National Law Journal Names Ropes & Gray to Appellate Hot List
The National Law Journal honored Ropes & Gray on its 2016 Appellate Hot List, ranking it among the top firms in the United States for appellate litigation. The NLJ cited the firm’s successful victory at the U.S. Supreme Court in its landmark marriage equality case, Obergefell v. Hodges, as well as a unanimous decision in an important bankruptcy case, Bullard v. Blue Hills Bank—both of which were argued at the high court in April 2015 by appellate & Supreme Court practice leader Douglas Hallward-Driemeier. Also highlighted were Ropes & Gray’s high-profile win at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in In re Tribune Co. Fraudulent Conveyance Litig., which determined that Tribune Co. creditors could not claw back $8.3 billion paid to public shareholders as part of the company’s 2007 leveraged buyout, and other appellate decisions in key privacy, patent, criminal and insurance cases.
Ropes & Gray has a long and successful track record of advocating for its clients’ most vital interests before the U.S. Supreme Court, federal circuit courts and state appellate courts. The firm was named an Appellate Practice of the Year earlier in 2016 by Law360, which noted its “impressive streak of appellate victories” in 2015. Mr. Hallward-Driemeier was also recognized as a Law360 Appellate MVP in 2015 (subscription required).
The firm recently filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court in Dimaya v. Lynch on behalf of seven retired federal judges of diverse ideologies and backgrounds in support of a Ninth Circuit ruling that the “residual clause” of the “crime of violence” definition found in a federal statute (18 U.S.C. § 16(b)) is unconstitutionally vague. Drawing on the accumulated, on-the-ground experiences of the former judges, the brief argues that the task of classifying state crimes according to the text of the statute’s residual clause has proven to be too arbitrary, unpredictable and difficult to comport with the Constitution’s due process clause.