New York Securities Practice Named Top Litigation Department of the Year
As a result of a stellar year in which our attorneys prevailed for clients at all stages of litigation and in all forums, New York Law Journal selected Latham & Watkins as their 2019 Litigation Department of the Year: Professional Liability honoree. As part of their Professional Excellence award program, New York Law Journal seeks out “the best and brightest in New York’s legal community” and annually recognizes “litigation departments who have influenced their practice areas in New York and beyond.” The publication notes honorees are innovators who develop unique practice niches, amass robust books of business, and demonstrate expertise in litigation work that contributes to the improvement of their institutions.
One of factors that made Latham’s New York Securities Litigation & Professional Liability Practice stand out to New York Law Journal is that the team offers clients quantifiably more experience litigating – and winning – complex, bet-the-company securities litigation than any other law firm in the world. In 2018 alone, Latham’s securities litigators handled 100 cases across 21 district courts, more than any other law firm.
As the New York Law Journal profile notes, only a small handful of securities cases (out of the thousands filed in the past 30 years) have gone all the way to a trial verdict, and Latham is one of the few major law firms to have taken not just one, but several of these cases through trial. A cross-office team recently secured a jury trial win for Puma Biotechnology in the first federal securities class action to reach a verdict in nearly 10 years. In the same period, Latham’s New York securities litigators brought another high-profile case to trial before the New York Supreme Court and is set to handle a third, separate securities trial this winter. Also cited as a differentiator is Latham’s global reach and culture of entrepreneurialism, which facilitates a nimble, collaborative approach to litigation. The publication highlighted two such recent examples, where collaborations between our securities litigation and Supreme Court & Appellate groups resulted in important district court victories for our clients, which we later affirmed before the Second Circuit.