Orrick on National Law Journal’s Appellate Hot List For 5th Time

National Law Journal
December.27.2016

Orrick has been named to the National Law Journal’s Appellate Hot List for the fifth time, recognizing our firm for major appellate wins in 2016 and the “explosive growth” of our appellate practice.

The list, which honors 20 law firms for stellar appellate results, noted that Orrick’s appellate docket includes six cases worth at least $1 billion.

The NLJ feature on our Supreme Court and Appellate practice highlights several of the firm’s significant wins during the past year, including securing a U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals win for Microsoft in a closely-watched privacy clash with the federal government. The article, which can be accessed using the link below, also cites another major win in the Second Circuit in overturning the U.S. Justice Department’s signature prosecution arising from the 2008 financial crisis and appellate partner Eric Shumsky’s role in obtaining a significant tech industry ruling for Facebook in the Ninth Circuit.

The firm’s appellate practice has gone from one lawyer in 2008 to 38 in 2016. Josh Rosenkranz, the firm’s practice leader, told NLJ the growth has been “according to plan.”

“We re-think cases from the ground up,” Josh told the publication. “The main driver has been winning a handful of really big cases that led clients to want to hire us more and more.”

Related Lawyers

E. Joshua Rosenkranz Partner, Supreme Court & Appellate, Intellectual Property

New York

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D:+1 212 506 5380
E: [email protected]

Practice:

Finance Sector
Supreme Court & Appellate
Intellectual Property
Complex Litigation & Dispute Resolution
White Collar, Investigations, Securities Litigation & Compliance
Antitrust & Competition
International Arbitration & Dispute Resolution
Life Sciences & HealthTech

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E. Joshua Rosenkranz Partner

New York

Josh has been named American Lawyer's “Litigator of the Year” twice, in addition to being a finalist for 2022. In 2012, the magazine dubbed him “the Defibrillator” based on his streak of appellate wins for companies that “appeared to be at death’s door,” and in 2017 it declared, he “still deserves the moniker we once gave him.”

In 2014, The Financial Times named Josh one of the 10 most innovative lawyers in the North American legal sector for his work “demystify[ing] the technical issues” and securing a victory in the blockbuster Federal Circuit appeal, Oracle v. Google. Chambers USA has reported, “He wins accolades for his ‘brilliant analysis and judgment.’ Clients appreciate how he ‘rethinks every case from the ground up,’ and add: ‘He can take the most complicated legal or technological issue and present it in a way that seems like common sense.’” Another edition of Chambers USA added: “‘His briefs are quite simply beautiful,’” and “clients describe his courtroom presence as ‘both commanding and accessible at the same time.’ He has the ‘perfect combination of persuasiveness, intelligence, wit, and deference.’”

Josh's practice covers a wide range of subjects, including intellectual property, financial services, securities, privacy, antitrust, federal preemption, insurance law, corporate governance, criminal law, and constitutional litigation. Among his recent clients are Cisco, Credit Suisse, Cox Communications, DISH Network, Genentech, Gilead, Johnson & Johnson, JPMorgan Chase, Microsoft, Mozilla, Oracle, Sonos, and Royal Bank of Scotland.

Clients turn to Josh to win the highest stakes appeals, including appeals in cases that threaten the very survival of a business. For example:

He represented Microsoft in an international cause célèbre in the U.S. Supreme Court challenging the U.S. Government’s claim that it can serve warrants for emails stored overseas.
He represented DISH Network in one of the most high-profile patent appeals in the country, successfully overturning an injunction that threatened the company's life.
He has been lead counsel in multiple cases either defending or challenging verdicts over $1 billion.
He represented Facebook in the high-profile battle waged by the founder's Harvard classmates, the Winklevoss twins, who laid claim to the idea for Facebook, winning a ruling from the Ninth Circuit to end the lawsuit.
He won a landmark victory in a Supreme Court case that rescued the estimated $60 billion U.S. market of copyrighted goods manufactured abroad.
He represented 36 law schools in a high-profile Supreme Court case against the Department of Defense.

Josh was the founding president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, one of the country’s foremost public interest firms. Over the course of eight years, he was the Brennan Center’s chief strategist on litigation and public policy advocacy. Before that, Josh founded the Office of the Appellate Defender, a public defender office specializing in criminal appeals.

Eric Shumsky Partner, Supreme Court & Appellate, Intellectual Property

Washington, D.C.; San Francisco

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D:+1 202 339 8464
E: [email protected]

Practice:

Supreme Court & Appellate
Intellectual Property
Complex Litigation & Dispute Resolution

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Eric Shumsky Partner

Washington, D.C.; San Francisco

Chambers USA reports that Eric is “hailed as ‘highly intelligent, an effective communicator and a great writer’ by contacts, and his high-profile work in the tech patent sector is of particular interest to those who recognize him as one who ‘prepares meticulously, anticipates every question, and is a gifted orator.’” Legal 500 touts his “exceptional courtroom demeanor and presentation skills” as one of “the finest appellate litigators in the nation.” And Reuters, in a report reviewing some 17,000 practitioners, identified Eric as part of an “elite cadre” of 75 lawyers who are “the most influential members of one of the most powerful specialties in America: the business of practicing before the Supreme Court.”

Eric has served as appellate counsel to a who’s who of leading companies, including AT&T, DISH Network, Facebook, Genentech, Gilead, KPMG, LG Electronics, LinkedIn, Lyft, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, Netflix, Norfolk Southern, Synopsys, Twitter, and Union Carbide. Across an array of industries, Eric has briefed and argued issues as diverse as patent and copyright, labor and employment, preemption, punitive damages, environmental law, national security, and foreign sovereign immunity. He has been a primary author of more than 100 briefs in the Supreme Court alone.

Eric has particular proficiency in matters of technology and intellectual property. He regularly litigates novel issues concerning the regulation of the internet, including CDA Section 230, computer fraud, takedown notices, and internet domain names. He has been counsel in dozens of patent appeals in the Federal Circuit—litigating patents ranging from semiconductor construction, computer architecture, and genetic sequencing to tobacco curing, keyboard trays, and electrical junction boxes. A former law clerk on the Ninth Circuit and the Central District of California, Eric has extensive experience in the California state and federal appellate courts where tech issues commonly arise.

In addition to traditional appellate work, Eric has years of experience developing legal strategy in high-profile and complex cases in trial courts. Eric has performed this role in high-stakes multi-district litigation, criminal trials, and civil litigation involving critical dispositive motions.

Prior to joining Orrick, Eric was a partner in the appellate group at Sidley Austin.