The D.C. office concentrates on appellate and Supreme Court advocacy, content, media & entertainment matters, complex commercial litigation, First Amendment litigation, government contracts issues, insurance litigation and counseling, SEC matters, and white collar criminal defense.  Our attorneys have been involved in such significant litigation as:

Achieving a perfect record representing the video game industry in challenges to strike down nine state and local laws regulating “violent” games; we then represented the Entertainment Merchants Association and Entertainment Software Association in the U. S. Supreme Court, in a successful First Amendment challenge to a California law that would have restricted the sale or rental of “violent” video games to anyone under the age of 18.

Shaping an entire body of jurisprudence to allow content creators to protect their intellectual property on the Internet and in other new media. Starting with the seminal A&M Records v. Napster and MGM v. Grokster decisions and continuing with victories for motion picture studios and recording companies, in digital copyright infringement cases involving the secondary liability of operators of BitTorrent websites and providers of access to Usenet, we represent key players in the entertainment industry in the highest profile cases at the intersection of content protection and constantly evolving technologies.

Obtaining a $1 billion ruling for SoundExchange members in litigation over satellite radio royalty rates, in cutting-edge content protection work.

Successfully representing The Ritz-Carlton in an international arbitration between Ritz-Carlton and the hotel’s owner in which the owner sought millions of dollars in damages for alleged breach of contract and sought to terminate the management agreement for cause.  The owner lost all claims and was ordered to pay Ritz-Carlton’s attorney fees.  The arbitration award was confirmed by a federal court and Ritz-Carlton’s management agreement remains intact.
 

Successfully representing Marriott in McIntyre, et al. v. Marriott International, Inc., et al., as lead counsel in a nation-wide class action complaint filed by purchasers of timeshare properties from Marriott. The complaint alleged that Marriott had violated the federal Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act of 1974, along with several common law causes of action.  We won total dismissal of the complaint with prejudice.

Representing the Cayuga Indian Nation in several constitutional litigation matters, most notably a declaratory judgment action that successfully blocked criminal prosecutions of tribal leaders for selling unstamped cigarettes.  In May 2010, New York’s highest state court ruled in favor of the Cayuga Nation, marking the successful completion of litigation filed in 2008, preventing criminal prosecution of tribe officials and returning a key revenue stream to the Nation.

Winning dismissal of two putative class actions against Internet service providers Embarq and CenturyTel (which recently merged and then acquired Qwest to form the third-largest local telephone company in the United States, called CenturyLink), claiming violations of the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act.

Successfully protesting award of a $1 billion NASA satellite contract to a Honeywell competitor.

Successfully representing insurance policyholders in international arbitrations, recovering millions of dollars on our clients’ behalf, either as a result of final awards by arbitration panels  or settlements.