and is considered a prospect for nomination to the federal bench.
Barbara W. Mather
Partner at Philadelphia's Pepper Hamilton
Barbara W. Mather is chairwoman of her firm's litigation and dispute resolution department and the former city solicitor of Philadelphia. Mather specializes in antitrust, contract, securities and other commercial litigation for a variety of clients. She was co-counsel for a group of local charities suing Prudential Securities for its role in the New Era charitable contribution scam, which resulted in a substantial recovery to the charities. She was co-counsel for the American Bar Association in the litigation against it brought by the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover charging antitrust in the ABA's accreditation process. The case was dismissed on summary judgment and affirmed by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. She was also a lead trial attorney for Gloucester, Mass.-based LePage's, Inc. in. a $22.8 million antitrust verdict, automatically trebled to $68.4 million, won against Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing over claims of monopolization of the transparent tape market.
Sandra E. Mayerson
Partner in the New York office of Holland & Knight
Sandra E. Mayerson is a noted bankruptcy litigator. She represents both debtors and creditors and has won more than 95 percent of the matters she has litigated. She is currently representing several large creditors in telecom bankruptcies. Mayerson was the court-appointed examiner in Interco's Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. She represented General Electric Capital Corp. in major litigation against Prudential over the failure of a shipping company. Early in her career, she represented Steiger Tractor, North Dakota's second-largest employer, in its bankruptcy, achieving what was considered then a miracle result, as creditors were paid 100 cents on the dollar and 95 percent of the company's jobs in North Dakota were saved.
Janet L. McDavid
Partner at Washington, D.C.'s Hogan & Hartson
Janet L. McDavid is a highly regarded antitrust and trade regulation litigator, who was considered a likely candidate for head of the DOJ's Antitrust Division if Al Gore had won the presidency. McDavid has had a key role in a series of recent major business transactions, serving as counsel to Mobil Corp. in its merger with Exxon, to General Mills in its recently closed merger with Pillsbury, to American Express in the Justice Department's investigation of Visa and Mastercard and to General Dynamics in several defense industry transactions. In August, she won an antitrust case in Louisiana defending the Fairgrounds Racetrack in New Orleans in an action brought by a Baton Rouge, La., track. She is also representing EMI Group P.L.C. in the pending DOJ investigation into online music.
Dianne M. Nast
Partner at Lancaster, Pa.'s Roda & Nast
Dianne M. Nast is one of the nation's top class action plaintiffs' attorneys. Over the past decade, she has been court-appointed lead or co-lead counsel in a slew of major cases, including the Airlines Transportation Antitrust Litigation, which ended in a $420 million settlement, and the Factor Concentrate Litigation, which settled for $640 million. Nast has been or is a member of the committees of counsel in the Castano Tobacco litigation, the silicone breast implant litigation and the diet drug products liability litigation, which has settled for nearly $4 billion. Other cases where she has played a key role include the waste haulers antitrust litigation, which settled for $50 million, and the chlorine and caustic soda antitrust litigation, which settled for $51 million.
Emily Nicklin
Partner at Chicago's Kirkland & Ellis
Emily Nicklin is a highly regarded litigator and rainmaker at one of the nation's best litigation firms. Nicklin has been trial counsel for Andersen Consulting, Arthur Anderson and PricewaterhouseCoopers, in numerous professional liability and breach-of-contract cases. She won a stunning defense verdict for Andersen Consulting, in which the nursing home chain Beverly Enterprises was seeking $35 million; the jury rejected the plaintiff's claim and awarded Andersen $1.87 million on its counterclaim for unpaid fees and expenses.
Debra E. Pole
Partner in the Los Angeles office of San Francisco's Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison
Debra E. Pole is a specialist in products liability litigation defense. She began her career as a prosecutor in Florida, winning convictions in 90 percent of her cases. In her civil practice, she has lost only one trial. Pole has been national coordinating counsel in breast implant litigation and diet drug litigation. As national coordinating counsel for Baxter Healthcare in breast implant litigation, she was a key figure in the industry's turnaround on products liability litigation. She won two of the first defense wins at trial for breast implant makers in the early 1990s. Pole has extensive experience in class actions, consolidated proceedings and complex products cases, jury trials, Daubert hearings and motion practice.
