Michele Johnson > Latham & Watkins LLP > Orange County, United States > Lawyer Profile

Lawyer Rankings

United States > Dispute resolution > International litigation

Latham & Watkins LLP is ‘a terrific firm’ where the ‘team works seamlessly together’. Michele Johnson in Orange County is global chair of the firm’s litigation and trial department, which handles high-value and cross-border white-collar crime matters, antitrust cases and general commercial litigation. The US-based vice chairs are Brian Kowalski in Washington DC and Douglas Lumish in Silicon Valley. Recent highlights include Chicago-based trial lawyer Sean M. Berkowitz assisting General Electric with several lawsuits arising from Thomas Petters’ multibillion-dollar fraud scheme. Other key contacts in the team include New York-based Jamie Wine, Mary Rose Alexander in Chicago and Al Pfeiffer in San Francisco.

United States > Dispute resolution > M&A litigation: defense

Latham & Watkins LLP has an outstanding reputation in M&A litigation cases in Delaware and across the US involving both public and private companies. Michele Johnson in Orange County and Blair Connelly in New York, who is ‘the person to go to for complex cases‘, lead the practice and were the key lawyers in one of the standout cases of the year: the firm acted for ExamWorks in a Delaware Chancery Court case based on allegations of a flawed buyout process, and achieved a rare award of sanctions against the plaintiffs for discovery abuses in advance of trial. Connelly also worked with San Francisco-based partner Peter Wald in the defence of a shareholder derivative case against Oracle’s board of directors, which alleged breaches of fiduciary duty causing the company to overpay for NetSuite Inc. The firm has a deep bench of respected partners, including Los Angeles-based Brian Glennon, who worked with Johnson to defend Avago Technologies in matters arising from its $37bn acquisition of Broadcom; James Brandt in New York; and Colleen Smith in San Diego.