Practice Areas & Industries: Arnold & Porter LLP

Arnold & Porter LLP specializes in litigation. Indeed, more than half of our lawyers are litigators. We represent clients in a broad range of cases before trial and appellate courts, government agencies, and other tribunals. Our clients include FORTUNE 500 corporations and smaller public and private companies, sovereign nations, financial services firms, investment funds, professional services firms, and individuals. Our clients hire us to litigate commercial disputes, defend against tort claims, defend class and derivative actions, fend off government enforcement proceedings, and challenge government action. Our experience litigating and winning cases for these clients spans a wide variety of substantive areas.

We serve our clients' business interests through creative legal and factual analysis and strategy coupled with zealous advocacy. Sometimes that means winning at trial. Sometimes it means winning through motion practice. Sometimes it means litigating issues on appeal or negotiating a favorable settlement that avoids litigation risk and expense. Sometimes it means counseling on issues so that the client can avoid litigation altogether. Our lawyers excel at all of these. Our clients also benefit from the firm's strong regulatory and public policy practices. Our multidisciplinary approach enables us to draw on the technical expertise of our regulatory lawyers to develop creative defenses and pursue every avenue to solve our clients' problems.

Significant recent matters include:

• State of Rhode Island v. Atlantic Richfield Company, et al. We won a defense verdict after a four-month trial in one of the most significant "public nuisance" cases; the jury exonerated our client while finding three other former lead paint manufacturers liable.
• American Savings Bank v. United States. We won a US$401.5-million plaintiff's verdict in a breach of contract action arising out of promises made by the US government to entice our client to purchase an insolvent thrift.
• Wyeth Diet Drug Litigation. We tried to defense verdicts 10 cases since 2004 involving alleged heart valve injury due to ingestion of diet drugs, served as national counsel, coordinated overall trial strategy, and developed an innovative class action settlement.
• Brown v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. We won affirmance in the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit of a lower court ruling dismissing, as preempted by federal law, purported class action claims of fraudulent misrepresentation and concealment, and breach of express and implied warranties related to the sale of "light" cigarettes.