Supreme Court &
Appellate Litigation
Led by one of the country's premier Supreme Court advocates, our Supreme Court and Appellate Practice regularly handles high-profile cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and federal and state appellate courts. Our lawyers consistently secure victories for our clients in some of the most complex and important cases of our time.
Paul, Weiss has a storied history as one of the nation’s leading firms for Supreme Court and appellate litigation. The firm’s Supreme Court and Appellate Practice is led by Kannon Shanmugam, a veteran of the Solicitor General’s Office who has argued 39 cases before the Supreme Court and is one of the nation’s best-known and most highly regarded appellate advocates.
Our lawyers regularly appear in the Supreme Court and in federal and state appellate courts across the nation. Our appellate experience tracks the full range of our practice areas, including administrative law, antitrust, bankruptcy, class actions, criminal defense, intellectual property, mergers and acquisitions, product liability, and securities litigation. Among our series of recent victories in the Supreme Court, we were lead counsel in the landmark constitutional challenge to the structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Beyond the Supreme Court, we have an exceptional track record in courts where the most significant business cases are litigated, including the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the D.C., Second, Ninth, and Federal Circuits; the New York Court of Appeals and Appellate Division; and the Delaware Supreme Court.
Our lawyers combine skill in crafting persuasive briefs and oral arguments with unrivaled experience in the courts in which we litigate. Currently, the firm’s ranks include ten former Supreme Court clerks and over 80 former clerks from federal courts of appeals.
We represent parties and amici in pro bono cases across a range of subject areas, and associates from the firm routinely present oral arguments in those cases in the federal and state appellate courts. We were recently lead counsel in an important Supreme Court case concerning the admissibility of co-defendant confessions in joint trials.
“A firm you go to when you require results and an unvarnished analysis about the strength of your case. My experience was nothing short of spectacular."
- Chambers USA
Recent
Experience
Recognition
The National Law Journal: Appellate Hot List (2019-2024).
- Ranked as a leading firm by Chambers USA and Kannon Shanmugam has been distinguished as a Star Individual.
- Law360: "Appellate Practice Group of the Year" for two consecutive years, (2021 and 2022)
- Law360: repeatedly named Kannon Shanmugam “MVP” for Appellate (2017, 2018, 2021, 2022, 2024)
Recent Engagements
U.S. Supreme Court
- Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta, 142 S. Ct. 2486 (2022) – secured a 5-4 Supreme Court victory on behalf of the state of Oklahoma in a case concerning jurisdiction over crimes committed by non-Native Americans against Native Americans in Indian country.
- Cummings v. Premier Rehab Keller, 142 S. Ct. 1562 (2022) – secured a 6-3 Supreme Court victory on behalf of Premier Rehab Keller, a Texas-based physical rehabilitation center, in a case concerning the availability of emotional-distress damages in a private action to enforce either the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 or the Affordable Care Act.
- Goldman Sachs Group v. Arkansas Teacher Retirement System, 141 S. Ct. 1951 (2021) – secured a 8-1 victory at the Supreme Court for Goldman Sachs in a $13 billion private securities action in which plaintiffs alleged that Goldman Sachs had violated securities laws by making a series of generic and aspirational statements.
- Borden v. United States, 141 S. Ct. 1817 (2021) – secured a 5-4 Supreme Court victory narrowing the scope of a key part of the primary federal statute imposing mandatory-minimum sentences for repeat offenders.
- Seila Law v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 140 S. Ct. 2183 (2020) – secured a 5-4 Supreme Court victory for Seila Law in a landmark case concerning the constitutionality of the structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
- Obduskey v. McCarthy & Holthus, 139 S. Ct. 1029 (2019) – secured a unanimous Supreme Court victory in favor of McCarthy & Holthus, a law firm, on the question whether entities that engage in nonjudicial foreclosure proceedings in accordance with state law are not subject to the general provisions of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.
