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Whether you’re a law firm wanting to size up the competition and scope out potential business opportunities, a legal department wanting to know more about the experience and bench strength of your panel firms against other firms, or a legal recruiting firm looking for the next rainmaker lateral partner, legal data can provide deep insights to augment and direct your decision making. 

To continue our mission of improving access to legal data and to show the power of data for legal professionals across the legal services and legal support spectrum, UniCourt recently released our inaugural TrueLaw Litigation Index – 2019 Law Firm Ranking. 

Based purely on court data from PACER that’s been organized, cleaned, and normalized with artificial intelligence and other public data sets, the TrueLaw Litigation Index features the top 200 civil litigation law firms across all U.S. District Courts for all practice areas. 

In this article, we’ll take a deep dive into the top ranking law firm for all of 2019 — white-shoe, D.C.-based Williams & Connolly, LLP — looking at the breakdown of the firm’s cases, the inside story of how it topped the litigation charts last year in federal District Court, and who its top clients were across different industries.

The Williams & Connolly Story

Recognized internationally as one of the world’s premier litigation powerhouses, the law firm that professional services firms “turn to when they’re in trouble,” and as the firm that has represented the interests of previous Presidents including Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama, it comes as no surprise that Williams & Connolly topped out as the most active law firm in federal trial courts across the U.S.

What is surprising, however, is that of the firm’s 4,438 cases it handled last year, 4,347 were representing one single client: BP, and more specifically, BP America Production Company and BP Exploration & Production, Inc. What’s more surprising is that one single rainmaker at the firm, Kevin M. Hodges, handled all of these BP cases, which stem from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill that happened a little over a decade ago.

The cases that Hodges has litigated on behalf of BP have spanned across the Southeast, with the lion’s share of cases being filed in Louisiana, Florida, and Mississippi. Here below is a breakdown of the top 10 jurisdictions where Williams & Connolly handled cases for all of its different clients in 2019:

1. Eastern District of Louisiana: 2970
2. Northern District of Florida: 674
3. Southern District of Mississippi: 444
4. Southern District of Florida: 106
5. Southern District of Texas: 99
6. Middle District of Florida: 26
7. Southern District of California: 22
8. Western District of Louisiana: 14
9. Southern District of Alabama: 13
10. Southern District of New York: 11

To add to the intrigue of our first TrueLaw Litigation Index report, it’s worth noting that last year’s runner up, Nations Law Firm, is the plaintiff firm that filed nearly all of the 4,000-plus lawsuits against BP that were defended by Williams & Connolly. Further, the third-, fourth-, and fifth-placed firms, Liskow & Lewis, Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP, and Maron Marvel Bradley Anderson & Tardy LLC, also defended BP against the litigation brought by Nations Law Firm, which accounted for the overwhelming majority of their caseloads in federal court. 

Because these firms are still going toe-to-toe in District Courts this year, we will closely track this growing body of litigation involving BP.     

Digging Deeper With Legal Data

Three of the basic data points you can quickly glean actionable information from are (1) what types of cases a firm handles, (2) who their top clients are, and (3) who their top lawyers are. 

Looking at the types of cases a law firm has handled provides a snapshot of where the firm is in terms of practice coverage and utilization. And beyond the yearly view for 2019 that we’ve captured for Williams & Connolly, broadening that snapshot across a span of years allows you to see how a firm has evolved over time based on shifts in the legal market, moves by laterals in and out of the firm, mergers and splits, and outsized events like the Deepwater Horizon spill, leading to burgeoning or dwindling case volumes. Here are the top 10 case types Williams & Connolly handled last year:

1. Personal Injury: 4200
2. Marine: 144
3. Medical/Pharmaceutical Product Liability: 27
4. Patent: 11
5. Antitrust: 11
6. Real Property Product Liability: 10
7. Product Liability: 8
8. Contract: 4
9. Security/Commodity/Exchange: 3
10. Racketeer Influenced & Corrupt Organizations Act: 2

In addition to uncovering a law firm’s hottest practice areas and those that might be dropping off, reviewing a firm’s client roster can provide critical competitive intelligence and surface new business development opportunities. Seeing a firm’s list of clients can also reveal new leads for legal support firms who provide advisory services, expert witnesses, and other litigation support services tailored to specific industries and types of businesses that are regularly embroiled in court cases.

