About WilmerHale’s Trial Practice
Our Team
WilmerHale’s Trial Practice attracts lawyers who combine top-tier courtroom skills with incisive big-picture strategy development. Our team is adept at tackling our clients’ most challenging cases and steering them to a successful conclusion. We are a strategic mix of homegrown trial talent, skilled US Department of Justice (DOJ) veterans—including many former US Attorneys and Assistant US Attorneys (AUSAs)—and lateral stars on both sides of the Atlantic recruited for their courtroom prowess and experience in critical venues and subject-matter areas.
We are proud to field a diverse, multi-generational roster of trial talent—litigators who are as varied in race, gender, ethnicity, geography and background as they are experienced across legal disciplines, issues and jurisdictions.
Our trial practice is notable for the sheer number of seasoned lawyers we have ready to step up to the table as lead counsel. More than 60 of our lawyers have first-chair trial and/or arbitration experience and six of our partners are members of the American College of Trial Lawyers. In the last three years alone, more than 40 different WilmerHale partners were responsible for first-chairing the more than 55 trials and arbitrations we handled in courtrooms and arbitral seats across the United States and around the world.
Meet our lawyers with government experience, including our extensive roster of US Attorneys, AUSAs, and others who have held senior positions at the DOJ.
Our Capabilities
Big law firms, specialist litigation firms, and boutiques—we stand out from them all.
Our practice is distinguished by the frequency with which we try cases and the sophistication and stature of the matters entrusted to us by our clients. Since 2010, we have handled more than 320 trials and arbitrations in the United States and internationally, many with multiple billions of dollars at stake.
We routinely go up against specialist trial firms that bill themselves as the toughest in the business—and we prevail. We have won high-stakes and bet-the-company trials in major forums across the world: in federal district courts and state courts throughout the United States, the Courts of England and Wales, courts in China and Japan, various European national courts, and the International Trade Commission, among many others. Our leading international arbitration practitioners have likewise prevailed in arbitrations under all leading institutional rules and in every leading international seat.
If a decision goes against our clients, we have multiple avenues to turn the outcome, whether through effective post-trial motion practice or at any stage in the appeals process. With members of our preeminent Appellate and Supreme Court Litigation Practice integrated into our trial teams, we frequently secure victory for our clients on appeal, and have successfully pursued dozens of matters all the way to the US Supreme Court.
Our Approach
We bring clients’ stories to life with classic and innovative trial techniques, a relentless focus on themes and narrative, and a flair for creativity and drama.
Our trial teams approach each matter through a strategic lens, staying focused on the “long game,” whether that means creating the strongest record for potential appellate proceedings, coordinating parallel proceedings and their cross-border implications, or considering alternative dispute-resolution mechanisms, such as arbitration.
We combine our instinct for storytelling with a focus on the most current, cutting-edge challenges facing our clients, including precedential legal issues and those with novel technological, scientific, corporate, political and other complex dimensions.
Our Trial Practice cuts across multiple disciplines and offices, its members woven into our regulatory, commercial, intellectual property, strategic response, securities, white-collar defense, and other practices. As a result, we can quickly assemble trial teams that combine our top-tier trial capabilities with the subject-matter depth needed to support any case.