Excellence | Collaboration | Innovation LITIGATION YEAR IN REVIEW | 2019 LITIGATION YEAR IN REVIEW | 2019 W I T H THANKS I am delighted to share with you Mayer Brown’s Litigation Year in Review. It highlights the successes we achieved in 2019 by partnering with clients and delivering on our core principles. Excellence - our commitment to client service will always remain our number-one priority. Clients rely on us to deliver extremely high and uncompromising standards of quality across a variety of litigation disciplines. Collaboration - our global platform of litigators is built to serve the complex needs of our clients, whose businesses and matters are increasingly multijurisdictional in nature. Our “one-firm” culture—seamless and integrated across all practices and regions—ensures that our clients receive the best of our knowledge and experience. Innovation - clients look to us for fresh ideas to familiar problems. We believe that insight and continued innovation are key characteristics to solving our clients’ concerns in an ever-changing business environment. We hope you enjoy this brief overview, which features some of the complex and noteworthy cases we have worked on and also celebrates the arrival of a dozen lateral partners who are committed to advancing the strategic aims of our clients. Thank you for allowing us to be a part of your success. RICHARD A. SPEHR HEAD OF LITIGATION & DISPUTE RESOLUTION | NEW YORK MAYER BROWN 1 LITIGATION YEAR IN REVIEW | 2019 CONTENTS 4 KEY FIGURES LAW360 2019 PRACTICE 6 GROUPS OF THE YEAR 10 NLJ TRAILBLAZER AWARDS 16 NOTABLE CASES 2019 FINANCIAL TIMES’ 20 MOST INNOVATIVE LAW FIRMS 22 LATERAL HIRES 34 LAW360 MVP PROFILES ADDITIONAL AWARDS 44 & RECOGNITION 2 MAYER BROWN LITIGATION YEAR IN REVIEW | 2019 MAYER BROWN 3 LITIGATION YEAR IN REVIEW | 2019 K E Y FIGURES CONSECUTIVE YEARS NAMED 4 “FIRM OF THE YEAR” BY LAW360 CONSECUTIVE YEARS NAMED TO LAW360’S “GLOBAL 20 LIST” 9 LAW360 PRACTICE 8 GROUPS OF THE YEAR PROMINENT LATERALS 12 CONSECUTIVE YEARS NAMED TO GLOBAL 5 INVESTIGATIONS REVIEW’S “GIR 30” LAWYERS NAMED LAW360 “MVP” 4 CONSECUTIVE YEARS NAMED TO NATIONAL 12 LAW JOURNAL’S “APPELLATE HOT LIST” LAWYERS NAMED NATIONAL LAW JOURNAL TRAILBLAZERS 3 4 MAYER BROWN LITIGATION YEAR IN REVIEW | 2019 As one of the largest litigation practices in the world—with more than 500 litigators worldwide—our team has the intellectual depth, creativity and geographic scope to successfully resolve virtually any type of legal dispute in the Americas, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. MAYER BROWN 5 LITIGATION YEAR IN REVIEW | 2019 2019 PRACTICE GROUPS OF THE YEAR For the fourth consecutive year, Mayer Brown was named a 2019 “Firm of the Year” by Law360 on the basis of its victories in eight “Practice Group of the Year” categories, including: Appellate, Banking, Benefits, Consumer Protection, Environmental, Project Finance, Securitization and Tax. This award recognizes the top firms “behind the litigation wins and major deals that resonated throughout the legal industry in the past year.” Many of the prominent dispute-resolution activities that led to this recognition are captured herein. 6 MAYER BROWN LITIGATION YEAR IN REVIEW | 2019 APPELLATE CONSUMER PROTECTION Mayer Brown was named a Law360 Appellate Practice Group of the Year after arguing eight cases before the For the third consecutive year, Mayer Brown was US Supreme Court last Term—more than any other recognized as a Law360 Consumer Protection firm. The profile highlighted two major victories before Group of the Year after securing a significant victory the Court (Lamps Plus Inc. v. Varela and Weyerhaeuser for Facebook involving data collection and steering Company v. United States Fish and Wildlife Service) and a variety of other household-name companies to referenced significant circuit court decisions in favor of victory in high-stakes consumer litigation, including high-profile clients, including Facebook and HSBC. AT&T, Cablevision and Google. Our litigators also scored a series of precedent-setting victories for BANKING Nestlé and its iconic Coffee-mate brand involving labeling and false advertising class actions. Mayer Brown was once again named a Law360 Banking Practice Group of the Year for earning highly significant ENVIRONMENTAL victories for many of the world’s leading financial institutions, including Société Générale, HSBC, For the second year in a row, Mayer Brown’s The Bank of New York Mellon and Citibank N.A. Environmental practice was recognized as a Law360 Practice Group of the Year after securing a complete victory in the US Supreme Court in the BENEFITS most closely watched environmental case concerning the scope of the Endangered Species Mayer Brown earned a spot in Law360’s Benefits Act and achieving multiple precedent-setting wins Practice Group of the Year category for winning in Clean Water Act litigation across the United dismissals in a wave of ERISA class action lawsuits States. The practice also continues to defend against prominent universities throughout