Covington & Burling partner Paul Schmidt had to convince the New Jersey Supreme Court last year to side with his client, Hoffmann-La Roche, in two groundbreaking legal decisions in New Jersey on the same day. He got unanimous decisions in both, while also changing the law.

“I think it actually helped us … to do them both together because I was able to use arguments to reinforce each other … about the state of the science,” Schmidt said of the cases, which sought to link the acne treatment medication Accutane with Crohn’s disease. “But it was a pretty intense period.”