When the former Maynard Cooper and Nexsen Pruet firms came together, we assembled an appellate group that is second-to-none in its ability to help clients succeed. This team, which includes a deep bench of associates in the Litigation and Insurance groups who clerked for federal circuit judges and state Supreme Court justices, could have worked at any firm in the country, but we chose this firm because of values we share.

Unsurpassed success in the Southeast.

No appellate group brings more experience to bear in the Fourth and Eleventh Circuits. The legacy Nexsen side of our team changed the game when former Judge Billy Wilkins joined the firm after retiring from the Fourth Circuit. The many attorneys he mentored have made our firm the go-to in any high-stakes and high-profile Fourth Circuit case. Meanwhile, Alabama “tort hell” veteran Lee Bains and former U.S. Supreme Court clerk and Alabama Solicitor General John Neiman had helped legacy Maynard develop a first-tier-ranked appellate practice in the Eleventh Circuit, which has recently added a second former U.S. Supreme Court clerk, Will Courtney. Our team has repeatedly won reversals of jury verdicts in the Alabama state courts, including recent ones of  $18 million, $11.5 million, $10 million, $6 million, and $3 million. We have more former Alabama Supreme Court clerks—including Tommy Buck, Madison Peace Nye, Jordan LaPorta, and Zach Gillespie—than any other firm. Our recent Eleventh Circuit clerks include Mary Mangan, Reeves Jordan, Braden Morell, and Mollie Gillis Hughes.

National platform, national results.

Clients who have seen our cost-effective work in the southeast have had us go national. Recent years have seen our attorneys winning appeals for these clients in the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and—in a case orally argued in Pasadena by former Ninth Circuit clerk Caleb Wolanek—Ninth Circuits. When a federal court of appeals certified a question that could have upended the insurance industry to New York’s highest state court, our team orally argued the case in Albany and secured the win. We have repeatedly represented clients in California state court and have orally argued cases in the California Supreme Court. One national client has retained us to formulate a national litigation strategy in the U.S. Supreme Court and every federal circuit.

Transcending traditional appellate models.

One of the highest and best uses of our group is making sure things don’t go off the rails at trial. Both locally and nationally, our attorneys frequently serve as appellate counsel on trial teams—advising on strategic objections, issue preservation, and obtaining judgments as a matter of law on significant claims before they ever go to a jury.

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