When it comes to Williams & Connolly, in just the last year alone, the firm represented an impressive cross-section of high-profile clients in U.S. District Courts in the financial and professional services industry, biotech and pharmaceuticals, and media and broadcasting. The firm also represented other notable clients like Lockheed Martin, Stryker, and CVS in litigation, as well as defending Reed Smith in a $150 million action brought by LabMD that was voluntarily dismissed this past July. Here below are a handful of the clients Williams & Connolly represented in 2019:  

Finance:

1. Bank of America, N.A.
2. BofA Securities
3. Ernst & Young LLP
4. Merrill Lynch
5. MoneyGram

Media and Broadcasting:

1. American Broadcasting Company
2. CBS
3. Disney
4. Fox Broadcasting Company
5. NBCUniversal

Biotech and Pharmaceuticals:

1. Anacor Pharmaceuticals
2. AstraZeneca
3. Bristol Myers Squibb
4. Eli Lilly and Company
5. Foamix Pharmaceuticals
6. Genentech
7. LEO Pharma
8. Merck
9. Par Pharmaceutical
10. Pfizer

Legal data, and attorney data in particular, provides actionable intelligence that can power targeted legal marketing efforts and business development initiatives for a range of firms in the legal industry. From legal recruiting firms and business development professionals in law firms searching for the perfect lateral candidates, to litigation finance firms looking for lawyers with profitable litigation portfolios to invest in, there are numerous use cases for leveraging attorney data for discovering new business opportunities. Including Williams & Connolly’s prolific defense attorney, Kevin M. Hodges, here below are the top 10 litigators for the previous year:

1. Kevin M. Hodges: 4347
2. Emily Renshaw Pistilli: 21
3. Joseph G. Petrosinelli: 10
4. John E. Schmidtlein: 7
5. Liam J. Montgomery: 6
6. Jonathan B. Pitt: 6
7. Ashley W. Hardin: 5
8. Enu A. Mainigi: 5
9. David I. Berl: 4
10. Benjamin M. Greenblum: 4

To make the most of legal data, what’s important is not to look at data points like top case types, top clients, and top attorneys in a vacuum, but to combine them together to add in the depth and color to get the full picture of the business opportunities and intelligence that’s available. 

As with the detailed dimensions of what we can see for Mr. Hodges’ work related to who his clients were, where he’s litigated, and what types of cases he’s worked on, the same level of analysis could also be performed for any law firm listed in the TrueLaw Litigation Index or any of the litigators who made it rise above the rest of the competition. Moreover, other key data points like the statuses of court cases, whether judgments, settlements, or dismissals were reached, and much more could be included to build a tailored window into a lawyer or law firm’s law practice.

To learn more about how we built the TrueLaw Litigation Index – 2019 Law Firm Ranking using normalized court data from PACER, check out our recent blog post. And stay tuned for a more detailed breakdown of the other law firms and litigation trends contained in the report.

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Josh Blandi is the CEO and co-founder of UniCourt, a SaaS offering using machine learning to disrupt the way court data is organized, accessed, and used. UniCourt provides Legal Data as a Service (LDaaS) via its APIs to Am Law 50 firms and Fortune 500 businesses for accessing normalized court data for business development and intelligence, analytics, machine learning models, process automation, background checks, investigations, and underwriting.

It’s safe to say that no lawyer has weathered 2020 professionally unscathed. Even the Biglaw firms positioned to offer handsome Fall bonuses took a hit and it’s a testament to how gangbusters this year could have been that they’re still going to come out ahead.

The annual Clio Cloud Conference kicks off today, which means we got our first look at one of the legal industry’s most important benchmarking tools, their Legal Trends Report, compiled using data gathered from the Clio platform. With Clio’s extensive user base, it’s hard to imagine a more comprehensive sampling of the legal community outside the rarefied air of Biglaw.

