For the fourth consecutive year, Beth Wilkinson was honored among Benchmark Litigation’s prestigious “Top 10 Women in Litigation,” an elite subset of the “Top 250 Women in Litigation” that celebrates recipients of the most robust and vocal “best-in-class” nominations throughout Benchmark’s research cycle. In addition, Partners Cali Arat, Keri Arnold, and Moira Penza were selected to the “Top 250 Women in Litigation,” a guide that honors women who have participated in some of the most impactful litigation matters in recent history, earning the hard-won respect of their peers and clients as top players in their respective fields.
Beth has served as lead counsel in over 50 jury trials, including numerous bet-the company, multibillion-dollar cases, developing an unrivaled record of victories in federal and state courts throughout the country. Beth’s career has taken her from the Army to a leading role in the prosecution of the Oklahoma City bombers to nationally recognized work as a litigation partner at two of the nation’s most prominent law firms, and to founding Wilkinson Stekloff. Most recently, Beth achieved a major victory for the NFL and its 32 member teams when a California federal judge granted the firm’s post-trial motion for judgment as a matter of law, overturning a jury’s earlier verdict in the class action lawsuit that had challenged the League’s collective licensing of broadcast rights to NFL games, including the exclusive distributorship arrangement with DIRECTV for its Sunday Ticket subscription. Beth also recently served as lead trial counsel for Microsoft in the FTC’s challenge to Microsoft’s $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard — the second-largest merger trial in American history and the biggest involving a technology company.
Since joining the firm at its founding in 2016, Cali has served as a key member of more than half of the firm’s trial teams, including most recently leading the representation of Monsanto in the first hybrid trial involving claims that exposure to PCBs and Roundup-branded products, both manufactured by Monsanto, cause Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma. Cali has helped to develop and execute successful trial strategies for corporate clients across a diverse set of industries, from pharmaceuticals to sports to social media. Her experience includes seven jury trials, three of which were federal multi-district litigation bellwether cases, two of which were bench trials, and two of which were in-person jury trials during the COVID-19 pandemic. She has argued numerous motions in state and federal courts at the trial and appellate level.
Keri Arnold is a trial attorney with over twenty years’ experience defending companies in product liability, environmental, and complex commercial litigation. She has tried over a dozen cases to verdict, including seven as first-chair trial counsel, on behalf of major pharmaceutical, tobacco, and energy companies. Keri has supervised the management and discovery of mass actions pending in state and federal courts and has extensive experience developing complex medical and scientific evidence for presentation at trial. In addition to serving as a member of the trial team that secured a groundbreaking victory for Microsoft in the FTC’s challenge to Microsoft’s $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision, Keri recently represented a major chemical manufacturer in the Aqueous Film-Forming Foams (AFFF) Products Liability Litigation (MDL No. 2873) in the District of South Carolina. The litigation, involving alleged PFAS groundwater contamination from the use of AFFF, is considered the most significant PFAS litigation in the country.
First and foremost a trial lawyer, Moira has a record of success leading and winning high-stakes civil and criminal cases. Moira recently served as trial counsel defending Altria Group, Inc. and certain of its subsidiaries in the first government entity bellwether trial, brought by the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD), in multi-district litigation arising out of Altria’s minority investment in JUUL Labs, Inc. Moira played a substantial role at trial, conducting the cross-examinations of two of plaintiffs’ expert witnesses. Just one day after SFUSD rested its case, the SFUSD and MDL plaintiffs agreed to a global settlement with Altria that resolved the personal injury, consumer class action, and government entity cases brought in over 6,000 e-vapor cases in state and federal courts.