Federal and State Appellate Courts
- Doe v. Uber Technologies. 322 Cal. Rptr. 3d 505 (Cal. Ct. App. 2024) – secured victory before the California Court of Appeal on the exclusion from a consolidated mass-tort proceeding of claims by non-California plaintiffs arising from incidents that occurred outside California.
- United States v. Fortenberry. 22-50144 (9th Cir. 2023) – secured reversal by the Ninth Circuit of a criminal conviction against a former member of Congress for making false statements to government agents, on the ground that venue for the prosecution was improper.
- Arkansas Teacher Retirement System v. Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., 77 F.4th 74 (2d Cir. 2023) – won landmark decision reversing class certification in a $13 billion private securities action in which plaintiffs alleged that Goldman Sachs had violated securities laws by making a series of generic and aspirational statements—the first federal appellate decision to apply the Supreme Court’s earlier ruling in this case.
- Syntel Sterling Best Shores Mauritius Ltd. v. The TriZetto Group, Inc., 68 F.4th 792 (2d Cir. 2023) – won appellate victory vacating a $570 million damages award against integrated technology services provider Atos Syntel in long-running trade secrets litigation with competitor Cognizant and its subsidiary, healthcare IT services provider TriZetto Group.
- Fikes Wholesale, Inc. v. HSBC Bank USA, N.A., 62 F.4th 704 (2d Cir. 2023) – successfully represented the financial services industry in defending the settlement of the payment card interchange-fee class action in the Second Circuit, believed to be the largest private antitrust settlement in history.
- Hughes Communications India Private Limited v. The DirecTV Group, Inc., 71 F.4th 141 (2d Cir. 2023) – convinced the Second Circuit to reinstate Hughes India’s indemnification claims against DirecTV in a case stemming from DirecTV’s spinoff of Hughes India.
- KKR & Co. v. Mayberry, No. 2021-CA-1307, 2023 WL 2939473 (Ky. Ct. App. Apr. 14, 2023) – obtained a series of appellate victories for Blackstone Alternative Asset Management in the Kentucky Supreme Court and the Kentucky Court of Appeals, dismissing $50 billion in derivative claims related to the Kentucky state pension system and overturning a subsequent trial court decision allowing the Kentucky Attorney General to intervene as a new plaintiff in the case.
- CNA COVID-19 Litigation (various courts, 2021 – 2023) – won a series of appeals for CNA Financial and its affiliates before the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Seventh, Eighth and Ninth Circuits in lawsuits concerning whether business-interruption provisions in commercial property insurance policies cover income lost during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- City of Warwick Municipal Employees Pension Fund v. Restaurant Brands International Inc., 178 N.Y.S.3d 26 (1st Dept. 2022) – won the unanimous reversal, on appeal, by the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division, First Department—a highly unusual result—dismissing a securities class action in New York state court concerning a secondary stock offering.
- Marion HealthCare v. Becton, Dickinson & Co., 29 F.4th 337 (7th Cir. 2022) – secured affirmance by the Seventh Circuit of the dismissal of an antitrust class action claiming that the defendant had conspired to inflate the prices of medical supplies by excluding competitors from the market.
- Anoush Cab v. Uber Technologies, 8 F.4th 1 (1st Cir. 2021) – obtained a victory in the First Circuit for Uber Technologies, defending the dismissal of a $750 million unfair-competition lawsuit brought by a Boston taxi conglomerate.
- Spirit Airlines v. Department of Transportation, 997 F.3d 1247 (D.C. Cir. 2021) – secured a victory for Spirit Airlines in a D.C. Circuit appeal under the Administrative Procedure Act challenging the Federal Aviation Administration’s allocation of flight authorizations at Newark Airport.
- Firefighters’ Retirement System v. Citco Group, 885 F. App’x 902 (5th Cir. 2021) – won an appeal affirming the dismissal of all claims against The Citco Group and its affiliates in a dispute with three Louisiana public pension funds.
