US: Chicago competition litigator returns to Kirkland & Ellis

Stephen Patton, the City of Chicago’s former top lawyer, has returned to practice at Kirkland & Ellis, a firm where he had spent over 30 years as a litigator.

Having begun his legal practice at Kirkland & Ellis’ Chicago office nearly 40 years ago, Stephen Patton has returned to his old firm after spending six years as corporation counsel and senior legal adviser to Chicago’s Mayor Rahm Emanuel and other city commissioners.

Appointed by the mayor in 2011, Patton oversaw the city’s legal department which has over 250 lawyers working on litigation, transactions and enforcing municipal code violations.

Among his work as the city’s top lawyer, in 2014 Patton’s department sued five pharmaceutical majors (Purdue Pharma, Cephalon, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Endo Health Solutionsand Actavis) for misrepresentations in the marketing of highly addictive opioids. That action led pharmaceutical manufacturer Pfizer, which was not named in the 2014 lawsuit and was not accused of any wrongdoing, to reach a breakthrough agreement with the city whereby it would impose stricter standards for the marketing and promotion of prescription opioids.

Kirkland last year represented Cephalon, which is owned by Israeli drug company Teva Pharmaceuticals, in its USD 125 million settlement with 48 US states for an antitrust suit brought over alleged pay-for-delay conduct. That settlement followed a larger USD 1.2 billion settlement the company reached in 2015 with the Federal Trade Commission.

Aside from Cephlon, of which he will steer clear, Patton says that following a thorough screening process, there are no other overlaps from his very city-specific work and what he will be doing at a Kirkland.

In a firm statement, Kirkland partner Mark Filip said: “Steve is a superb technical lawyer, and he also can counsel clients on all of the related aspects of high-stakes courtroom litigation, including board governance, communications and crisis management,” the latter of which the firm has a dedicated crisis communications and management practice which was formed by New York partner Lauren Casazza.

Full Content: Kirkland & Ellis LLP

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