Coyne

0

Joseph Coyne

Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton

Specialty: Criminal and commercial litigation

Law School: Stanford, 1980

For Joseph Coyne, litigation is war and it’s a kick. “I enjoy the give and take. There’s a saying that it’s the closest thing you can get to warfare in a modern society,” he said.

As a specialist in complex criminal and commercial litigation, Coyne was lead trial counsel for Northrop Grumman Corp. when the U.S. government sought $75 million in damages, alleging that the aerospace company had fraudulently overbilled the government on a major missile contract.

Coyne not only got Northrop off in a case that stretched from 1987 to 1996, he won the defense contractor $21 million in restitution. It was hailed as one of the 10 most significant defense verdicts in the country for 1996 by the National Law Journal.

The win was especially sweet, Coyne said, because of the close relationships he has developed with Northrop officials over the years. “It was a great victory. This lawsuit called into question the everyday actions of people that I’ve represented. People I knew. They’re friends and family,” he said.

Another recent high-profile case involved a lawsuit Coyne filed on behalf of Amarillo, Texas-based Cactus Feeders, one of the nation’s largest livestock companies, against Oprah Winfrey for libel and defamation. A guest on her show was expounding on the threat of mad cow disease, and as a result, cattle futures plummeted on the Chicago Board of Trade.

Coyne ultimately lost. “We were disappointed in the result. We were glad that we stood up for the principle of free speech, which implies freedom to tell the truth, not a freedom to tell lies,” he said.

Nola L. Sarkisian

No posts to display