It’s a trite observation to make: “I can’t believe a year has passed.” But, truly, it’s startling that it’s been a year since our last Legal & Litigation Departments of the Year honors. A year in many contexts is not a very long time, and given how many hours and how much effort it can take for law firms and corporate legal departments to resolve the multitude of issues they face, a year goes by especially fast in the context of practicing law. That makes the accomplishments detailed here all the more impressive—that each honoree can look back on the blur of 12 months going by and notch so many impressive victories won, issues tackled, improvements made.

Once again we asked the winners to share some thoughts with us in the form of Q&A responses. We’ve found this exercise to be highly insightful, and this year’s honorees did not disappoint. A sincere thank you to all those who took the time to correspond with us. We truly enjoyed and learned from these insights, and we know the readers will too. Thanks also to the attorneys and staff who worked hard on the submissions, which we recognize are demanding endeavors. The response was strong, and winning is no easy task. Though it’s hard work and the competition is stiff, we hope you’ll submit again next year. We learned much from each and every submission.