This verdict made jaws drop

June D. Bell / Special to The National Law Journal
Microsoft Corp. was forced to face the music during a high-stakes intellectual property trial last year. A team of Kirkland & Ellis litigators persuaded a San Diego jury to award $1.538 billion to telecommunications equipment maker Alcatel-Lucent for infringement of two file-compression patents, used to play tunes in Microsoft’s Windows Media Player and other MP3 devices.