There’s a wealth of information in this year’s report, especially when it comes to technological adoption, but let’s face it: the most salient takeaway in a year like 2020 is the overall health of the industry. We checked in with CEO Jack Newton back in June when Clio’s data first suggested that the legal profession might be turning the corner. While the June highs may have receded a bit, it does appear as though matters have stabilized.

No one wants to see revenue take a hit, but if firms can come out of this year having taken a bath from March to May, but holding steady at less than a 10 percent shortfall going forward, I think everyone would take it. There were days in mid-April where we wondered if we’d see wholesale firm bankruptcies. By and large, firms have managed to scrape by.

That said, the report doesn’t hide that attorneys are still concerned, even if they are less worried than they were at the height of the pandemic-induced slowdown.

Over half of respondents are still worried about their firm, but more importantly, more than a third are worried about making a living period. When you throw in the unnecessarily high debt loads that young lawyers carry, the prospect of not being able to make a living at all is tragic.

While some practice areas took hits — like traffic infraction work when no one was driving anywhere — there were some practices that enjoyed fairly steady results throughout the year:

Nothing can stop IP from printing money these days, which probably should raise alarms at the legislative level, but it won’t so we’ll just move on.

Trying to read the tea leaves of what practice areas held up might just come down to what practice areas clients don’t think they can avoid. You can’t buy the house without the real estate attorney, but you might think you can handle that more mundane matter on your own. Bringing clients back in the door for these issues is the challenge and when it comes to that, firms need to think flexibly.

That’s going to be the challenge for at least the near future.

On the technology side, the report adds some hard data to back up what we’ve all heard anecdotally: the pandemic has made even the most tech-averse attorney commit to branching out.

Now, in fairness, attorneys on Clio’s radar are already a self-selecting group that aren’t terrified of technology, but these are still striking numbers.

As I said, there’s a lot more in the whole report to sift through, but for now, let’s just take solace in knowing that things are getting a little better out there.

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Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

Witnesses evade questions.

Sometimes, this is entirely accidental. When people talk, you frequently ask a question, and the other person answers some other question. You don’t really care, and the conversation goes on.

Sometimes, the evasion is intentional. You ask the adverse expert witness a pointed question, and the expert starts to filibuster. You have to stop the filibuster and get an answer to your question.

There are many, many ways to do this.

But Susan Page, the moderator of the vice-presidential debate, used none of them.

There were a ton of evasions last Wednesday night — on both sides of the aisle.

Pence ducked questions about why the United States has more per capita deaths from COVID-19 than any other industrialized country; the state of Trump’s health; what course Indiana should take if Roe v. Wade is overruled; and a host of others.

Harris ducked questions about whether she and Biden would expand the Supreme Court if the Democrats won both the Presidency and the Senate; the Green New Deal; plans if Biden dies in office; and a host of others.

What would a trial lawyer have done?

For many trial lawyers, this is the drill:

Ask a question.

Evasion.

“I must have misspoken, and, if so, I apologize. What I meant to ask was [and repeat the question, word-for-word as you asked it the first time, and a little more slowly].”

Evasion.

“I’m sorry. What I meant to ask was [and repeat the question again, word-for-word as you asked it the first and second times, and a little more slowly].”

Evasion.

“I’m sorry. Are you able to answer the question? The question is [and do the drill again]?”

In a jury trial, this is all great for you. The jury sees that the witness is evading. (And for heaven’s sake, don’t get upset that the witness isn’t giving you what you want; you’re scoring points, which is all that matters.) Eventually, when you’re certain that the court will rule your way, you could ask the court for help: “Your Honor, would you please instruct the witness to answer the question?”

At a debate, of course, there’s no judge to help.

So simply ask the candidate: “I’ve posed the question several times now, and you’ve evaded it each time. Do you prefer not to answer that question?”

You’ll get some gibberish in response: “I’ve already answered that question several times. … Blah, blah, blah.”

