Legal News

For Gibson Dunn Litigators, a Happy New Year Indeed

By Ashby Jones

Our first congratulations of 2010 (we’ve chosen to pronounce it “twenty-ten”) goes out to Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, who nabbed the American Lawyer’s Litigation Department of the Year award. (We should mention at the outset that as much as the award is a feather in the cap for GD&C litigators, it’s also an accomplishment for the firm’s marketing and communications staff, who, like those at many other firms, work for weeks on their AmLaw applications.)

So what did Gibson Dunn do to deserve the award? Writes AmLaw’s David Bario:

The litany is breathtaking: helping Dole Food Company, Inc., end a costly war of attrition with Nicaraguan plaintiffs, and uncovering a nasty pattern of fraud in the process; beating back massive, reputation-gutting employment class actions for Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., and United Parcel Service, Inc.; persuading the Supreme Court, on behalf of a teetering West Virginia mine owner, that a state judge must recuse himself if he took money from one of the parties in his last campaign-a now obvious point that was in the couldn’t-be-done category two years ago. . . . For those rescues, and a broader record of excellent work for hard-pressed clients, we name the firm Litigation Department of the Year.

Yup. Sounds like a good year, indeed. And 2010 could be interesting for the firm as well, what Ted Olson handling, along with David Boies, the big Prop 8 challenge set for trial later this month.

Congrats are also in order for the runners up: Kirkland & Ellis, O’Melveny & Myers, Paul Weiss, Quinn Emanuel and Weil Gotshal; as well as the winners in the practice-area-specific categories: Product Liability, Labor & Employment and IP. Those winners, respectively: Reed Smith, Paul Hastings and Quinn Emanuel.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on January 04, 2010 (boomark / email).