Acclaimed as a litigation powerhouse, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and the members of the Litigation Practice Group have a long record of outstanding successes. The American Lawyer named Gibson Dunn a Finalist in its 2022 Litigation Department of the Year competition, noting that “when news breaks and the pressure rises, clients call Gibson Dunn’s litigators to regain control.” This award follows our unprecedented four wins in this biennial competition.
The members of our litigation practice group are not just litigators, they are first-rate trial lawyers. Each year, we try numerous cases to verdicts before juries, judges and arbitrators. Our clients have trusted us to try their most significant disputes to verdict, and we believe our trial win-loss record is unsurpassed.
We have tried cases and argued appeals before the U.S. Supreme Court and state supreme courts in addition to federal and state courts across the United States involving almost every foreseeable area of controversy. We also handle disputes before a wide variety of nonjudicial forums, from federal and state agencies to international arbitrations.
Gibson Dunn’s approach emphasizes the full spectrum of services for our clients. Our litigators are trained to evaluate actual and potential cases at the earliest stages, to first determine if litigation can be avoided, or, if it is filed, whether the matter can be resolved quickly and economically. We pride ourselves on handling our litigation matters as efficiently as possible. For the largest cases, we can bring all necessary resources to bear, but for smaller matters, we believe in lean staffing and small teams of litigators with the right knowledge and experience. Critically, our litigators think not just as lawyers, but as business men and women, tapping into key resources and devising optimal strategies for the most efficient and favorable results. Gibson Dunn lawyers are fully familiar with a wide array of alternative dispute resolution techniques, including arbitration, mediation, “mini-trials” and the like. In addition, the conduct of litigation at every stage is done in full and close consultation with our clients.
Gibson Dunn’s trial practice is enhanced by first-rate case management support and technology resources. Our lawyers utilize technology in a manner that not only enhances their practice, but reduces the cost of litigation. Our trial technology includes the latest systems available for document storage, retrieval and imaging. We provide our clients dedicated extranet capabilities where they can access relevant case information and share documents on secure sites developed specifically for each case. These technology tools allow us to avoid reinventing the wheel; when we begin work on a new case, we are able to access a vast database of research, writing and analysis, and thereby deliver the highest quality work product as efficiently as possible.
Experience
Recent representations include:
- Secured a historic win for Apple, defeating antitrust attacks from Epic Games relating to Apple’s App Store and business model. Following a three-week bench trial described in the press as “the Super Bowl of Antitrust,” the court ruled in Apple’s favor on all antitrust claims. Affirmed on appeal in April 2023 by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
- Obtained a 9-0 win for Slack Technologies in the U.S. Supreme Court, after litigating in the Northern District of California and the Ninth Circuit, in key industry-shaping litigation regarding Section 11 of the Securities Act of 1933. It was the first securities and derivative suit relating to going public through a direct listing.
- Secured a landmark class certification victory before the U.S. Supreme Court in Dukes v. Wal-Mart, reversing the largest Title VII class in history with over 1.5 million class members. On appeal from a district court order certifying a nationwide class action of female associates, Gibson Dunn obtained an order decertifying the class and ushering in new standards for Rule 23 class actions. The Wall Street Journal hailed the decision as a “major victory for legal fairness and economic growth” and explained that its impact “will be felt not only in employment law cases but in the other vast class action playgrounds of the plaintiffs’ bar, from product liability to securities law.”
- Won a landmark campaign finance ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, convincing the U.S. Supreme Court to invalidate major portions of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law banning corporate contributions because corporations have a First Amendment right to engage in political speech. The New York Times called the decision “a doctrinal earthquake” that was both “political and practical.”
- Won marriage equality for all Californians by persuading the U.S. Supreme Court to hold in Hollingsworth v. Perry that the ballot-initiative proponents of Proposition 8—which had deprived same-sex couples in California of the right to marry—lacked standing to appeal the decision of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California that invalidated Proposition 8 on due process and equal protection grounds. The Supreme Court’s decision left the district court’s ruling intact and, within days of that decision, gay and lesbian couples were once again getting married throughout California—the culmination of Gibson Dunn’s four-year effort to invalidate that discriminatory measure, which encompassed a full trial on the merits in the Northern District of California and the successful defense of the trial-court victory in the Ninth Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court.