the companies such as 3M, Nicor and Veolia against United States. Our practice was also recognized for some of the most high-profile mass/water securing a win for AT&T in an ERISA class action suit contamination cases in the nation. and representing a leading financial institution in a complex transaction involving the largest full plan termination in 2019. Mayer Brown was named a TAX “Law360 Appellate Practice Group of the Year after Mayer Brown was named a Law360 Tax Practice Group of the Year after earning key victories including one for arguing eight cases before the Bank of America over the US Department of Justice in a US Supreme Court last Term. tax refund battle. Our practice also secured a rare bench ” opinion for Fidelity and a coal-refining partner in a fight with the IRS over credits. MAYER BROWN 7 LITIGATION YEAR IN REVIEW | 2019 Devi Shah | London 8 MAYER BROWN LITIGATION YEAR IN REVIEW | 2019 Mayer Brown is a significant force in today’s major world markets. We are well-known for our strategic counsel and for our dispute-resolution capabilities. MAYER BROWN 9 LITIGATION YEAR IN REVIEW | 2019 10 MAYER BROWN LITIGATION YEAR IN REVIEW | 2019 NLJ TRAILBLAZER AWARDS Since 2014, The National Law Journal has published an annual list of Trailblazers, recognizing lawyers who show a “deep passion and perseverance in pursuit of their mission, having achieved remarkable successes along the way.” In the past five years, 15 Mayer Brown litigators have been recognized as Trailblazers for moving the needle in the legal industry and exhibiting excellence in their respective practices. Copyright: A version of this content appeared in The National Law Journal 2019 ALM Properties, Inc. and is reprinted here by permission. All rights reserved. Further duplication without permission is prohibited. MAYER BROWN 11 LITIGATION YEAR IN REVIEW | 2019 LAUREN R. GOLDMAN NEW YORK PIONEER SPIRIT Lauren Goldman attended law school with dreams of arguing appeals. “A professor introduced me to the founder of Mayer Brown’s appellate practice and I was fascinated.” Now, 20 years later, she co-leads the practice. TRAILS BLAZED Goldman develops strategies for high-risk cases and does a great deal of work in technology. “I started out working on mass tort cases, which often involve complicated legal and scientific issues. That work eventually led me into data privacy, which seemed to be an expanding area of law. Data privacy cases are intriguing because you’re frequently applying traditional legal principles to very modern disputes.” She has represented Facebook for years, including in some of the first matters brought under Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act. Her matters include Gullen v. Facebook, in which a US district judge granted Facebook summary judgment in a putative class action brought by a nonuser that targeted the company’s facial-recognition technology. In June 2019, the Ninth Circuit unanimously affirmed the decision. Goldman also secured a victory in Smith v. Facebook, which addressed the sufficiency of Facebook’s disclosures about data collection. “The Ninth Circuit found that the challenged practices were fully disclosed in Facebook’s terms and policies and held that plaintiffs’ consent to those terms barred all of their claims.” FUTURE EXPLORATIONS The plaintiffs’ bar will push for expansive treatment of federal and state laws that provide for statutory damages. “Plaintiffs may keep trying to apply these statutes to areas they were not intended to cover. And at some point, Congress may enact federal privacy litigation that will preempt the patchwork of state laws.” Data privacy cases are intriguing because you’re “ “ frequently applying traditional legal principles to very modern disputes. 12 MAYER BROWN LITIGATION YEAR IN REVIEW | 2019 MAYER BROWN 13 LITIGATION YEAR IN REVIEW | 2019 ELIZABETH MANN LOS ANGELES PIONEER SPIRIT Elizabeth Mann always wanted to be a trial lawyer. “I ended up doing a defamation case for a health care client, I got a good We got a result, and we formed a good relationship. So, when they had “judgment that you health care lawsuits, they called me. I thought it was interesting. I can’t ever certify a started studying and learning, and soon I was a health care lawyer.” class because everyone’s health TRAILS BLAZED is different... “ Mann represents clients in many different areas, including around wellness and coaching programs. “Insurance companies and third-party administrators are not licensed to provide services, but they can deliver educational services. I’ve helped a number of health care companies develop these.” Among her clients, she has worked with American Specialty Health for many years, including successfully defending the company in a class action lawsuit in Oregon over Section 2706, the antidiscrimination provision of the Affordable Care Act. The lawsuit, filed by naturopathic physicians and their patients, claimed ASH discriminated against them by denying claims that were otherwise covered when fulfilled by other medical providers.