It’s time to move on. The audience will see what happened, and the point has been made.

A debater, too, could make use of an opponent’s refusal to answer a question:  “Vice President Pence, you were asked why COVID-19 killed more people in the United States than any other industrialized country. You then talked for two minutes about cutting off travel from China and building ventilators.  Despite cutting off travel from China and building ventilators, more people died in the United States than died in any other industrialized country. The question is why all those people died. Could you answer that question?”

Or, of course, you could put the shoe on the other foot: “Senator Harris, you were asked about whether you planned to pack the Supreme Court, and you talked about Trump’s judicial appointees. Could you answer the question you were asked — whether you intend to pack the court?”

Finally, a stray thought: I understand that moderators are trying to remain invisible, and I understand that Harris didn’t want to make headlines in this debate (because Democrats are now ahead in the polls, and there’s no reason to upset the apple cart). But couldn’t either Susan Page or Kamala Harris have innocently asked: “Vice President Pence, do you always interrupt women, or are you just doing that tonight?”

I’m not sure if that would have prompted Pence to be more careful or caused the interrogator to look too aggressive, but it might have been worth a try.

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Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and is now deputy general counsel at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at inhouse@abovethelaw.com.

Bonus season came early this year. We usually don’t get any bonus information in mid-September, but, well, 2020 is a strange year.

Cooley started the COVID appreciation bonus game, offering associates between $2,500 and $7,500 as a special thank you from the firm for their hard work during the pandemic. But then Davis Polk got involved with a new standard, and it just blew away the Cooley scale. Their bonuses started at $7,500 and went all the way up to $40,000. And firms quickly started piling on this new bonus scale. Weil offered a seemingly unpopular hours-based bonus, but, thus far, no one has jumped on board with that. And then there was the notable outlier: Kirkland — the world’s richest law firm — begged off fall special bonuses, and seemed to be asking the market not to follow the trend.

But with matches taking a bit longer than we’ve seen in recent years (seriously, we’ve heard nothing from Cravath, what is going on at the perpetual compensation leader??), it can be challenging to remember just which firms have stepped up. So, here you go, a handy-dandy chart to reference.

Update: Since we originally circulated this handy-dandy reference chart, we have gotten a lot of news about fall bonuses…. unfortunately, most of it wasn’t what associates were hoping for. Cravath said no to special bonuses, opting to wait until the end of the year, as did O’Melveny, Paul Weiss, Fried Frank, Skadden, Goodwin, and Cleary. Despite the fact that the Biglaw financials are better than ever, the firms seem to be content to keep the bonus money in the firms’ coffers, at least until the year-end bonuses come around. But at least some folks are bucking that trend and showing associates appreciation the best way they know how, with money.

With so many elite Biglaw firms waiting until year end to make bonus decisions, keeping track of what peer firms are doing is a little trickier this year. But fear not, Above the Law will continue to monitor exactly what’s going on across the industry.

As always, we depend on you when it comes to bonus news at other firms. As soon as your firm’s bonus memo comes out, please email it to us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Bonus”) or text us (646-820-8477). Please include the memo if available. You can take a photo of the memo and send it via text or email if you don’t want to forward the original PDF or Word file.