Ellen K. Reisman
Partner at Washington, D.C.'s Arnold & Porter
Ellen K. Reisman represents American Home Products Corp. and was the key negotiator for American Home in the diet drug litigation. She is co-head of Arnold & Porter's products liability practice and was previously associate general counsel of American Home and vice president of the legal division of Wyeth-Ayerst Pharmaceuticals, before returning to Arnold & Porter this summer. Reisman has also represented Pfizer Inc. in products liability matters, including the class action settlement over the Shiley Heart Valve. She also served as national counsel for Hoffman-La Roche Inc. in the Versed litigation and Pfizer in the Feldene litigation.
Kelli L. Sager
Partner in the Los Angeles office of Seattle's Davis Wright Tremain
Kelli L. Sager is a specialist in First Amendment and media law. Sager is the first attorney that media organizations turn to when trying to get access to the courts; she is credited with getting the O.J. Simpson trial opened to all media, for example, and recently won the right of Court TV to broadcast coverage of the Sara Jane Olson trial. Last year, Sager successfully defended E Entertainment Network in a lawsuit claiming the company stole an idea for the television show "Fashion Emergency." In 1999, she won a key decision at the California Supreme Court, while representing the Los Angeles Times, that affirmed reporters have the absolute right of access to civil as well as criminal trials. She is currently representing the Los Angeles Times in several libel cases, and MTV in an invasion of privacy litigation over its "Bands on the Run" show. This year, she won a prior restraint lawsuit for the Los Angeles Times brought by the American Humane Society. After getting the prior restraint request rejected, she sought fees for the Times under the anti-SLAPP statute. These were recently granted.
Lori A. Schechter
Partner at San Francisco's Morrison & Foerster
Lori A. Schechter is deputy chairwoman of her firm's 380-member litigation department. Schechter has defended several Internet companies in suits alleging invasion of consumers' privacy and numerous companies in various industries in antitrust, false advertising and unfair competition lawsuits. Schechter currently represents DoubleClick Inc. in multiple class actions nationwide charging that the company's placing of "cookies" on the computer hard drives of Internet users is an invasion of privacy. In March, the federal court presiding over all 13 federal class action privacy cases against DoubleClick dismissed the actions. As part of her extensive pro bono practice, Schechter launched a successful challenge to the California law requiring parental consent for a minor to obtain an abortion; she also represents a class of Salvadoran and Guatemalan refugees challenging the U.S. government's systematic denial of their rights to political asylum.
Kelly Siegler
Assistant district attorney, Harris Co., Texas
Kelly Siegler is known as a giant-killer in Texas, having won high-profile prosecutions against some of the state's best known, and most highly regarded, defense attorneys. Siegler began her career with the prosecutor's office in Houston 15 years ago. Since then, her felony conviction rate at trial is 95 percent, and the wins include the convictions of clients of top-flight defense attorneys Richard DeGuerin, Joe Bailey, Stanley Schneider, Mike DeGuerin and George Parnham. She handles only big cases -- she's tried 13 capital murder cases and won death penalty verdicts in 12.
Linda J. Smith
Partner in the Los Angeles office of O'Melveny & Myers
Linda J. Smith has been lead trial counsel in bet-the-company litigation involving securities fraud, RICO, professional liability, health care, antitrust, oil spills and other disputes. Smith represented PricewaterhouseCoopers in the worldwide RICO class action by depositors following the collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International; Credit Suisse First Boston in the litigation of Orange County's bankruptcy; and Humana Inc. in the consolidated nationwide fraud and conspiracy class action. She also represented PricewaterhouseCoopers in class action securities fraud litigation stemming from the sale of limited real estate partnership interests; LaFace Records against singer Toni Braxton in her attempt to terminate her employment contract; and Exxon in the Valdez oil spill litigation.
Suzelle M. Smith
Partner at Los Angeles' Howarth & Smith
Suzelle M. Smith is a plaintiffs' attorney who has won substantial settlements and verdicts against the National Football League, Southern California Edison, the city of Irvine, Calif., General Electric Co. and Sears Roebuck & Co. This summer, Smith won a $16.3 million verdict against Cotter Corp. on behalf of 25 plaintiffs who were contending that Cotter's uranium mill poisoned their community; that judgment was increased to $43.3 million in November, through the addition of prejudgment interest and the cost of medical monitoring. For several years, Smith also represented defendants in high-profile litigations. She has returned to a plaintiffs'-only practice and is currently representing the government of the Marshall Islands in a major lawsuit filed against the tobacco industry that will likely be the first international tobacco case to be tried.
