Literature

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  • Notable Matters
  • DOAR Assists Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz and Vulcan Materials in Obtaining Injunctive Relief in Delaware Chancery Court
    DOAR congratulates William Savitt and the entire trial team at Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz on their excellent work and well-deserved win on behalf of their client, Vulcan Materials. DOAR supported the victory in another closely watched M&A-related trial in the Delaware Court of Chancery. The case, in which certain confidential materials intended for use during an initial friendly exchange were then misused when Marietta pursued a hostile takeover, was one that had not been seen before in Delaware or anywhere else in the United States. Martin Marietta and Vulcan, the two largest U.S. suppliers of construction-materials, have been locked in a bitter takeover battle since December. Both Vulcan and Martin Marietta are large players in the construction aggregates market, and when merger discussions broke down, Martin Marietta promptly pursued a hostile takeover of Vulcan basing their bid on the confidential information disclosed during due diligence. This was a very fast moving and challenging Delaware case, going from the initial filing to closing arguments in three months, culminating in a one week long trial, overseen by Delaware Chancery Court Chancellor Leo Strine Jr., in early March. DOAR’s work included consulting at trial, graphics consulting and design for openings and summation and technology for the war room and courtroom.

  • DOAR Assists in Victory of Donald Drapkin's Breach-of-Contract Lawsuit Against Macandrews & Forbes, Holding Company Owned by Ronald Perelman
    DOAR congratulates Elkan Abramowitz of Morvillo Abramowitz, David Dunn of Hogan Lovells and their combined trial team including Thomas Keane, Sid Kamaraju, Christine Wagner, Christopher Robbins and Sarah Gregory for their excellent work and well-deserved win. DOAR supported the victory secured by Donald Drapkin, former Vice Chairman for twenty years under Ronald Perelman, against MacAndrews & Forbes. After just over an hour of deliberations, a SDNY jury of six women and two men ruled in favor of Drapkin, finding that Drapkin had not breached the Separation Agreement and holding Perelman responsible for paying Drapkin the $16 million promised him. DOAR's Julie Blackman, Ellen Brickman, Roy Futterman, Melissa Pomerantz and Andrew Cepregi advised Drapkin's legal team based on pre-trial research. DOAR’s work included consultation on the opening and summation, jury selection, graphics and courtroom technology support.

  • DOAR's Julie Blackman Assists in the Defense of Barbara Sheehan
    Julie Blackman supported the defense of Barbara Sheehan, a Queens woman who killed her husband, a former police sergeant. Sheehan shot her husband 11 times after he pointed a gun to her head. After the month-long trial, the defendant was found not guilty of second-degree murder, but was found guilty of a lesser gun charge. The defense argued that Mrs. Sheehan acted in self-defense when fatally shooting her husband. Julie advised the defense team, led by Michael Dowd, by providing trial strategy consulting, witness preparation and assistance with jury selection. DOAR's work on this case was provided on a pro bono basis given Julie's lifelong advocacy for battered women.

  • DOAR Litigation Consulting Assists Dewey & LeBoeuf in Victory for the Republic of El Salvador
    DOAR Litigation Consulting provided presentation support for Dewey & LeBoeuf and the Republic of El Salvador in the preliminary phase of arbitration at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in Washington DC. This was the first time a CAFTA Party prevailed in ending an entire arbitration in the preliminary objection stage. DOAR’s trial consultants developed graphics and provided presentation consulting for the Dewey & LeBoeuf team during the hearing.

    Two U.S. companies, Commerce Group Corp. and San Sebastian Gold Mines, Inc., initiated CAFTA arbitration against El Salvador after the Government revoked their environmental permits to extract and process gold in El Salvador. Following two rounds of written submissions and an oral hearing on November 15, 2010, the tribunal issued its Award finding that the dispute was not within its jurisdiction and competence and dismissing all claims. The tribunal agreed with El Salvador that a waiver "must accomplish its intended effect," and that the claimants did not act in compliance with the waivers because they failed to discontinue the domestic proceedings. The tribunal's decision on the waiver issue resulted in a complete victory for El Salvador.