Firm	Date	Bonus Scale
Cooley LLP  All offices	Announced 9/14; Distributed 9/30	Range of  $2,500 – $7,500, depending on experience. Those on-track to bill 1,950+ “materially higher” bonuses.
Davis Polk All U.S. offices	Announced 9/15; Payable 9/30	Between $7,500 and $40,000, depending on class year.
Milbank All global offices	Announced 9/16; Payable 10/30	Between $7,500 and $40,000, depending on class year. Associates at less than 80% utilization will receive 50% of the bonus for their class year. Associates at 110% utilization will receive an extra 50% of their class rate.
Hueston Hennigan	Announced 9/16	Between $7,500 and $40,000, depending on class year.
Irell	Announced 9/17; Payable 9/30	Between $7,500 and $40,000, depending on class year.
Sullivan & Cromwell	Announced 9/21; Payable 10/15	Between $7,500 and $40,000, depending on class year.
Debevoise	Announced 9/21; Payable last week of October	Between $7,500 and $40,000, depending on class year.
Simpson Thacher All offices	Announced 9/22; Payable 10/15	Between $7,500 and $40,000, depending on class year.
Freshfields All U.S. offices	Announced 9/22; Payable 10/15	Between $7,500 and $40,000, depending on class year.
Weil Gotshal & Manges All U.S. offices	Announced 9/24; Payable end of October	Based on annualized hours worked during this calendar year (January 1 – August 31) as follows: Below 1800 hours – $10,000 1800-1999 hours – $20,000 2000-2299 hours – $30,000 2300-2599 hours – $40,000 More than 2600 hours – $50,000
Shearman & Sterling All U.S. offices	Announced 9/28; Payable 10/30	Between $7,500 and $40,000, depending on class year.
Willkie Farr All U.S. offices	Announced 10/9; Payable 10/30	Between $7,500 and $40,000, depending on class year.

And if you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Bonus Alerts, please scroll down and enter your email address in the box below this post. If you previously signed up for the bonus alerts, you don’t need to do anything. You’ll receive an email notification within minutes of each bonus announcement that we publish.

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Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

Just when we thought that all was lost for the fall bonus wars, with firm after firm refusing to offer additional monetary support to their associates through these tough times because it was apparently a “bad look,” Willkie entered the scene with the mic drop of a Davis Polk match. Would other firms dare to get back on board the bonus train and renew associates’ hopes?

Nah.

Willkie dropped its exciting news at around noon on Friday, and later that afternoon, Cleary stepped in it by announcing that there would be no early bonuses for associates. Here’s the memo that was sent via email:

Here are some of the immediate reactions we received from associates at the firm:

Cleary with the dick punch. Not surprising at this point.

General mid-level and senior consensus is that they’re unhappy but they knew it was coming given the silence. Email sent on a Friday afternoon and is so brief. It doesn’t even acknowledge the challenges of the pandemic or make clear that the firm will take these special bonuses into account for the year-end bonuses. Also LOL @ “we remain committed to paying competitive compensation, including bonuses.” If that was the case, we’d be getting this special bonus.

Best of luck to all Cleary associates when it comes to getting the firm to ante up come year-end bonus time. Hopefully things will go your way.

As always, we depend on you when it comes to bonus news at other firms. As soon as your firm’s bonus memo comes out, please email it to us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Bonus”) or text us (646-820-8477). Please include the memo if available. You can take a photo of the memo and send it via text or email if you don’t want to forward the original PDF or Word file.

And if you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Bonus Alerts, please scroll down and enter your email address in the box below this post. If you previously signed up for the bonus alerts, you don’t need to do anything. You’ll receive an email notification within minutes of each bonus announcement that we publish.

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Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Leon Black is worth $8 billion. So when he told Apollo Global Management clients last summer that his relationship with the recently-arrested and soon-to-be-dead-by-his-own-hand Jeffrey Epstein was “limited” in nature, it was strictly speaking true, and not only in a pedantic way by which a single part of Black’s life not involving the convicted pedophile would thereby qualify the relationship as “limited.”

Mr. Black wired Mr. Epstein at least $50 million in the years after Mr. Epstein’s 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a teenage girl, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times and interviews with four people with knowledge of the transactions. The transfers included $10 million to a foundation started by Mr. Epstein and consulting fees that were sufficiently unusual to draw scrutiny from Deutsche Bank, where Mr. Epstein kept his accounts. Two of the people said the total amount sent by Mr. Black to Mr. Epstein could be as high as $75 million.

