Criminal Law

• Criminal Defense
  Williams & Connolly has been helping clients navigate insurance disputes for more than four decades. We have represented companies and executives in a wide range of areas, including life settlements; class action litigation; criminal defense and government investigations; securities and financial services enforcement and litigation; premium finance and stranger originated life insurance (“STOLI”) disputes; representation of directors and officers; healthcare and false claims disputes; unlicensed insurance; and appellate litigation.
• Fraud
  Food, beverage and pet industries increasingly face putative class actions, governmental investigations, regulatory actions, and lawsuits brought by both individuals and competitors, following increased attention to advertising, product labeling, natural ingredients, genetically modified organisms, and consumer fraud concerns.
• White Collar Crimes
  Benchmark Litigation has named partner David Zinn the 2023 White Collar Crime/Investigations Litigator of the Year. According to
• Theft
• Embezzlement
  Banking Crimes, Fraud, Money Laundering and Embezzlement (originally published by West 1987, and most recently updated November 2015). Our attorneys with financial services experience also practice in other fields as well. Their mix of finance and general litigation experience enables them to distill complex financial transactions or regulations and explain them to judges and juries.
• Assault
• Murder
  Wheeler v. 21st Century Fox – Successful defense of Fox in defamation suit brought by former D.C. police detective alleging that he was misquoted in Fox News report about the murder of a Democratic National Committee staffer (Seth Rich) and his alleged communications with WikiLeaks.
• Money Laundering
  Wide-ranging knowledge related to investigating and defending matters relating to the fields of fraud and corruption, money laundering, financial services and securities regulation, import-export, environmental regulation, extradition, and taxation.

Business and Corporate Law

• Corporate Law
• Mergers and Acquisitions
  Benchmark Litigation, where it is likewise Tier 1 and identified as one of the Top 20 Trial Firms in the country, boasting six of the top 100 trial lawyers recognized by the publication. Williams & Connolly’s lawyers handle virtually every form of complex business dispute, from breach of contract actions involving billions of dollars, to clashes over failed mergers and acquisitions or other business combinations, to the defense of major consumer class actions. They represent individuals and corporations in trials and arbitration hearings throughout the United States, in both federal and state courts, as well as abroad. Clients in every industry trust the firm with their most significant cases, many of which involve bet-the-company issues.
• Trade Secrets
• Intellectual Property
  The firm’s work for media companies in copyright and intellectual property disputes includes the successful representation of record companies in the landmark case
• Unfair Competition
  Williams & Connolly has extensive experience with these challenges in the food, beverage, and pet industries. We represent a broad range of industry-leading companies that produce, distribute, and/or sell food, alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, and pet products and services. We help clients effectively navigate the industry’s most challenging investigations, enforcement actions, and litigation matters. Our diverse litigation experience includes: defending against unfair competition, false advertising, product labeling, misbranding, slack-fill, contract, warranty, and antitrust disputes brought in courts throughout the country.
• Antitrust
  Our lawyers also regularly represent clients in all aspects of civil antitrust litigation, including civil class actions, which today almost invariably follow major government investigations. Other civil clients have included plaintiffs alleging antitrust violations in the vitamin industry, a major tobacco company challenging the marketing practices of another company, and several state attorneys general seeking more effective remedies in the landmark Microsoft monopolization litigation. Clients the firm has defended span the spectrum from the major motion picture studios in federal and state civil antitrust investigations and private-party civil litigation, to the nation’s largest dairy cooperative in a series of class action antitrust cases pending in multiple federal and state courts. In numerous other matters the firm defends, the plaintiffs seek not only significant monetary damages, but also substantial changes in long-standing industry practices.

Employment Law

• Wrongful Termination
  The firm is often enlisted for such investigations by a corporation's Audit Committee where the sensitive nature of the issues, or of the positions of employees or members of management to be investigated, require independent outside counsel. Likewise, we are called upon by management to conduct pre-litigation investigations, either as neutral investigators or to mount the company's defense, where matters involve individual employees asserting allegations of discrimination or other unlawful conduct.
• Employment Discrimination
  Our attorneys have extensive experience handling employment litigation involving allegations of unlawful discrimination or harassment based on race, age, disability, religion and sex, and alleged violations of statutory rights such as the Family and Medical Leave Act and its state counterparts. The firm's experience covers not only employment discrimination claims of individuals, but also the defense of large class actions involving thousands of individuals.
• Employment Contract
  Currently representing a national medical services firm in litigation involving non-competition provisions in employment agreements, defeating multiple attempts in state trial and appellate courts for injunctive relief.
• Employment Litigation
  Williams & Connolly’s employment litigation practice includes the representation of diverse corporations, boards of directors, board committees and senior executives in a broad range of complex or sensitive employment-related disputes. Our clients include public, private and non-profit organizations across an array of industry sectors, including law firms, financial services and other professional service companies, media companies, major educational institutions, companies operating in regulated industries, and nationally known charities.
• Non-compete Agreement
  Examples of the firm’s commercial litigation experience extend beyond traditional breach of contract actions to real estate and construction disputes, breach of fiduciary duty claims, licensing disputes, business dissolution controversies, civil RICO, unfair competition litigation, employment disputes, including restrictive covenant and non-compete agreements, trade secrets cases, tortious interference claims, financial services litigation, franchise issues, fraud claims, insurance coverage controversies, and internal corporate governance disputes and investigations. There is virtually no substantive area of business litigation that Williams & Connolly has not handled.
• Sexual Harassment
  Defended a multi-national technology company against multiple sexual harassment and other Title VII claims based on alleged conduct of senior executives.

Property Law

• Construction Litigation
• Property Damage
  Represented a large international steel manufacturer in litigation alleging that air and dust emissions from a steel manufacturing plant contained toxic chemicals that caused cancers, other serious personal injuries, and property damage to dozens of plaintiffs in the surrounding neighborhood.

Health Law

• Personal Injury
  Represented a large medical device company in connection with multiple lawsuits filed in the U.S. and Costa Rica alleging that a radiation unit used to treat cancer patients malfunctioned and caused serious personal injury to over a hundred patients.
• Disability Discrimination

Finance Law

• Bankruptcy
  Williams & Connolly has represented clients in litigation arising from many of the most well-known and complex bankruptcy cases in recent history: lawsuits brought by bankruptcy trustees, litigation trusts, and bankruptcy creditors in adversary proceedings and litigation in federal district courts and state courts around the country. The firm has extensive experience handling complex issues that routinely arise in bankruptcy litigation. These issues include bankruptcy jurisdiction, the standing of trustees and creditors to bring claims; deepening insolvency; claims for fraudulent transfers and preferences; the availability of
• Tax Law