In the Spotlight or Not, Kirkland's Litigation Team Is Making a Big Impact
In this article for The American Lawyer, Neil Eggleston was quoted regarding the high-quality service, high-profile matters and off-the-radar cases Kirkland handles and why the litigation practice was recognized as one of the 2023 Litigation Department of the Year finalists.
As one of The American Lawyer's 2023 Litigation Department of the Year Finalists, Kirkland & Ellis has shown it can handle the highest-profile matters along with off-the-radar cases.
Securing bellwether victories in the largest multidistrict litigation in U.S. history. Spearheading a successful defense (via Zoom) in the first multidefendant opioid trial in the country to reach a verdict. Fighting the world’s largest beer manufacturer over the definition of “beer”—and winning.
Those are the kinds of weighty, high-profile and far-reaching achievements one might expect from the litigation department at the world’s most profitable law firm. Indeed, “shock and awe” and “thunder-on-the-mountain” are some of the ways firm leaders have previously depicted Kirkland & Ellis’ style and results.
“At Kirkland,” says Neil Eggleston, a litigation partner at the firm and former White House counsel, in a recent interview, “the quality of the lawyering is really at the highest level.”
Eggleston knows a thing or two about weighty and high-profile matters. He’s had stints at multiple Big Law firms, as well as a public service career that involved investigating the Iran/Contra affair, representing the Office of the President during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and working on justice reform issues after the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.
But his characterization of the firm—lawyering “at the highest level”—applies at Kirkland even away from the national media, bright lights and high-dollar figures.
The firm notched more than 126,000 pro bono hours in 2022, for instance, highlighted by a substantial effort invalidating the first-degree murder conviction of a man in Chicago, Lucrecious Towers, and freeing him from prison for the first time in nearly two decades earlier this year.
The firm showed its all-encompassing approach by effectively lobbying a local bond fund to pay one of its highest totals ever. All told, the firm has poured more than 1,500 hours into the case since 2019, and is “committed to proving his innocence” at an upcoming retrial, the firm has noted.
Kirkland is known in the industry for bringing on “rising stars” as partners from other firms. It also produces them behind the scenes, in part through its Kirkland Institute for Trial Advocacy, an annual event that allows associates to examine witnesses (played by actors), deliver arguments in front of judges, and be coached and mentored by partners. The firm bills the four-day event as “the largest, most comprehensive trial program among major law firms.”
And yes, the firm is also on top of its game when the spotlight is shining. It won complete defense victories in 14 of 27 bellwether cases for 3M, in the largest MDL in the country’s history. The consolidated cases from roughly 230,000 former service members claimed the conglomerate’s combat earplugs were defective, causing hearing loss and tinnitus. It was a high-stakes string of victories, but also an arduous one—at one point, the schedule averaged out to one jury trial every three weeks, for nine months.
Kirkland also helped deliver the first big win for drug companies in a series of cases across the country pointing to the companies’ roles in the opioid crisis. Representing Allergan against claims brought by county governments in California, the firm successfully fended off false advertising and public nuisance arguments that could have resulted in more than $50 billion in damages and penalties. The five-month trial occurred over Zoom, ending in late 2021 with a judge’s ruling that there was “no evidence” medically inappropriate prescriptions were a result of the defendants’ advertising.
The firm also put up a winning fight against Grupo Modelo, the largest beer company in Mexico, and which is also owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev, over trademark infringement and breach-of-contract claims. The company argued that Constellation Brands, which marketed Corona Hard Seltzer and Modelo Ranch Water, breached the license it had with the companies by using those trademarks on products that weren’t technically “beer.”
Kirkland’s team, despite having every one of its motions to compel during discovery denied and having the judge comment that Grupo Modelo had “the better of the argument,” convinced a jury to decide in Constellation’s favor on all counts, advancing the principal argument that “beer” as defined in the license was not limited to the traditional, yellow, hoppy beverage, but allowed its client to be inventive based on consumer demand.
The judge made another comment before it was all said and done, nodding toward Kirkland’s advocacy the day before the jury was set to deliberate, and noting that “lawyers are supposed to fight hard for [their] clients, and you sure do. That is impressive.”
All told, the firm notched 779 litigation wins between Aug. 1, 2021, and May 15, 2023, according to its internal calculations. That included 56 trial victories, 87 appeals victories, 180 favorable settlements and 16 matters at the U.S. Supreme Court (either cert petitions granted or defeated, and arguments).
Beyond the stats, the firm has said it takes particular pride in its approach to bringing the right teams and personnel to bear, across offices and across practices. Even when the stakes have been the highest, in the spotlight or away from it, teamwork is a particular focus.
“You only achieve by having teamwork and good people around you, working toward a common goal, and it’s turned out to be completely true [at Kirkland],” Eggleston says. “It’s a very supportive environment, it has very much of a teamwork approach. And I’m a very big believer in nobody achieves on their own. You have to achieve as part of a group.”
