Derek J. Meyer (“Rick”) is a partner in the law firm of McDermott Will & Emery LLP and is based in the Firm’s Chicago office. He has tried or arbitrated more than 25 large matters in Illinois, New York, Florida, California, Colorado, Georgia, Delaware, Utah and Iowa. He has been cited by the Illinois Law Bulletin for his “extraordinary creativity” and “unusual ability to handle all of the litigation and negotiation aspects of a series of highly complex problems under trying procedural circumstances.”
Representative Experience
- 2008 Trials: In September 2008, Rick won a jury trial in Broward County, Florida on behalf of an insurer on its fraud claim against the defendant software vendor. In July 2008, Rick similarly first-chaired and won a critical baseball style arbitration before the AAA’s International Centre for Dispute Resolution setting sales targets under a marketing agreement between a domestic wine marketing company and an Australian alcoholic beverage company. This case has important precedential value for the marketing company relative to its other suppliers, with whom it has entered nearly identical contracts.
- Intellectual Property: Rick and his partner, Jeff Stone, won a “bet the company” patent dispute in December 2007 on behalf of a biotech company in an arbitration bought by the licensor of certain patents relevant to the treatment of disease by targeting and destroying proteins. Rick also first chaired and won a patent licensing dispute in 2004 between two different biotech companies relating to similar patents.
- Class Actions: Rick conceived and first-chaired a $410 million interpleader action filed by the United States’ leading tobacco companies against the hundreds of plaintiffs’ attorneys who represented the States in the tobacco litigation of the late 1990s. The successful resolution of this action involved the entry of two separate injunctions enjoining competing lawsuits, the certification of three defendant classes, and the dismissal with prejudice of $2.8 billion in counterclaims without payment by the plaintiff tobacco companies. In 2007, Rick also served as lead national defense counsel for an author in over fifteen consolidated class actions relating to the sale of his book, A Million Little Pieces.
- Professional Liability: Rick first-chaired the defense of one of the United States’ largest law firms in thirteen related arbitrations alleging securities fraud. After four years defending the claims of more than 300 separate plaintiffs seeking over $200 million, the matters settled for an amount roughly equal to future defense costs. Rick also serves as lead national defense counsel in asbestos litigation for a professional entity.
- Injunctive relief: On numerous occasions since 2001, Rick successfully obtained a TRO, preliminary injunction and/or a permanent injunction barring wineries from terminating long-term agreements with the firm’s client, a wine marketing company. In 2006, Rick also defeated an effort by an incumbent to enjoin a leading pharmaceutical provider from selling pharmaceutical products to Cook County, Illinois pursuant to a new $276 million contract.
- Bankruptcy: Rick serves as one of the lead trial counsel challenging on behalf of insurers a collusive pre-packaged bankruptcy plan concocted by the asbestos plaintiffs’ bar and a floor tile manufacturer. In 2007, the insurers obtained summary judgment that the debtors’ reorganization plan was unconfirmable as a matter of law and the debtors’ subsequent efforts to implement a new plan have failed. Rick has also prosecuted adversary proceedings within bankruptcies on many occasions.
- Appellate: Rick successfully argued a $625 million appeal before the Supreme Court of New York, First Department on behalf of three leading tobacco companies. In addition, Rick was invited to served as one of two lawyers who conducted a mock appellate argument before a panel of judges from the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit at the ABA’s annual convention in 2005.
Rick has also authored a number of articles, including “Express Federal Preemption: Where Is It After Cipollone?” 59 Defense Counsel Journal 491 (October 1992); “Preemption Succeeds With OTC Drug Labeling,” 6 Leader’s Product Liability Law and Strategy 1 (December 1991); and “Redefining the New Value Exception to the Absolute Priority Rule in Light of the Creditors’ Bargain Model,” 24 Indiana Law Review 417 (1991). He is also the principal author of the “Discovery” chapter for the Illinois Institute for Continuing Legal Education’s treatise, Federal Civil Practice (2000 & Supp. 2006).
Rick was listed in Law Bulletin Publishing Company’s 2005 “40 Under 40” feature publication.
Education
- Indiana University School of Law, J.D. ( magna cum laude), 1991
- Indiana University, B.S., 1988
