Susman Godfrey has been spotlighted by National Law Journal’s 2024 Elite Trial Lawyers. Elite Trial Lawyers honors attorneys nationwide for their winning plaintiff litigation work.
Both SG’s lawyers and the firm itself came up big this year. Seattle Partner Parker Folse is being honored with Elite Trial Lawyer’s Lifetime Achievement Award. In addition, Davida Brook and Lexie White have been named Elite Women of the Plaintiffs Bar and Beatrice Franklin, Katy Peaslee and Bryce Barcelo are named among the Rising Stars of the Plaintiffs Bar.
In addition, Houston’s Joe Grinstein is named a Finalist for Plaintiff Attorney of the Year. And the firm itself is a Finalist for Antitrust Firm of the Year, Technology Firm of the Year and Plaintiffs Firm of the Year. Winners in these Finalist categories will be announced at the ETL Awards Ceremony at Lotte New York Palace in New York City on July 11th.
Susman Godfrey is a standout as one of the most honored firms of 2023.
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT
Seattle’s Parker Folse is being awarded with NLJ’s Lifetime Achievement award. Founder of the Seattle office, Folse has made a name for himself as one of the top lawyers in Washington and nationally. He has taken on corporate behemoths ranging from AT&T and Apple to Google and Microsoft. For Microsoft in particular, he hassued the company six times and collected more than $1 billion in judgments and settlements. Read more about his career here.
ELITE WOMEN
Susman Godfrey is the only firm with more than one winner on this list. Partners Davida Brook and Lexie White both secured major wins for their plaintiff clients in 2023. Brook made headlines when she secured a historic $787.5 million deal with Fox News to resolve a defamation action brought by client, Dominion Voting Systems. Just a few months later she helped secured a $203 million judgement on behalf of hedge funder, Louis Bacon, after spending several years in defamation litigation against Peter Nyagrd. White, who won the same award last year, again led two different trial teams to back-to-back victories in jury trials pending in Delaware federal court and Texas state court respectively. White won a $341 million judgment following a jury trial against Samsung over breach of a license agreement and (three months earlier) secured a unanimous verdict from a Delaware federal jury finding that HTC Corporation willfully infringed two patents declared essential to LTE wireless standards.
RISING STARS
In addition, three lawyers are honored this year as Rising Stars of the Plaintiffs Bar. No other firm had more winners that Susman Godfrey this year.
- Beatrice Franklin won a $36 million judgment for a commercial tenant in its dispute with a landlord over valuable commercial space in Brooklyn, New York. Just a few months ago she helped secured a groundbreaking $418 million proposed settlement on behalf of a nationwide class of home sellers with the National Association of Realtors (NAR) that will resolve claims in four antitrust class actions against NAR, in addition to hundreds of millions in proposed settlements with the nation’s largest real estate brokerages.
- Katy Peaslee was part of the team that secured the $787.5 million settlement for Dominion against Fox News. She was named a Media & Entertainment Rising Star by Law360 for her work on this and related matters. Katy also helped secure $600 million+ in settlements with the state of Michigan and City of Flint for Flint residents who are pursuing claims for personal injuries and property damage arising from the lead contamination water crisis.
- Bryce Barcelo provides sought-after complex intellectual property counsel to both clients and colleagues. In 2023 he helped win a $166.3 million jury verdict for Finesse Wireless against AT&T and Nokia over patent infringement claims relating to wireless networks.
FINALIST – PLAINTFF ATTORNEY OF THE YEAR
In 2023 Joe Grinstein won two separate jury trials on behalf of plaintiffs – securing over $203 million in winning verdicts. In January he obtained a $166.3 million jury verdict for Finesse Wireless in patent infringement litigation relating to wireless networks. In August 2023, the Court entered judgment on that verdict, which, after pre-judgment interest, boosted Finesse’s total award to $181.2 million. In September Grinstein won a $37.5 million verdict for Atlas Global Technologies in its patent infringement case against TP-Link.
PRACTICE HONORS
Given the outstanding results by all of Susman Godfrey’s lawyers in 2023, the firm has also been named a finalist in three categories – Antitrust Firm of the Year, Technology Firm of the Year and Plaintiffs Firm of the Year.
Elite Trial Lawyers recognizes law firms’ outstanding plaintiffs work in a “high-stakes bench or jury trial or in a major settlement.” Honorees must have scored a significant win between March 2023 and March 2024 and demonstrated an impressive track record of wins over the last three to five years. Winners will be announced at the ETL Awards Ceremony at Lotte New York Palace in New York City on July 11th.
