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

Latham & Watkins LLP assists clients across litigation arising at all stages of the merger process, defending them in both pre- and post-merger suits, including stockholder claims pertaining to breaches of fiduciary duties, busted deals and shareholder activism, in addition to situations where corporate governance is alleged to have impacted a company’s value. The practice’s leadership team consists of Michele Johnson out of Orange County, San Diego-based Colleen Smith and New York’s Blair Connelly, all of whom have considerable experience in defending merger-related derivatives and securities suits. June 2024 saw Johnson win at appeal before the Delaware Supreme Court, which upheld the decision to dismiss former Valtech shareholders’ suit against Edwards Lifesciences, having alleged that Edwards failed to make efforts to develop Valtech’s Cardioband transcatheter following a 2017 merger. Smith and Connelly appeared together for Searchlight Capital Partners in the Delaware Court of Chancery, where they negotiated a settlement between the client and shareholders, the latter having accused the former of breaching fiduciary duties in its 2022 take-private of Hemisphere Media Group. Also in Orange County, Kristin Murphy is noted for her expertise in securities and commodities fraud trials, and is currently representing Aimmune Therapeutics, Inc. and its former CEO against a shareholder suit arising out of its acquisition by Nestlé under ss. 14(e) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act 1934.

Latham & Watkins LLP has the strength-in-depth to handle a range and volume of large-scale securities litigation class actions and shareholder derivative actions for companies, individual officers, underwriters and issuers. Many of these cases arise in the aftermath of IPOs, with the firm very skilled at representing issuers, in particular, in the context of strict liability Section 11 cases and Rule 10-b 5 cases. Splitting his time between New York and Washington DC, Andrew Clubok is a trial expert with extensive experience defending securities class actions and shareholder derivative lawsuits for many of the world’s biggest brands. As well as handling a considerable volume of issuer work (including on matters involving parallel SEC probes), New York-based Jason Hegt also regularly acts for accounting firms in securities class actions, as well as for financial institutions, often in cases involving complex and structured investment products. San Diego-based Colleen Smith also has vast experience in the field, and is one of only a handful of litigators in the country to have successfully defended a securities case at trial. Smith is also one of a raft of capable lawyers on the West Coast, others including Michele Johnson in Orange County and Silicon Valley-based Daniel Gherardi, that are skilled at defending hi-tech, life sciences and healthcare companies in securities litigation in the aftermath of an IPO. New York-based Blair Connelly co-heads the team alongside Smith and Clubok that also includes vastly experienced litigator Jeff Hammel.

Based in Orange County, Latham & Watkins LLP‘s Michele Johnson serves as chair of the firm’s global litigation practice, handling a wide spectrum of securities disputes and regulatory enforcement proceedings brought by the SEC, among others. She is currently preparing to represent former Celgene officers in a securities class action in the District of New Jersey, where shareholders claim they lost out as a result of the company’s over-optimistic evaluations of the drugs Otezla and Ozanimod.

The international arbitration practice at Latham & Watkins LLP routinely handles complex arbitrations across a number of practice areas, with experience in antitrust, employment, insolvency, and securities litigation work. Leading tech and pharma companies, as well as banks rely on the expertise of the practice, notably including Sinovac Biotech and Telefónica S.A. Orange County-based Michele Johnson leads the team, with knowledge of securities class actions, shareholder derivative litigation, and post M&A litigation. In Chicago, Sean Berkowitz and Mary Rose Alexander  are key names. Raghav Bajaj joined the Austin office from Haynes and Boone, L.L.P.  in August 2024.