Law360 has recognized WilmerHale in the ‘Appellate’ and ‘International Trade’ categories in its 2019 Practice Groups of the Year awards, which honor the law firms behind significant litigation wins and major deals that resonated throughout the legal industry in the past year.

As noted in the ‘Appellate Group of the Year’ profile, WilmerHale successfully secured Supreme Court victories in all three of the cases the firm’s lawyers argued before the Court in 2019. The firm prevailed in an important bankruptcy/intellectual property case, in which the Court held that the licensor of a trademark who files for bankruptcy cannot terminate the licensee’s right to use the trademark by rejecting the license agreement. In a second case, the firm convinced the Court to take the unusual step of overturning its own past precedent and holding that the Constitution bars one state from being hauled into another state’s courts without its consent. And in a third case, the firm prevailed in its argument regarding the scope of punitive damages available to injured seamen under the Jones Act. The Law360 article highlights the path the firm took to success in each case.

In an article highlighting the firm’s International Trade recognition, Law360 spotlights WilmerHale for being one of the few law firms covering every aspect of international trade, including export control and sanctions, domestic trade litigation in the US and globally, trade policy and World Trade Organization (WTO) litigation. Additionally, the featured profile discusses the firm’s role in successfully representing a WTO member in a dispute regarding tax breaks given by Brazil to its domestic producers. In a report issued by the WTO’s Appellate Body back in December 2018, the findings concluded that Brazil’s tax breaks discriminated against foreign automotive, electronics and technology producers. Shortly after this announcement, the Brazilian government began to make changes to its laws to become compliant with the report.