WINNERS

• 1st - White & Cas
“Ground-breaking and excellent” is how the White & Case disputes team was dubbed by the judges on The Lawyer Awards panel.
A major victory for the group is undeniably the House of Lords unanimously quashing the US Department of Justice’s attempt to classify price-fixing as a conspiracy to defraud in order to extradite Ian Norris. Head of commercial litigation Alistair Graham, who led his team in the Lords’ battle, has been credited by others on Norris as “highly determined” and as holding “the ability to make a stressful circumstance a lost easier”.
Norris, however, is not White & Case’s only hard-hitting piece of litigation over the last twelve months. White & Case has broken new ground for US firms in major UK litigation.

• 2nd - Slaughter and May
Small but perfectly formed, this disputes team has litigation stars among its ranks that are the envy of many international firms.
Dispute resolution partner Sarah Lee is a case in point. Assisted by senior associate Caroline Edwards, Lee proved that Slaughter and May’s litigation group has, as one judge said, “the ingredients to overturn even some of the most well-established legal rule”.
The case was Sempra Metals and after a 12 year battle, Slaughters successfully defeated the House of Lords appeal by Revenue & Customs in the Advance Corporation Tax group litigation. In addition, the team is acting for the Government in the Northern Rock case, which will be another one of gigantic proportions.

• 3rd - Olswang
The disputes team at Olswang has been looking to diversify and expand its practice outside of the media world for which it is best known.
The practice, led by partner Steven Baker, has more than doubled its turnover in the last three years, adding clients such as Attheraces, AXA-Winterthur and Orange to its books.
Olswang’s team, however, is still most high-profile in the media arena. Its win against the Serious Fraud Office’s attempts to deny journalists access to BAE documents, led by partner Dan Tench and its involvement in the ITV internal investigations into premium phone-ins to TV, led by partner Martin Davies, shows the range and depth of the practice.

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Although we recognise that it is always preferable to engage in mediation or dispute resolution, this category can only recognise cases that are on public record. The category is open to lawyers specialising in insurance, reinsurance, construction, tax & trusts, defamation, as well as general commercial litigation.

Judges will be looking for evidence of:

• Full details of the case and any precedents set
• Consistent tactical excellence during the life of the case, underpinned by technical legal analysis
• Context of the case and its commercial importance to the client

Submissions should focus on a single transaction but we welcome overviews of team activity throughout the course of the year.

Entries welcome from:
Private practice teams	√
Nominations by in-house teams	√

Previous Winners:
2007	Herbert Smith
2006	Barlow Lyde & Gilbert, Brick Court Chambers, Ernst & Young and 7 King’s Bench Walk
2005	Birnberg Peirce & Ben Emmerson QC
2004	Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer
2003	Leigh Day & Co