More than a third of the Fortune 100 relies on our litigators to resolve their highest-stakes disputes. Our team of 475 litigators has racked up a string of victories at trial, on appeal and before arbitral tribunals around the world. We also help our clients avoid the cost and distraction of litigation through effective compliance programs, internal investigations and public policy efforts.
Whether we’re arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court or providing pre-litigation counseling, we bring the highest quality to everything we do. Chambers USA 2017 recognizes our teams for leadership across 18 different litigation areas and cites our litigators as leaders 37 times. The American Lawyer counts us among the top 10 litigation firms nationwide in its 2016 "Litigation Power Rankings," and we’ve been named a top 5 “Litigation Powerhouse” by Law360 in 2016. AmLaw also chose us as IP Litigation Department of the Year and listed us among the six finalists for Litigation Department of the Year in 2016.
Clients have turned to us for their biggest cases – the ones closely watched by the media, where futures hang in the balance. We combine trial and appellate prowess with deep subject matter knowledge in IP, cybersecurity, white collar, employment law, securities, mass torts, antitrust and other areas. We’ve taken 20 cases to trial over a 24-month period and won bet-the-company verdicts. These included a resounding defense verdict in an employment discrimination case, Pao v. Kleiner Perkins, that The New York Times described as a "battle between legal powerhouses." We won for Microsoft in its closely-watched privacy rights showdown with the Justice Department, which prevented the federal government from searching our client’s customer emails and produced a win that reverberated across the tech industry. We also won for DISH in bicoastal litigation brought by the major TV networks, preserving DISH’s marquee product and producing a critical post-Aereo precedent for the development of streaming technology. Many of these cases broke new legal ground and paved the way for future victories.
We have litigators based in 18 markets worldwide. Our European team handles some of the most closely watched cases in domestic courts, as well as commercial arbitrations. In what The American Lawyer called a "mega win," our Paris team secured a €440 million judgment for Consortium de Realisation in a front-page case known as L’Affaire Tapie. Our international arbitration team is currently defending the Republic of Guinea against a $5 billion ICSID arbitration brought by the mining giant BSGR – a dispute Legal Business called one of the largest pending arbitrations in the world.
Our dual-educated, dual-licensed litigators in Asia have long assisted local and international companies with all aspects of IP protection and enforcement in China, Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Our team also has deep experience in product liability, white-collar and securities litigation.
We represent European banks, Chinese state-owned enterprises, Japanese electronics firms and other international companies in their biggest U.S. cases. To help international clients stay on top of U.S. legal developments affecting their work, we publish "The World in U.S. Courts," a quarterly review of court decisions applying U.S. law to global business and cross-border activities.
We are equally focused on helping clients avoid the courtroom in the first place through effective compliance programs and dialogue with regulators and legislators. Our Employment Law practitioners craft multijurisdictional compliance programs. Our White Collar & Corporate Investigations practice helps our clients implement programs to comply with the Foreign Practices Act, the Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money laundering laws, among other acts and laws. Industry disruptors call on our Public Policy practice group to advocate before state governments for regulation that promotes innovation – often as an alternative to competitor litigation. And our Cyber, Privacy & Data Innovation lawyers regularly counsel clients on proactive strategies to improve their security preparedness and manage cybersecurity risks.
Drawing on a deep bench of litigators, we assemble litigation teams that combine subject matter experts with advocacy skills. We bring in our appellate lawyers early to identify potential obstacles and create a long-term case strategy. Our team includes 25 former federal or state prosecutors, 142 former judicial clerks, 17 former Supreme Court clerks and five members of the American College of Trial Lawyers.
We understand efficiency is an important measure of results. We collaborate closely with our in-house colleagues, conducting a cost-benefit analysis at each juncture of the matter. Our in-house Discovery Analytics & Review Service, based in Wheeling, West Virginia, works hand in hand with our litigators and offers a range of cost-effective services. Through a proprietary method, our teams are able to cull 96.7 percent of documents using technology, passing on an average cost savings of $58,000 per matter.
In naming us a finalist for "Litigation Department of the Year" in 2016, AmLaw noted: "High-intensity headline cases didn’t faze Orrick’s litigators." AmLaw wrote that we had a "championship showing" in the area of IP litigation and noted our "dominance" in employment litigation. AmLaw also named us a finalist for "IP Litigation Department of the Year," noting that "time and again, we heard stories [from clients] lauding Orrick’s ability to jump into a case and successfully dig its clients out of a hole, even with little time to prepare."
We regularly appear on the National Law Journal’s "Appellate Hotlist." Our IP and Employment teams are regularly applauded in Law360’s "Practice Groups of the Year" competition. In a measure of our prominence in California’s courts, Recorder has named us "California Labor & Employment Litigation Department of the Year" three times.
Financial Times named us the #1 Most Innovative Law Firm in North America from 2016-2018 and runner-up in 2019, in part because of our win for Microsoft against the U.S. government in one of the most significant data privacy cases of the year. We were also chosen for our strategy to save the daily fantasy sports industry, which came under scrutiny by state regulators over the legality of the practice under existing gambling laws. With our team’s help, FanDuel and DraftKings avoided multi-year litigation and coordinated an innovative legislative campaign that culminated in a bill that confirms that fantasy sports are legal under New York state law.