Fish Principal Juanita R. Brooks Named "Top Female Trial Attorney" by Law360

Boston, MA, May 15, 2012 - Fish & Richardson announced today that Juanita R. Brooks, a principal in the firm's IP Litigation Group, has been named a "Top Female Trial Attorney" by Law360. Brooks was one of only 15 litigators selected from across multiple practice areas "who have scored landmark victories for their clients while blazing trails in a once male-dominated field and showing that the best man for bet-the-company cases can also be a woman."

Brooks has a nationwide trial practice, specializing in complex intellectual property (IP) litigation. She has been first chair on over 140 career trials, and currently manages an average caseload of nearly 30 active patent infringement cases annually. In the past year alone, Brooks has tried eight cases in federal courts across the U.S., a blistering pace in the field of patent litigation, where there are only about 75 trials in the entire U.S. each year and the complexity of the cases means that discovery can take years and trial preparation requires not only teams of lawyers but multiple technical experts.

According to Law360, "Brooks' colleagues attribute her nearly perfect winning percentage to her ability to craft easy-to-follow narratives out of complex technicalinformation, as well as her no-holds-barred cross-examinations." The publication cited Brooks' September 2011 win for client Allergan, Inc. over patents for its blockbuster glaucoma drug Lumigan, in which the Delaware court judge noted that the defendant's expert witness' "credibility was eviscerated on cross-examination." Law360 added that the judge devoted two pages of the opinion to picking apart the testimony of the defendant's expert witness.

"She doesn’t get mired in the unnecessary details that can bog down other intellectual property attorneys," said Ronald Castle, Fresenius deputy general counsel for litigation. "Instead, she formulates and focuses on a larger narrative."

Brooks received her J.D. from Yale Law School in 1977 and her B.A. from San Diego State University in 1974.