Topping our list of runners up for Litigator of the Week are Winston & Strawn co-chair Jeffrey Kessler and Hagens Berman managing partner Steve Berman, who scored a major victory before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on behalf of college athletes. The appeals court upheld the district court’s decision that the NCAA and 11 of its member conferences violated federal antitrust law by placing an arbitrary limit on the amount of compensation that college football and basketball players may receive.
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s Theane Evangelis drove home a win for Uber in the ongoing fight over whether to classify drivers as employees or independent contractors. Long-time Uber foe Shannon Liss-Riordan filed an emergency motion for a preliminary injunction, asking the court to order Uber to reclassify drivers as employees so they could receive paid sick leave. U.S. District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco denied the injunction and granted Uber’s motion to compel arbitration.
