WilmerHale Partner Hallie Levin was recently inducted into the American College of Trial Lawyers, one of the legal profession’s most prestigious membership organizations. It honors attorneys whose careers of notable courtroom achievements and contributions to the field place those lawyers at the forefront of the nation’s trial bar.
ACTL, an invitation-only group, “thoroughly investigates each nominee for admission and selects only those who have demonstrated the very highest standards of trial advocacy, ethical conduct, integrity, professionalism and collegiality,” the organization says.
Levin is one of only six current WilmerHale partners – and the only woman at the firm – who are ACTL fellows. She was officially inducted at the organization’s Feb. 25, 2023 spring meeting in Key Biscayne, FL.
Levin, co-chair of WilmerHale’s Trial Practice, is indisputably among the leading, first-chair trial attorneys of her generation, repeatedly gaining news media recognition for winning high-stakes commercial cases with significant impact on both well-known corporations and millions of consumers.
Among her recent trial wins was a complete defense verdict for client Reckitt Benckiser LLC in June of 2022 following a 17-day federal jury trial in the District of New Jersey. The plaintiff, Absorption Pharmaceuticals Inc. accused her client of fraud and violating trade secrets involving a sexual-performance topical spray, and sought nearly $500 million in damages.
Levin elicited direct testimony from several key Reckitt executives, including its leader of corporate development and its former product category director for sexual well-being products, the latter of whom was on the stand for three days.
In October 2021, Levin led a WilmerHale team that won an extraordinary victory in a breach of contract case against Cox Communications for her client T-Mobile in the Delaware Court of Chancery after expedited discovery and a five-day bench trial.
In a widely watched case with vast impact on the telecommunications industry, Levin was co-lead trial counsel representing T-Mobile in the landmark antitrust victory in February 2020 against a coalition of state attorneys general who sought to prevent T-Mobile’s merger with Sprint. The lawsuit was the first in which states joined to block a merger already approved by federal agencies. A victory for the states would have set a precedent impacting mergers for years.
Levin prepared and placed on the witness stand two of the trial’s most critical witnesses – then-T-Mobile-CEO John Legere and then-T-Mobile-President and current CEO Mike Sievert – both crucial in persuading the Court the merger should be completed.
For these two T-Mobile victories, Levin was named a Litigator of the Week in both 2020 and 2021 by the American Legal Media’s Litigation Daily, among the top accolades bestowed on trial lawyers by any news organization.
Levin has also long demonstrated commitment to improving the legal profession and system through her active leadership in prominent professional organizations.
She is currently a member of the Federal Bar Council’s Executive Committee and Audit Committee, having recently served as a Vice President of Federal Bar Council, as well as Vice President of the Federal Bar Foundation. The Council, focused on Courts within the Second Circuit, promotes excellence in federal practice and fellowship among federal practitioners; respectful, cordial relations between the bench and bar, and the rule of law. She was also a founding member of the Federal Bar Council Inn of Court and was its Membership Chair for many years.
She has also served as the New York City Bar Association’s Vice President, Chair of its Executive Committee, and member of its Audit Committee. During her tenure as Executive Committee Chair, the Committee reviewed and rated candidates for two vacancies in the New York State Court of Appeals as well as the nominee to the US Supreme Court, issued a policy statement calling for the end to the era of mass incarceration in the US and created a task force on that important issue.
Levin earned her BA summa cum laude in 1993 from University of Pennsylvania and her JD cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1996, where she served as Books and Commentaries Editor of the Harvard Law Review.