Commercial

RESULTS

Alston & Bird’s trial lawyers have successfully defended and prosecuted bet-the-company and other big-stakes commercial litigation lawsuits around the country—and clients and others are taking notice:

• BTI’s Survey of Litigation Counsel 2010 ranked Alston & Bird as one of the few “Most Feared Litigation Firms” and a “Strongly Recommended Law Firm for Litigation”
• For the past several years, Corporate Counsel magazine has named Alston & Bird among the Top 10 law firms in the country mentioned by corporate counsel as their “go-to law firm” for litigation
• As the AmLaw Litigation Daily wrote in 2010, “What gives? Everywhere we look these days, it seems like we see Alston & Bird.”

We have trial lawyers in each of our nine offices from New York to Atlanta to Dallas to Los Angeles and Silicon Valley, and dozens of our lawyers have been recognized by Chambers and as The Best Lawyers in America and Super Lawyers.

We practice our craft and hone our trial and appellate persuasion skills in our state-of-the art mock courtroom, which we use to practice oral arguments, simulate witness examinations and test trial themes with focus groups. We also conduct arbitrations and mediations in our courtroom.

CLIENT CONFIDENCE

Our clients value our results, and many of the most respected companies in the world have retained our commercial trial lawyers to protect their business rights and interests.

• AT&T Incorporated
• Bank of America Corporation
• Dell Inc.
• Delta Air Lines
• The Dow Chemical Company
• DirecTV
• Equifax
• The Home Depot
• INVESCO
• JPMorgan Chase
• Liberty Mutual / Safeco
• Louisiana-Pacific 
• Mohawk Industries, Inc.
• Morgan Stanley
• News Corp.
• Nokia
• Pfizer
• State Farm Insurance
• SunTrust
• T-Mobile
• Tenet Healthcare
• United Healthcare
• UPS
• Wells Fargo 

INNOVATION

To efficiently manage complex, commercial litigation matters and to address the burdens imposed by electronic document discovery, we have developed a Special Resources Group that expertly handles electronic discovery and document review at a fraction of outside consultant or standard litigation costs.

We also utilize in-house certified public accountants with substantial experience in the financial sector. Our accountants regularly assist our trial lawyers with forensic accounting matters and damages analyses, further fueling our reputation for providing first-class client service.

We know clients want results, not just billable hours of effort. We are strong proponents of risk/reward relationships and aggressively seek to partner with our clients in creative alternative-fee arrangements. We thus offer discounted rates with reward factors, flat fees, flat fees for stages of litigation, capped fees, blended rates, contingency fees and combinations of these alternative-fee arrangements.

RECENT CASES

For Class Actions, click here.
For Corporate Plaintiff’s Litigation, click here.

• Retained shortly before trial as lead trial counsel to Dell in an eight week jury trial in civil district court in Orleans Parish, Louisiana, where the plaintiffs sought more than $5 billion in damages under claims for misappropriation of trade secrets, unfair and deceptive trade practices, breach of contract, detrimental reliance and unjust enrichment arising out of Dell’s sale of city-wide wireless video surveillance systems deployed for the detection of crime. The jury awarded the plaintiffs less than 0.2 percent of the requested damages. The award was further reduced post-trial.
• Represented Mohawk Industries, Inc. in the Northern District of Georgia in litigation alleging violations of federal witness tampering statutes. After the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, we obtained complete dismissal of all claims on summary judgment.
• Represented Dell in civil district court in Dallas County, Texas, where the plaintiff sought to enjoin the tender offer and proposed acquisition of Perot Systems Corporation by Dell. Successfully defeated a motion for preliminary injunction, and the acquisition was permitted to proceed.
• Retained by Louisiana-Pacific toward the close of discovery to defend two multi-billion antitrust class action suits in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Cases settled one week before trial for a tiny fraction of the claimed damages.
• Represent one of the world’s largest telecommunication companies in litigation against Apple in the District of Delaware, Western District of Wisconsin and the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) involving claims for patent infringement, breach of contract, and violation of federal antitrust laws. Proceedings before the ITC have concluded, trial dates have been set for the claims asserted in the District of Delaware and discovery is ongoing.
• Represent Dell as a corporate plaintiff in a multi-billion dollar antitrust price-fixing case against the global suppliers of liquid crystal display products in the Northern District of California.
• Represented Volumetrics Medical Imaging against an international conglomerate in the Middle District of North Carolina, winning $318 million jury verdict for claims of fraud and unfair competition related to 3D medical ultrasound technology.
• Represented The Home Depot in litigation arising out of an earnout provision in the company’s agreement to acquire Home Decorators’ Collection. Following an arbitration, the plaintiffs recovered less than seven percent of the requested damages.
• Represent the Certified Automotive Parts Association in a putative antitrust class action in the Northern District of California involving automobile insurance policies relating to aftermarket replacement parts.
• Represent Wachovia in litigation arising out of a $1.6 billion commercial real estate loan. Judge George H. King of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California granted Wachovia’s motion for partial judgment on the pleadings, dismissing the only claim for monetary damages against Wachovia.
• Represented Twentieth Century Fox in its copyright dispute with Warner Bros. over the rights to the superhero epic Watchmen, scoring a major victory on Christmas Eve 2008, when Judge Gary Feess of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Los Angeles division, granted Fox’s motion for summary judgment, finding that Fox retained the right, at the very least, to distribute the $150 million Watchmen film produced by Warner Bros. Following the grant of summary judgment, the matter was favorably settled just prior to a January 20, 2009, trial on Fox’s claim for an injunction to restrain distribution of the movie.