Kelley Drye Named Law360 “Consumer Protection Practice Group of the Year”
Kelley Drye has been named 2017 Law360 “Consumer Protection Practice Group of the Year,” an honor that recognizes the firm’s market-leading Advertising Law and Litigation Groups and the noteworthy victories those Kelley Drye attorneys achieved last year. Law360’s annual “Practice Group of the Year” Awards honor the law firms behind landmark matters that resonated throughout the legal industry over the past year.
Law360 highlighted the firm’s unique offering—a cross-practice team blending regulatory and litigation experience across all areas of advertising and marketing, privacy, retailing practices, telephone and text marketing, fraud, and product liability—for its success in high-stakes disputes. When the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) brought false advertising claims in the Southern District of New York against the maker of a popular dietary supplement, Advertising Law partner John Villafranco won an unheard-of dismissal of those claims at the pleading stage. Kelley Drye litigators also defeated comparison price claims for two large retailers and successfully defended those dismissals before both the First and Sixth Circuits; defeated at the pleading stage proposed class actions against multiple consumer products companies alleging consumer fraud and privacy/Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) violations; and beat back other plaintiffs’ motions for class certification.
Law360’s profile highlighted the work of Villafranco, who explained that “challenges in consumer protection law can arise from anywhere — from the FTC to state attorneys general and consumer class actions to industry self-regulation … [and] Kelley Drye is positioned to handle them all.” Kelley Drye defeated class actions at the pleading stage in multiple cases and successfully defended those wins on appeal in 2017, and discussed several other Kelley Drye wins in the consumer protection space, such as Litigation Practice chair Michael Lynch’s and litigation partner Joe Boyle’s favorable settlement of several class actions related to the advertising of Riddell’s Revolution® football helmets, and partner Lauri Mazzuchetti’s multiple wins in TCPA and consumer fraud cases.
Kelley Drye’s Advertising and Marketing attorneys, led by practice chair Christie Thompson, work exclusively in advertising, marketing, promotions and privacy law―all day, every day―providing our global brands and Fortune 500 companies with across-the-board legal support for all of their advertising and privacy matters. Our attorneys have a long and successful record of advocating for our clients in state and federal courts across the country, before the National Advertising Division (NAD), FTC, the offices of state Attorneys General, and the broadcast networks.
Kelley Drye’s Consumer Class Action group, led by Jon Cooperman, defends companies across a range of industries—consumer products; technology and telecommunications; fashion and retail; financial services; entertainment and media; and food, drug and dietary supplements, to name a few—in state and federal consumer class actions involving advertising and labeling claims, deceptive trade practices, promotional “sale” pricing practices, telemarketing and the TCPA, call monitoring practices, rebate policies and e-mail marketing campaigns.