* A class action about Xbox controllers that allegedly “drift” has been beefed up. I used to blame controllers when I lost at GoldenEye as a kid… [Video Games Chronicle]

* Andrew Cuomo apparently has “no interest in going to Washington” to become Attorney General if Joe Biden is elected president. [Fox News]

* A Connecticut lawyer, who served time in federal prison for fraud, is seeking reinstatement to the Connecticut Bar. [CT Post]

* Law School Transparency is hosting an event on the future of the bar exam that you should all check out! [Law School Transparency]

* A black man, who was allegedly led through Galveston, Texas by a white police officer on horseback, is suing the city for $1 million. [CNN]

* The Florida Bar says a lawyer acted so poorly, the judge had to “resort to a discipline strategy typically reserved to parents separating bickering siblings.” This sounds like so many depositions I’ve attended… [Daily Business Review]

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Jordan Rothman is a partner of The Rothman Law Firm, a full-service New York and New Jersey law firm. He is also the founder of Student Debt Diaries, a website discussing how he paid off his student loans. You can reach Jordan through email at jordan@rothmanlawyer.com.

Given the highly sensitive data that Biglaw firms deal with on an everyday basis, cybersecurity is of the utmost importance — especially during unprecedented times like these when entire firms are doing work remotely. Unfortunately, it looks like an international law firm now finds itself in a sticky situation thanks to a widespread ransomware attack.

Sources tell us that Seyfarth — an Am Law 100 firm that took in $717,370,000 in gross revenue in 2019 — has been impacted by a malicious cybersecurity incident. We understand that no one at the firm is able to access their email accounts at this time. The firm, which offers cybersecurity, data privacy, and compliance advice to its clients, has posted a statement about the attack on its website:

On Saturday, October 10, 2020, Seyfarth was the victim of a sophisticated and aggressive malware attack that appears to be ransomware. We understand that a number of other entities were simultaneously hit with this same attack. Our monitoring systems detected the unauthorized activity, and our IT team acted quickly to prevent its spread and protect our systems. We have found no evidence that any of our client or firm data were accessed or removed. However, many of our systems were encrypted, and we have shut them down as a precautionary measure.

Our clients remain our top priority, and we will continue to do everything necessary to protect their confidential information and continue to serve them. We are coordinating with the FBI and are working around the clock to bring our systems back online as quickly and safely as possible.

While our phone system has not been affected, you can get a message to us by clicking on this Contact Form if you are having difficulty reaching us. We will also provide updates on our website and share information as it becomes available.

Biglaw firms are charged with maintaining their clients’ data in the strictest of confidence, so it’s no surprise that this statement focuses on that aspect of the breach.

From this initial information, it seems like Seyfarth is faring much better than other Biglaw firms when it comes to cybersecurity. Back in 2017, DLA Piper was “paralyzed” by a ransomware attack, and law firms continue to be vulnerable to cyber threats. As noted in a legal update written by Seyfarth partners, “Vigilance now will prevent misery in the future.” Thankfully, the firm seems to have taken its own advice.

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Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Ed. note: In honor of Columbus Day (and Canadian Thanksgiving), Above the Law will be on a reduced publication schedule. We’ll be back in full force tomorrow.

* A California family is being sued by an animal rights group for allegedly mistreating their cows. Maybe the farmers were lactose intolerant… Bet they’ll file a “moo”tion to dismiss…(I can go all day!). [My Valley News]

* A veteran Oregon attorney has surrendered his law license amid allegations of theft and other illicit conduct. [Oregonian]

* A woman has been charged with damaging the car of a lawyer representing a former cop allegedly involved in the death of George Floyd. [Minneapolis Star Tribune]

* A federal judge has dismissed the Trump Campaign’s lawsuit concerning election procedures in Pennsylvania. [AP]

* An ethics board has approved of a New York lawyer withdrawing from a representation involving a court appearance out of fear of contracting COVID-19. [Bloomberg Law]

* A woman was cited over the weekend for allegedly drunk driving at over four times the legal limit and crashing into a bridge causing a traffic nightmare. Maybe she’ll get four times the normal punishment… [Fox News]

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Jordan Rothman is a partner of The Rothman Law Firm, a full-service New York and New Jersey law firm. He is also the founder of Student Debt Diaries, a website discussing how he paid off his student loans. You can reach Jordan through email at jordan@rothmanlawyer.com.