Transportation
Our Transportation practice is comprised of a multidisciplinary bench of senior lawyers seamlessly providing comprehensive services across the industry, including aircraft (commercial, cargo, and corporate), automotive, freight rail, ports, toll roads/roadways, shipping, and related equipment.
Our transactional lawyers are adept at guiding operators, commercial/investment banks, investors, regulators and governments, and other deal stakeholders through complex domestic, cross-border, and multijurisdictional matters.
Our litigators focus on complex litigation, mass torts, product liability, and antitrust issues. We are counsel to national, international, and regional clients in a range of commercial disputes and transnational litigation, including jury and non-jury trials. We handle matters for national and international companies that involve foreign parties, including jurisdiction of U.S. courts, foreign sovereign immunity, forum non conveniens, service of process and discovery abroad, and multidistrict litigation.
We have established a reputation as a "go to" firm for crisis incidents; most recently having been involved in litigation resulting from widely reported events such as the Costa Concordia grounding and airplane incidents.
Experience Highlights
-
Sonaca Group, a Belgium-based aerostructure manufacturer, in its all-cash acquisition of St. Louis, Missouri-based LMI Aerospace Inc.
-
Toyota Motor Sales USA Inc. in diverse transactions, including agreements involving hydrogen fuel.
-
Norfolk Southern Railway, as co-counsel, in a nationwide class action antitrust lawsuit against major US railroads, and in multiple follow-on individual actions, alleging collusion to fix fuel surcharges on freight shipments.
-
Wheels Up, a membership-based private aviation company, in its placement of a nearly $1.4 billion order—believed to be largest general aviation propeller-driven aircraft order in history—with newly reorganized Beechcraft Corp., formerly Hawker Beechcraft.
-
Daher Aerospace in $130+ million commercial dispute in the Commercial Division of New York Supreme Court relating to breach of indemnity and fraud claims against seller arising from purchase of manufacturing facility.
-
Airbus in defense against 100+ personal injury claims in a class action and several opt-out personal injury actions pending in Halifax, Nova Scotia relating to the crash landing of an Air Canada A320 aircraft.
-
GlobalTranz as appellate counsel in a case attempting to impose carrier liability on a transportation broker filed in Sacramento County Superior Court.
-
Carnival Corporation and its subsidiaries as co-lead counsel in defense of multiple class actions and 200+ individual wrongful-death and personal injury claims arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. Obtained dismissal with prejudice or favorable resolution of all actions and established ground-breaking precedents in COVID claims.
-
Spirit AeroSystems Holdings in securing complete dismissal and victory when the Tenth Circuit affirmed dismissal of a securities class action complaint alleging clients made false and misleading statements that artificially inflated Spirit's stock price.
-
Ford Motor Company in regulatory litigation in the D.C. Circuit.
Focus Areas
Recognition
-
Chambers USATransportation: Aviation: Litigation (Nationwide) (2025)
-
The Legal 500 USTransport: Aviation and Air Travel - Regulation and Litigation (2025)
-
U.S. News & World Report and Best Lawyers"Best Law Firms" for Transportation Law (National, Houston) (2023)