  • DOAR Litigation Consulting Supports Airgas and Wachtell Lipton in Successful Poison Pill Defense
    In what was seen as one of the most important corporate litigation decisions in recent years, Chancellor William Chandler III ruled yesterday that Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz and its co-counsel, Potter, Anderson & Corroon, had proved that the Board of Directors of Airgas had acted appropriately in turning down as inadequate a bid of $70 per share from rival Air Products, upholding Airgas’ poison pill defense to the offer.

    DOAR provided graphics consulting and design services and trial presentation consulting in court for two separate week-long trials and a closing argument which took place last week. In only 8 total trial days, there were over 25 witnesses and over 1000 exhibits. A team of DOAR consultants was on hand 24/7 to support witness preparation, document pre-treatment and display, and demonstrative conceptualization and development. Andy Cepregi, a Director at DOAR, led the company’s efforts and presented the evidence during the trials.

    During Marc Wolinsky's closing, DOAR's multimedia department edited portions of the film "A Streetcar Named Desire" to coincide with Wolinsky’s argument that Air Products was asking the Airgas board to leave the fate of the company’s shareholders to "the kindness of strangers."

    DOAR has supported several cases before Chancellor Chandler and other Chancery Court judges including IAC v. Liberty Media, Hexion v. Huntsman and Rohm & Haas v. Dow Chemical with Wachtell Lipton.

    DOAR is very proud to have been a part of this great victory for such a great client as Wachtell. Mr. Wolinsky had this to say about DOAR’s contribution: “Andy and the DOAR team were terrific to work with and, as usual, provided unparalleled insight and an unrelenting commitment to provide us with what we needed to make our client’s case to the court.”

  • Justice Yates Vacates Conviction of Marsh McLennan Executives
    Judge Yates ruled yesterday to overturn the convictions of the two Marsh McLennan executives (Gilman and McNenney) who were tried in 2007 because the prosecutors had failed to turn over evidence that would have likely led to a not guilty verdict. This evidence included 700,000 pages of documents produced during the second trial of Marsh executives who were tried a year later. Aside from supporting all of the defendants during discovery and during two marathon trials, DOAR was instrumental in auditing the government's productions and reporting on the Liberty Mutual documents that proved to be exculpatory to the defendants. Our clients at Proskauer and at Cooley Godward represented the two executives who were affected by yesterday's ruling.

  • DOAR Provides Trial Consulting Services in Victory for 5,600 Women in Gender Discrimination Class Action Trial Against Pharmaceutical Giant
    DOAR Litigation Consulting LLC supported the Plaintiffs’ and their team in obtaining a landmark verdict for the class of 5,600 current and former female employees of Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation before Judge Colleen McMahon in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. The law firm representing the class was Sanford Wittels & Heisler LLP.
    Read the detailed press release here

  • Three former Marsh executives found not guilty. DOAR supports the legal defense teams throughout People v. Doherty et al.
    DOAR Litigation Consulting LLC has supported the legal defense teams which obtained the acquittal of three former Marsh McLennan executives during their 11-month trial before Judge James Yates in the New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan. The law firms representing the 3 defendants were Blank Rome LLP, Hinshaw & Culberson, and Driscoll & Redlich. On October 26, 2009, following an eleven month trial, New York State Supreme Court Judge James Yates acquitted three former Marsh executives of felony charges stemming from alleged bid-rigging, price-fixing, and collusion activities. Defendants Greg Doherty, Kathleen Drake & Joseph Peiser were indicted in 2005. They were among eight former Marsh executives charged with colluding with brokers at insurance carriers such as American International Group (AIG), Zurich, and others to obtain intentionally, non-competitive or fake quotes for other corporate clients to suppress competition.

