Litigation

"...in a time period in which...criminal and regulatory investigations and tag-along civil suits dominated the headlines, no law firm handled cases with higher stakes than Paul, Weiss — and no law firm was as successful at saving its clients’ businesses."

"The Lifesavers," The American Lawyer, January 2006

From the firm’s inception, the Paul, Weiss Litigation Department has been involved in nearly every high-stakes litigation of its time, handling the most complex and threatening cases; cases that require cutting-edge and ground-breaking litigation strategies; cases that shape the financial markets, corporate board rooms and society for decades to come.

First and foremost, we are trial lawyers. We handle high-stakes disputes in every forum, from state and federal trial and appellate courts to domestic and international arbitrations, and from alternative dispute resolution proceedings to administrative tribunals of all kinds. To each, we bring a sure grasp of the underlying substantive issues and the forensic skills and strategic insights necessary to produce successful results. 

As such, our Litigation Department has achieved a reputation for unparalleled excellence. In its January 2006 cover story, The American Lawyer selected Paul, Weiss as the best litigation firm in the United States over the past two years.  This “Litigation Department of the Year” award reflects not only the depth of our litigation practice and our ability to deliver consistently successful results, but also our unique culture of teamwork and our commitment to diversity and pro bono causes. 

We believe that successful litigation requires comprehensive, 360-degree strategies carefully calibrated to each client’s specific needs, risks and goals, and to the political, economic and social realities of the day. Our mission at all times is to safeguard the client’s interests and contain the client’s risk and exposure. Our approach takes into account all available tactics, weighing the relative effectiveness, risk and cost of each.We view it essential to formulate, early in the case, preliminary judgments about the client's exposure, the likelihood of success and the most cost-effective way to proceed. We then work with clients to develop jointly the optimal strategies to accomplish their legal and business goals.

We provide our clients with this focused, cost-effective representation in "bet the company" cases, as well as in traditional commercial actions, and we routinely handle matters on behalf of major corporations as well as entrepreneurs, for whom it is especially important that counsel understand how to achieve expeditious and cost-effective resolutions. 

Paul, Weiss is extremely well-prepared to handle the intensive document processing and management needs of complex disputes, having been among the first firms to tackle these issues on a large scale. Since then, we have invested continuously in both technology and personnel, creating a Litigation Support Department that combines technology professionals and lawyers. As a result, we are able to manage efficiently in-house the information needs of large litigation matters.