Keller Rohrback is proud to announce that the firm has once more been named to Law360’s select list of Practice Groups of the Year. In the awards’ 14th year, the admission range for case achievements was from October 1, 2022 to October 6, 2023, and for Keller Rohrback included successes in both the Class Action and Environmental practice area categories. Law360 is the country’s foremost online publication site for legal news and analysis, and the Practice Groups of the Year awards “honor the attorney teams behind litigation wins and major deals that resonated through the legal industry.”
The Class Action honor noted the firm’s significant wins in the monumental Facebook Inc. Consumer Privacy MDL, which reached a settlement of $725 million approved in October, and the JUUL Labs litigation targeting the marketing of vaping products to adolescents, which settled for $255 million in September. Additional victories in the category were notched in the substantial jury verdict delivered in the PacifiCorp Oregon fires case, and also for a $44 million settlement with Walgreens that resolved seven years of litigation revolving around Theranos, the company founded by convicted fraudster Elizabeth Holmes.
Keller Rohrback managing partner Lynn Sarko, remarking on the year’s class action accomplishments, told Law360 “What is the secret? The secret, I think, is being honest. Do good lawyering. Make sure the court and the judge trust you. Never, ever deceive the court—always be truthful. And fight hard.”
Read the full Law360 article regarding Keller Rohrback’s Class Action Group of the Year honor here.
In the Environmental Group of the Year award, Law360 recognized a pair of cases that concluded successfully on behalf of the state of Oregon in environmental contamination against Monsanto, and for plaintiffs in the first-of-its-kind jury verdict against PacifiCorp (also noted in the Class Action category) concerning the wildfires that devastated Oregon over Labor Day 2020. The Monsanto case that began with a complaint filed in 2018 over the chronic contamination caused by polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) settled for $698 million, described by Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum as the largest environmental damage recovery in the state’s history. In the PacifiCorp matter, a first-phase jury trial resulted in compensatory and punitive damages awards of roughly $90 million, but also allowed for members of an estimated 2,500-strong class to seek punitive damages in their own cases as well. Those cases are currently underway.
In reflecting on the firm’s work over the past year Keller Rohrback attorney Dan Mensher told Law360 it’s been “a hell of a year,” adding that the success the team has had is a culmination of an enormous amount of work and collaboration. “A lot of these cases we’ve been working on for years and have had this success because of the awesome collaboration that we’ve had internally at Keller Rohrback, as well as the co-counseling relationships that we’ve had with other firms in these cases,” Mensher said.
Read the full Law360 article regarding Keller Rohrback’s Environmental Group of the Year honor here.
With an eye toward landmark matters and general excellence, Law360 selected 170 winning groups across 36 practice areas. In the awards' 14th year, the Practice Groups of the Year hail from 84 law firms and rose to the top of more than 800 submissions.
About Keller Rohrback L.L.P.
Keller Rohrback’s Complex Litigation Group represents plaintiffs in large-scale cases involving corporate wrongdoing. We litigate against companies that pollute, commit fraud, fix prices and take advantage of consumers, employees, and investors. We are passionate advocates for justice. In addition, the Complex Litigation Group regularly calls on attorneys in the firm’s other practice areas for expertise in areas such as bankruptcy, constitutional law, corporate transactions, financial institutions, insurance coverage and intellectual property. Our group’s access to these in-house resources distinguishes Keller Rohrback from other plaintiffs’ class action firms and contributes to the firm’s success. We also have a history of working with legal counsel from other countries to vigorously pursue legal remedies on behalf of clients around the globe.