Williams & Connolly LLP has wide-ranging experience in securities litigation, corporate directors' and officers' liability litigation, derivative actions, SEC enforcement proceedings and financial services litigation. The firm currently represents the auditors of HealthSouth in putative criminal and civil class action cases alleging widespread securities fraud and overstatement of earnings by at least $1.4 billion since 1999. Former top executives of a prominent energy company and of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac retained Williams & Connolly LLP lawyers to represent them in class action and other lawsuits concerning financial reporting and business practices.

Williams & Connolly lawyers argued that the statute of limitations barred a shareholder class action suit alleging options backdating against the co-founder of a global communications company, which resulted in dismissal of all claims. The firm successfully defended one of the law firms that represented Enron in a series of consolidated class actions alleging that the law firm assisted Enron in committing violations of the securities laws. After four years of intense litigation, the plaintiffs dropped their claims against the law firm with no settlement payment. Recently, the firm successfully upheld a dismissal on appeal to the Second Circuit of an exempt transaction under the securities rule on short-swing profits, on behalf of a private equity fund, and obtained summary judgment for a major internet company in another short-swing trading case.  For Friedman, Billings, Ramsey Group, one of the top 10 investment banks in the nation, Williams & Connolly lawyers obtained dismissal of multiple securities cases in the Southern District of New York.  The firm also recently obtained dismissal on all counts of a securities class action claim against a top executive of BearingPoint. Williams & Connolly LLP lawyers have also successfully defeated a number of shareholder derivative suits, including one against a major internet search engine on the ground that the shareholder failed to make pre-suit demand on the board of directors. In other securities actions, the firm has represented UBS, a prominent industrial waste management company, an electric company, Australia's largest telecommunications company, and an apparel company, among many others.

The firm also handles a broad range of litigation for large regional banks and other banking institutions. A partner in the firm has authored three treatises (Banking Crimes, Bank Directors', Officers' and Lawyers' Civil Liabilities, and Corporate Counsel Guidelines), and is frequently called on for advice and defense of litigation.