Emma Gilmore Honored as one of Benchmark Litigation’s Top 250 Women in Litigation for 2021

Pomerantz is proud to announce that Partner Emma Gilmore has been named one of the Top 250 Women in Litigation for 2021 by Benchmark Litigation.

To identify the “most distinguished women in the world of litigation,” Benchmark pursued a months-long research process that involved one-on-one interviews, client feedback surveys and in-depth investigations into individual litigators’ professional activities. To earn a place among the leading female litigators in the U.S., these attorneys participated in “some of the most impactful litigation matters in recent history” while also earning the “hard-won respect of their peers and clients.” They all share the distinction of being recognized as “top players in their respective fields.”

Benchmark Litigation noted:

Emma Gilmore of Pomerantz’s New York office is widely acclaimed for her regular and instrumental involvement in among the highest value of class-action litigation proceedings. She is currently serving as lead counsel in the firm’s high-profile class-action against Deutsche Bank regarding the financial institution’s deliberate enabling of high net-worth individuals, such as Jeffrey Epstein, to engage in illegal and salacious activities by means of the bank’s facilities. In addition to the crucial role that Gilmore plays at the firm, she also serves as a member of the New York City Bar Association’s Securities Litigation Committee.

In June 2021, Emma’s effort to spearhead the submission of an amicus brief to the Supreme Court for the closely watched Goldman Sachs Group Inc. et al v. Arkansas Teachers Retirement System case paid off with a 6-3 decision, in which the High Court ruled in accord with arguments presented by Pomerantz on the issue of evidence: whether, in order to rebut the presumption of reliance originated by the Court in the landmark Basic v. Levinson decision, defendants bear the burden of persuasion, or whether they bear only the much lower burden of production. At the time, Emma stated, “The Supreme Court decision is a significant victory to plaintiffs and against defendants seeking to demolish the presumption of reliance that has allowed aggrieved investors to pursue securities act violations as a class. Twenty-seven leading evidence scholars in the United States backed our position, and not a single one backed defendants’. Today’s precedential win paves the ground for more victories on behalf of defrauded investors.”

Also in June 2021, Emma scored a significant victory for investors in Arconic, Inc., when the court sustained the majority of plaintiffs’ claims in a securities class action that arose from the deadliest UK fire in more than a century. Plaintiffs alleged that during the class period, Arconic’s stock price was artificially inflated by the company’s misstatements about the safety of the insulating panels that were later implicated in the Grenfell Tower fire in London that killed 71 people in June 2017. While the defendants successfully moved to dismiss the first amended complaint, Emma filed a second amended complaint with amplified and new factual allegations, convincing the court to not only change its mind on many of the claims it had previously dismissed, but also to make new law in the plaintiffs’ favor on a number of significant issues. While the majority of courts find that risk disclosure statements are inactionable, the court sustained a risk disclosure statement, that “Arconic believes it has adopted appropriate risk management and compliance programs to address and reduce those risks.”

Emma, alongside Managing Partner Jeremy Lieberman, led Pomerantz’s high-profile securities class action against Petrobras, Brazil’s state-run oil giant, ultimately achieving what was the largest class action settlement in a decade: $3 billion. It is also the largest settlement ever involving a foreign issuer, the largest class action settlement in history not involving a restatement of financial reports, and the fifth largest class action settlement ever achieved in the United States. Judge Rakoff, in whose district court the case was litigated, commented that “the lawyers in [Petrobras] are some of the best lawyers in the United States, if not in the world,” and found that “class counsel’s performance was in many respects exceptional, with the result that, as noted, the class is poised to enjoy a substantially larger per share recovery than the recovery enjoyed by numerous large and sophisticated plaintiffs who separately settled their claims.”

Emma is regularly invited to speak about recent trends and developments in securities litigation. She was selected to serve on the New York City Bar Association’s Securities Litigation Committee for a three-year term that began in August 2019. In that capacity, she helps shape law and public policy by drafting reports, commenting and testifying on legislation, and submitting briefs, among other duties.

The National Law Journal named Emma an Elite Woman of the Plaintiffs’ Bar in 2021, an award that celebrates women lawyers who have consistently excelled in high-stakes matters on behalf of plaintiffs over the course of their careers. In 2020, Emma was named by Benchmark Litigation as one of the Top 250 Women in Litigation — an honor bestowed on only seven plaintiffs’ lawyers in the U.S. that year. Both the National Law Journal and the New York Law Journal honored her as a 2020 “Plaintiffs’ Lawyer Trailblazer.” In 2018, Emma was honored by Law360 as an MVP in Securities Litigation, part of an “elite slate of attorneys [who] have distinguished themselves from their peers by securing hard-earned successes in high-stakes litigation, complex global matters and record-breaking deals.” Only up to six attorneys nationwide are selected each year as MVPs in Securities Litigation. Emma is the first woman plaintiff attorney to receive this award since it was initiated in 2011. Emma has been honored since 2018 as a Super Lawyer®. She has been recognized by Lawdragon as one of the top 500 Leading Plaintiff Financial Lawyers from 2019 through 2021.

Read more about Emma Gilmore in her Firm profile.