Colleen Smith > Latham & Watkins LLP > San Diego, United States > Lawyer Profile

Latham & Watkins LLP is highly active in deal-related litigation, partly due to its thriving transactional M&A practice. A key feature of the firm is how involved litigators are in the early stages of a corporate transaction, helping to structure deals to avoid potential problems further down the line. As well as acting for acquirers, targets, and financial advisors on issues ranging from deal protection measures, conflicts of interest, and change-of-control payments to disclosure obligations, the firm is also a leader at the litigation stage, handling, stockholder class actions, derivative cases, material adverse change matters, poison pill cases, proxy contests, and appraisal actions. Peers praise the lead partners in the securities litigation and professional liability practice, Michele Johnson in Orange County, Blair Connelly in New York and Colleen Smith in San Diego. Connelly led the defense of Oracle executives in one of the largest acquisitions to face a stockholder challenge through trial in the Delaware Court of Chancery, when plaintiffs filed claims against its $9.4bn acquisition of NetSuite, Inc. in 2016. In 2023, the court granted judgment in favor of two key executives in a stockholder derivative suit. Smith handled a consolidated class action for REIT Excel Trust, Inc., when stockholders challenged its cash-out merger into The Blackstone Group.

The securities litigation and professional liability group at Latham & Watkins LLP spans the country and maintains a high profile in high-stakes matters in many state and federal courts. Since 2022, the firm has represented clients as defendants in more federal securities class actions than any other US law firm, across 24 district courts. Andrew Clubok in Washington DC, New York-based Blair Connelly, and Colleen Smith in San Diego lead the practice. Clubok is the  most active in securities litigation, and his recent work includes securing the dismissal of claims against Meta Platforms in the largest securities class actions ever filed, which involved a stock drop of nearly a quarter trillion dollars. Matthew Rawlinson in Silicon Valley is one of a few attorneys in California to have litigated a securities claim to a final jury verdict, while Michele Johnson in Orange County excels in both securities litigation and merger-related cases. She recently worked with Clubok to defend Twitter in a high-value case. In New York, Jeff Hammel and emerging talent Jason Hegt are standout partners.