Complex Litigation
Crowell & Moring's Complex Litigation Practice provides a world-class litigation and trial capability in the areas of intellectual property, antitrust, and complex commercial disputes. The group is comprised of approximately 20 partners and 30 counsel/associates, making it one of the largest practice groups in the firm. The Complex Litigation Practice is positioning itself as a breeding ground for first-chair trial lawyers, placing a heavy emphasis on attorney training and courtroom experience to ensure we are providing our clients with the best possible service.
In the intellectual property arena, our practice focuses on patent infringement litigation spanning a wide variety of technologies, with particular emphases on the telecommunications, computer hardware and software, consumer electronics, automotive, and aerospace industries. We have handled cases in federal district courts across the country, and we routinely cross-staff cases with attorneys from our Irvine office. The partners in our practice have significant jury and bench trial experience in patent cases, with a growing track record of successful results for our clients. Our practice tends to be weighted towards defense work, but we have also handled a significant number of offensive cases. Several of our partners have technical backgrounds, but we also work closely with the specialized patent attorneys in the IP Group. Other areas of emphasis for our practice include "Section 337" cases before the U.S. International Trade Commission, trade secret misappropriation cases, trademark and trade dress infringement actions, and copyright infringement actions.
Our antitrust litigation practice is broader than most, encompassing both plaintiff and defense work. On the plaintiff side, we have one of the nation's leading antitrust recovery practices, and indeed we have been at the forefront of the development of this rapidly-growing field. Antitrust recovery actions are a way for companies to generate revenue if they have been harmed -- typically through overcharges associated with collusion among the company's suppliers. We also are experienced in antitrust class action defense. We have been involved in virtually every major national class action antitrust litigation in the past 20 years in industries ranging from airlines to pharmaceuticals to chemicals. For example, we are representing DuPont in chemical price fixing cases and AT&T as national counsel in DSL pricing litigation. We also are experienced with all phases of defending civil and criminal antitrust litigations and investigations.
In the area of complex commercial disputes, we handle a variety of high-stakes commercial and business tort cases involving contract, business fraud, corporate governance, defamation, property rights, and commercial real estate disputes. The group has extensive experience with class actions, multi-district actions, and multi-party proceedings in both federal and state courts throughout the country and is also well known for its regional practice in the courts of the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia. The group has a thriving alternative dispute practice involving both domestic and international arbitrations. Among the wide range of matters the group has handled recently are serving as national coordinating counsel for a major railroad in serial litigation involving class action allegations of business torts and property rights violations; multiple claims and class action allegations involving alleged business fraud and consumer protection violations relating to the marketing of life insurance products; a large commercial dispute between a major mining company and a heavy equipment manufacturer; a large international RICO matter; and a series of complex contract arbitrations, both domestic and international, on behalf of a Fortune 500 company.