What are some of the department’s most satisfying successes of the past year and why? We had a truly exceptional year, making it difficult to highlight just one or two results. We helped ExxonMobil defeat a $1.6 billion securities fraud lawsuit brought by the N.Y. Attorney General, the first climate-change suit tried to a verdict nationally. We helped Blackstone defeat a $50 billion derivative suit widely viewed as a test case for whether participants in public pension plans could sue investment advisors on behalf of the plans. We secured summary judgment for hedge fund administrator The Citco Group days before trial in Louisiana, facing novel, untested securities claims brought by inherently sympathetic plaintiffs. We delivered a knock-out appellate victory for Becton, Dickinson in a long-running, massive antitrust and false advertising lawsuit concerning safety syringes and safety I.V. catheters, following multiple trial and appellate victories.

We are equally proud of our pro bono achievements. We delivered five trial and appellate wins in reproductive rights cases in Mississippi and Missouri; we served as court-appointed lead counsel of the steering committee tasked with locating parents deported by the Trump administration and reunifying families; and we launched our Coronavirus Relief Center to help millions of individuals, small businesses and nonprofit organizations facing devastating economic losses because of the coronavirus pandemic secure emergency assistance from nearly 1,000 federal state, local and charitable programs.