Susman Godfrey LLP

Testimonials

Collated independently by Legal 500 research team.

• Susman Godfrey is a pure-play trial firm, and working alongside them has reinforced why that focus matters: they handle only high-stakes disputes, take a meaningful share of matters and bring genuine conviction to the cases they accept. What stands out most from our vantage point as co-counsel is the collaboration and open thinking within their team—strategy is genuinely debated rather than dictated, and junior lawyers are encouraged to challenge senior partners on the theory of the case, witness approach, and trial presentation, which means positions are pressure-tested internally before they reach a judge or jury. The depth of their bench is a real asset on a shared trial team: nearly every lawyer, including junior associates, has meaningful courtroom experience, so the people staffing depositions and witness examinations are lawyers who have actually done it before. Their partners stay closely involved in the substantive work rather than supervising from a distance—drafts come back marked up by partners, and deposition prep is run by the lawyers who will take the deposition—which makes for a sharper, more engaged working relationship. They are also unafraid to take bold positions, advancing novel legal theories and aggressive case postures where the facts support them, and we have found that willingness to be a real advantage in shaping joint strategy. The collaboration with our firm has been a genuine partnership: they share work product openly, integrate our lawyers into strategy discussions, are candid when their views differ from ours, and treat co-counsel as part of the trial team rather than as a vendor. Their visible commitment to putting women and lawyers from underrepresented backgrounds in first-chair and examining-witness roles is something we have seen reflected in the teams we have worked with directly.
• What stands out about the individuals we work with at Susman Godfrey is the combination of intellectual sharpness, genuine accessibility, and a collaborative instinct that is not always present at firms of this caliber. Shawn Rabin exemplifies what we value most in a senior partner: he is deeply engaged in the substance of the matters he leads, accessible to co-counsel in a way that senior litigators at peer firms often are not, and willing to pick up the phone to talk through strategy rather than routing communications through layers of more junior lawyers. His judgment on case posture and trial strategy has been a real asset on the matters we have shared, and his accessibility sets a tone for the rest of the team. Halley Josephs is an outstanding team-builder—she runs matters in a way that brings the best out of everyone working on them, including co-counsel, and is unusually good at creating the conditions for open debate while still driving toward decisions. She integrates lawyers across firms into a single working team rather than maintaining the silos that too often define co-counsel relationships, and the matters she leads are noticeably better organized and more strategically coherent as a result. Stephanie Spies, an up-and-coming partner, is extremely sharp—her analysis cuts to the heart of issues quickly, her written work product is precise and persuasive, and she contributes substantively to strategy discussions in a way that belies her relative seniority. She is exactly the kind of lawyer we want on a trial team: rigorous, prepared, and unafraid to push back when she sees things differently. What unites these three, and the broader team we have worked with, is that they treat co-counsel as genuine partners, are candid when they disagree, and bring the kind of preparation and intellectual engagement that makes joint representation work at the highest level.

Key clients

• Walmart
• Provi

Work highlights