Litigators of the Week: Orrick Appellate Team Earns Recognition for Overturning Record Judgment for Pegasystems

• American Lawyer named partners Josh Rosenkranz, Eric Shumsky and Chris Cariello Litigators of the Week for overturning a record $2 billion judgment in a trade secrets case for software company Pegasystems.
• Siding with our team’s arguments, the Virginia Court of Appeal reversed the verdict in a decision Tuesday, wiping out the largest trade secrets judgment in history as well as the largest damages award ever in the Virginia courts.
• In this Q&A, Josh, Eric and Chris discuss how they identified flaws in the original trial and crafted the arguments that prevailed in the appeals court. Pegasystems enlisted our appellate team after the 2022 verdict, which at the time sided with competitor Appian’s trade secrets claims.
• The Court of Appeals agreed unanimously with our arguments, vacating both the liability verdict and the damages award because of multiple evidentiary and instruction errors. If the case goes back for retrial, the appellate court’s evidentiary rulings will make it an entirely different case.

“This case involved a feature that is common to many of the multi-billion-dollar verdicts I’ve appealed: a salacious narrative,” Josh told the publication. “Appian spun that narrative out of a handful of poorly worded emails and mischaracterizations of innocent facts. That approach works well for juries, and as predicted, Appian carried that approach through to the appeal. Our job as appellate lawyers in that circumstance—where someone is focused more on mudslinging than on the law—is to get the court comfortable enough with the facts that it is willing to resolve the critical legal issues based on the law.”

In addition to Josh, Eric and Chris, the Orrick team included associates Jeremy Peterman, James Flynn and Jonas Wang. The team also included co-counsel Monica Monday and Mike Finney of Gentry Locke.