Audrey Strauss
Partner at New York's Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson
Audrey Strauss is one of the top white-collar criminal defense attorneys in New York and nationally. Strauss represents corporations and individuals in a wide range of regulatory and criminal matters, including securities, government contracting, tax and accounting issues. She also handles internal investigations for corporations. As is typical with white-collar defense attorneys, she spends much of her time keeping her clients out of trouble and out of the headlines. In the past few years, for instance, she has acquired declinations of prosecutions for several major broker dealers caught up in grand jury investigations. In a more public matter, Strauss represented Merrill Lynch in connection with the SEC and other related investigations into the bankruptcy of Orange County, Calif.
Mary Kay Vyskocil
Partner at New York's Simpson Thacher & Bartlett
Mary Kay Vyskocil handles complex commercial litigation, with a heavy concentration in insurance and reinsurance coverage litigation. She has represented many leading insurance companies in complex coverage matters arising from mass tort claims. She was one of the lead counsels in Shell Oil Co. v. Accident & Casualty Insurance Co., a two-year trial in California in which a jury found no coverage for environmental liabilities at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, based on the defense contention that pollution was not unexpected and unintended. She is also representing several insurers in issues arising out of the World Trade Center attack. She is scheduled to begin trial in New York soon, representing JPMorgan Chase in an attempt to recover on a $300 million loan guarantee provided by Motorola Inc. in connection with the Iridium LLC loan default.
Dianne Jay Weaver
Partner at Jacksonville, Fla.'s Harrell & Johnson
Dianne Jay Weaver represents plaintiffs in products liability, medical malpractice, general personal injury and fraud, but she specializes in litigation that has a public interest component. In the 1980s, she won a $5.1 million punitive award, the nation's largest consumer fraud verdict to that date, in a class action against a Florida-based auto dealership that was forcing car buyers in five states to buy rust-proofing as part of a service package but didn't provide the service. As plaintiffs' counsel for women whose mothers had taken the drug diethylstilbistrol, she convinced the Florida Supreme Court to accept the notion of market share in the litigation. One of her biggest wins was a $17.99 million verdict in 1998 against the Florida Department of Health & Rehabilitation Services over the treatment of a mentally unstable patient; the judgment was later settled for $17.75 million. Overall, Weaver has won 17 verdicts of $1 million or more, plus several dozen settlements in that range.
Mary A. Wells
Partner at Denver's Wells, Anderson & Race
Mary A. Wells represents corporate defendants in products liability cases. She has represented Baxter Healthcare Corp. in a series of breast implant trials, losing only one outright -- and that was later sent back for retrial on damages. She has represented Beech Aircraft in several major trials involving the crashes of the company's Beech Baron airplanes. She also is defending Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Inc. in products litigation involving 3M's respiratory protection devices. In this offshoot of asbestos litigation, Wells has won summary judgments dismissing actions against 3M in cases in Georgia, Ohio and Texas, though she was part of a big loss in Mississippi in October. Wells has won more than 80 percent of the cases she has tried in her career.
Sarah R. Wolff
Partner at Chicago's Sachnoff & Weaver
Sarah R. Wolff represents both defendants and plaintiffs in commercial, securities and M&A litigation nationwide. In 1997, she won one of the year's biggest defense victories in civil litigation while representing Tricord Systems Inc., and two of its officers in a shareholders' fraud class action. The plaintiffs, who were seeking more than $28 million in damages, contended the officers made misleading statements inflating the value of the Tricord stock, but the jury returned a verdict of no liability for all defendants. Other big wins include a $17.5 million verdict in a breach-of-contract case for Humetrix Inc., a small California company, against Gemplus S.C.A., the world's largest manufacturer of "smart cards." The verdict was just sustained on appeal.
Marie R. Yeates
Partner at Houston's Vinson & Elkins
Marie R. Yeates is the head of the firm's appellate practice and has been involved in appeals in a wide variety of cases. She has won numerous appeals, including the reversal by j.n.o.v. of a $12 million verdict against a grocery store, a reversal and rendition of an $80 million judgment in an oil and gas case, a reversal of a $30 million breach-of-warranty judgment and the reduction of a $60 million commercial dispute verdict to $10 million, then the reversal of the remainder of the judgment. Yeates also recently won affirmations on appeal of verdicts of $10 million in an oil and gas dispute and $9 million over a failed asset purchase agreement.
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