- Obtained a unanimous reversal of record-setting class action and Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) verdict in the Northern District of California in Magadia v. Wal-Mart. The district court entered a $102 million judgment in favor of the plaintiff, including over $48 million in statutory damages and $53 million in PAGA penalties. On appeal, Gibson Dunn took over the case and challenged the unconstitutional damages and penalties. The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court and vacated the entire judgment.
- Gibson Dunn has successfully defended the gig economy in litigation for Uber, Postmates, DoorDash, and Grubhub, among others. We were the first to prove at trial that a gig economy contractor was an independent contractor. We convinced the Ninth Circuit that our clients properly alleged a California worker classification law is unconstitutional for unfairly targeting the gig economy. We have won numerous appellate decisions enforcing gig worker arbitration agreements, including the first appellate decision to hold that the Section 1 exemption of the FAA does not apply to rideshare drivers.
- Resolved groundbreaking, multibillion-dollar litigation by NML Capital, Ltd. (an affiliate of Elliott Management Corporation) against the Republic of Argentina when Argentina paid NML more than $2.4 billion to satisfy NML’s claims on the country’s defaulted bonds. The settlement ended 13 years of litigation following Argentina’s 2001 default on more than $80 billion in external debt. The tide turned with two decisive U.S. Supreme Court victories Gibson Dunn won for NML; the Republic’s new president ultimately initiated negotiations with creditors and the settlement was reached
- Defended Chevron in the massive Lago Agrio environmental litigation, including its successful RICO and fraud suit against the purveyors of what The Wall Street Journal called the legal “fraud of the century.” Gibson Dunn was lead counsel in Chevron’s RICO and fraud suit against the U.S. lawyer and associates who masterminded an extortion scheme against Chevron that included fraudulently procuring a $9.2 billion Ecuadorian judgment against the company and carrying out an extortionate pressure campaign in the United States. Gibson Dunn obtained a trial verdict in favor of Chevron, in which the district court held that the scheme constituted racketeering in violation of RICO and federal laws prohibiting attempted extortion, wire fraud, money laundering, witness tampering, obstruction of justice, and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
- Obtained an unprecedented directed verdict of no infringement for VMware and Dell in a $435 million dollar patent infringement suit in the Western District of Texas. At the conclusion of the plaintiff’s case in chief, defendants moved for a directed verdict of no infringement, which Judge Albright granted, the first time Judge Albright has done so in a patent case since taking the bench.
- Successfully represented AT&T as antitrust trial counsel, in the defeat of the high-profile lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division to block AT&T’s proposed $106 billion acquisition of Time Warner, Inc. Following a six-week trial, dubbed the “antitrust trial of the century” by The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that AT&T could proceed with the acquisition without conditions, crediting arguments developed and advanced by Gibson Dunn and co-counsel to reject the government’s economic theories of harm. The court went further and concluded that the merger would be pro-competitive. The decisive win marked a historic defeat for the DOJ, which had not lost a merger challenge in decades.
- Secured, and later preserved on appeal, a precedent-setting victory for MetLife, Inc. in MetLife, Inc. v. Financial Stability Oversight Council (D. D.C. 2016; D.C. Cir. 2018) when the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that MetLife’s designation as a nonbank systemically important financial institution (SIFI) by the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) was arbitrary and capricious and must be rescinded. This was the first legal challenge to a designation by FSOC, established by the U.S. Congress in the Dodd-Frank Act to identify and designate as SIFIs financial companies that are “too big to fail” and whose material financial distress could cause instability in the U.S. economy. FSOC appealed but, after MetLife filed a supplemental brief demonstrating the inconsistencies between FSOC’s position in the case and a recent Treasury Department report on the FSOC designation process, FSOC agreed to file a joint motion to dismiss the appeal. The D.C. Circuit granted the request, thus preserving MetLife’s historic district court victory.