Our first runners-up this week are Josh Koskoff, Chris Mattei and Alinor Sterling of Koskoff, Koskoff & Bieder who landed a nearly $1 billion verdict against Alex Jones, who for years claimed the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting that killed 20 first graders and six educators in Newtown, Conn., was a government hoax. A state court jury in Waterbury on Wednesday awarded a total of $965 million in defamation and slander damages, and emotional distress damages to the 15 plaintiffs—victims’ family members and a first responder. We previously named Koskoff and Sterling Litigators of the Week in February after they reached a $73 million settlement with Remington over Sandy Hook families’ claims that the marketing of the Bushmaster AR-15 used in the shooting violated the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act.
A Kirkland & Ellis team led by Gregg LoCascio lands a runner-up spot for getting a key win for Roomba maker iRobot in a showdown at the U.S. International Trade Commission with rival Shark. After a one-week remote trial in January, Administrative Law Judge MaryJoan McNamara last week sided with iRobot finding its patents covering carpet detection and auto-docking valid and infringed by Shark. The ALJ recommended an exclusion order barring Shark from importing or selling products with the patented features in the U.S. The Kirkland team representing iRobot also included partners Paul Brinkman, Kristina Cary, Anders Fjellstedt and Sean McEldowney; and associates Steven Dirks, Peter Evangelatos, Diva Hollis, Tiffany Knapp, Karthik Ravishankar and Tera Jo Stone. (Fjellstedt has taken an in-house position at Disney since the trial and both Knapp and Ravishankar have been promoted as partners.)
