Founding Partner Beth Wilkinson has been named to the Forbes 2025 list of America’s Top Lawyers, a prestigious recognition honoring the nation’s most accomplished attorneys in private practice. Forbes has also previously identified her among the Best-In-State Lawyers in Washington, D.C. for Antitrust.
The Forbes list “is a roll call of high-caliber counsel, culled from a range of practice areas and specializations,” developed “through a rigorous, multi-stage process of researching, evaluating and rating thousands of candidates through nominations, direct outreach, recommendations and editorial review.” Nominees were evaluated not only based on their success, but on the complexity and significance of their work, and their influence on the legal profession as a whole.
Beth’s recognition reflects her decades-long track record as one of the country’s preeminent trial lawyers, known for taking bet-the-company cases into the courtroom—and winning. Beth recently defended Hewlett Packard Enterprise in its $14 billion acquisition of Juniper Networks against the DOJ’s antitrust challenge in federal court. In June, she successfully positioned the company to close the deal after the government agreed to a resolution on the eve of trial. In August of 2024, Beth scored a post-trial trial win for the NFL, convincing the trial judge to overturn the $4.7 billion jury verdict. After excluding both of plaintiffs’ experts’ testimony under Daubert, underpinned by Beth’s and Founding Partner Brian Stekloff’s devasting cross-examinations during trial, the court granted judgment as a matter of law, handing the NFL a complete victory. In May 2023, Beth led Microsoft’s defense of its $69 billion acquisition of videogame-maker Activision Blizzard, defeating the FTC’s attempt to enjoin the transaction and winning the second-largest merger trial in American history.
In addition to her courtroom successes, Beth has repeatedly been recognized for her excellence by leading legal publications and directories. Just this year, she has been profiled in Bloomberg Law’s “Unrivaled” series, named one of Global Competition Review’s “Women in Antitrust,” and honored by Benchmark again as one of the “Top 10 Women in Litigation.” Beth’s inclusion on Forbes’ list adds to these accomplishments and reflects Wilkinson Stekloff’s reputation as a litigation powerhouse.