  • EDNY Judge rules in favor of CARCO Group and Farrell Fritz Partner James Wicks in employment contract trial.
    In an April 21, 2009 decision EDNY Magistrate Judge Lindsay ruled that Drew Maconachy violated the terms of his employment contract with CARCO and ordered him to pay $1,791,356 plus all attorneys' fees and interest. The decision came after a 2-week bench trial in July 2008. DOAR Litigation Consulting provided James Wicks and Farrell Fritz with a full range of Trial Consulting Services including visual strategy consultation, witness preparation, graphics, trial presentation and technology.

  • DOAR assists Farrell Fritz P.C. in achieving defense verdict in class action employment jury trial
    On April 03, 2009 following 1 week of trial in front of Judge Baer a SDNY jury returned a defense verdict after 3.5 hours of deliberation. In a text book example of DOAR’s Discovery to Decision model, Farrell Fritz, Partner Domenique Camacho-Moran utilized many of the weapons in the DOAR arsenal including discovery consulting, forensic data acquisition, focus group and mock trial research, witness preparation, expert testimony, the development of analytical graphics, trial presentation and courtroom technology. DOAR was able to help its client develop, communicate and execute an effective trial strategy and gain a complete defense victory in Mendoza, et al. v. Delgado Travel Agency, Inc., et al.

  • DOAR Supports Epstein, Becker & Green in obtaining unanimous jury verdict in the Denise Romano v. New York Presbyterian Hospital trial.
    This whistleblower case claimed that Epstein, Becker & Green’s client, New York Presbyterian Hospital, was involved in a conspiracy that led to the false billing of Medicaid for approximately 1,800 births between 1996 and 2000. After three weeks of trial in SDNY the jury returned with a unanimous defense verdict in favor of our client on all three claims in question. DOAR provided trial consulting services including analytical graphics design and creation, trial presentation consulting and technology.

  • DOAR Supports WLRK in Rohm & Haas/Dow Chemical Merger
    DOAR’s Trial Consulting practice group worked hand-in-hand this weekend with Rohm & Haas lead counsel Marc Wolinsky and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to prepare for their trial in Delaware Chancery Court involving Rohm’s merger with Dow Chemical. One of the more closely watched M&A cases in the past few years, this dispute arose from Dow’s pulling out of the agreed-to merger due to their decline in assets in the recent economic downturn. In preparation for trial, DOAR’s team worked round the clock with many Wachtell lawyers creating document displays, video testimony for impeachment, and persuasive graphic demonstratives. Just moments before the trial was set to begin yesterday, the two companies agreed to go through with $15 billion the merger as planned. Wachtell is considering the outcome as a great victory, as does DOAR.

  • DOAR supports Spears & Imes and Anthony Ostlund Baer Louwagie & Ross in $141 million victory against Banc of America.
    On Thursday, Dec. 4th, a federal jury in the Southern District of New York found unanimously that Banc of America committed fraud and awarded damages in the amount of $141 million to eight investment banks including AIG Global Securities, AIG Life, Allstate, International Finance Corporation (IFC), Société Générale, Travelers, Bank Leumi USA, and Bayerische Landesbank. The fraud involved providing false loss numbers about an investment trust offered by furniture retailer Heilig-Meyers to the banks, while at the same time keeping a second set of figures internally that showed the actual picture of the trust's worse condition. DOAR provided consulting services for the 6-week long trial, including the development of graphic demonstratives, in-court presentation of key documents, video depositions and graphics, as well as expert testimony related to discovery issues and war room support.

  • DOAR assists Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman and Southern Union Company in gaining acquittal by jury on two of three charges brought by the US government
    On October 15th, 2008, a federal jury in the District of Rhode Island returned a partial verdict in favor of Southern Union Company. DOAR provided trial consulting services including graphics consultation and design, trial presentation and courtroom and war room technology in support of the twelve-day proceeding before Judge William E. Smith. Kasowitz Benson and Southern Union were both pleased with the outcome. After the verdict, attorney Dan Fetterman of Kasowitz commented on DOAR’s performance. ”I’ll never go to trial with any other team.”