Elisha Barron

Elisha Barron, a Susman Godfrey partner, litigates high-stakes cases across the country. She has secured billions in judgments and settlements for her clients, as well as significant defense judgments. Elisha represents plaintiffs and defendants through every stage of litigation, including appeals, in complex commercial cases, including intellectual property, antitrust, False Claims Act litigation, and general commercial litigation.

Elisha is widely recognized for her litigation talent. Lawdragon named her among the nation’s top 500 Leading Litigators in 2024 and 2025, and a top 500 Plaintiff Financial Lawyers in the same years. Benchmark Litigation named her a Future Star 2023 to 2025 and included her on its 40 and Under Hot List from 2022 to 2024. National Law Journal named Elisha a Plaintiffs Lawyer Trailblazers and she has been called One to Watch in Commercial Litigation by Best Lawyers every year since 2021. In 2019, New York Law Journal named Elisha among its Rising Stars.

LANDMARK LITIGATION

Below are a few of Elisha’s recent notable successes and representations:

• In 2024, Elisha won a $1.6 billion trial judgment for client BML Properties Ltd. in New York’s Commercial Division on fraud and breach of contract claims arising from the construction of the Baha Mar resort. The judgment was affirmed in full on appeal by the First Department in April 2025. Read more.
• In 2025, Elisha won a defense victory after a three-day trial in 2023 in Delaware Chancery Court involving a private equity firm’s auction of a short line railroad. The Court rejected plaintiff’s claims for breach of contract and breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing as against our client, the short-line railroad, found breach as against the private equity firm represented by a different firm, and rejected plaintiff’s $55 million damages model as speculative.
• In 2024, Elisha was lead trial counsel to Van Leeuwen Ice Cream LLC in a Lanham Act trade dress infringement lawsuit against Rebel Creamery in the Eastern District of New York. Elisha gave opening and closing statements, and handled six witnesses, including cross-examining the CEO in a four-day trial. A decision is pending.  
• Elisha represents clients in ground-breaking copyright infringement litigation against AI companies that have used copyrighted works to train large-language models. Elisha represents the New York Times in a lawsuit pending in the Southern District of New York against Microsoft and OpenAI alleging that the companies illegally used millions of Times articles to train ChatGPT. Read more here. She also represents book authors in potential class actions against NVIDIA and Databricks pending in the Northern District of California arising from their use of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works in connection with development of AI models.

Other Wins:

• Won a $706.2 Million jury verdict for client HouseCanary after a 6+ week jury trial in state court in San Antonio, Texas. The case involved claims against Title Source, an affiliate of Quicken Loans, for misappropriation of trade secrets, fraud, and breach of contract.
• Represented Joel and Mary Rich, the parents of a murdered son, Seth Rich, in a groundbreaking lawsuit against Fox News and individual defendants for intentional infliction of emotional distress claims and related torts. The Second Circuit reversed the district court’s dismissal of the Riches’ claims, including an intentional infliction of emotional distress claim, paving the way for a confidential settlement.
• Secured a $450 million settlement—one of the largest ever in the United States by a single whistleblower—in a landmark False Claims Act lawsuit against the Swiss drug manufacturer Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation. Elisha deposed pharmacists and nurses across the country, securing key testimony which helped secure the award. Read more.
• Delivered opening statements and cross-examined key witnesses to win a multi-million-dollar award (a complete victory) in a confidential technology and construction industry arbitration involving obligations under a written agreement.
• Secured nearly $170 million in settlements before fees and expenses in the antitrust case In re Animation Workers Antitrust Litigation (N.D. Cal.) for a class of Hollywood animators and visual effects employees who accused several major movie studios of entering into an agreement not to “poach” each other’s employees. The case contributed to Susman Godfrey being named ‘Class Action Group of the Year’ by Law360.

Elisha also devotes time to pro bono matters. For example, she represented the City of Baltimore pro bono in a challenge to a new Health of Human Services Rule allowing health care providers to deny health care services for religious or “other” reasons. City of Baltimore v. HHS, 19-cv-1672 (D. Md.). The rule was later vacated.

BACKGROUND

Before joining Susman Godfrey, Elisha clerked for Judge Shira Scheindlin on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, and Judge José Cabranes on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. She graduated from Yale University with a degree in History of Science and Medicine, and received her J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School.

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