Ellen T. Noteware

Biography

Ellen Noteware is a Shareholder and Chair of the Firm’s Pro Bono program. A seasoned litigator, she has secured verdicts and settlements totaling more than $4 billion on behalf of her clients in a variety of complex cases. She is recognized as a Lawdragon Leading Plaintiff Financial Lawyer and a Super Lawyer.

In recent years, Ms. Noteware has concentrated her efforts on complex antitrust cases. She represents drug purchasers in cases alleging that manufacturers wrongfully suppressed generic drug competition, many of which resulted in substantial cash settlements, often on the eve of trial, including, In re: Namenda Direct Purchaser Antitrust Litigation, (S.D.N.Y.) ($750 million); In re Suboxone (E.D. Pa.) ($385 million); In re Zetia (E.D.Va) (confidential non-class settlement) In re Loestrin 24 Fe Antitrust Litigation, (D.R.I.) ($120 million); In re Celebrex, (E.D. Va.) ($95 million); In re Lipitor Antitrust Litig., (D.N.J.) ($93 million); and Meijer, Inc. v. Abbott Laboratories, (N.D. Cal.) (Norvir) ($52 million).

Ms. Noteware also represents a class of elite mixed martial arts fighters against the UFC which is currently awaiting final approval of a $375 million settlement agreed to after nearly all pretrial procedures were completed and the case was trial ready. She represents a class of broiler chicken farmers in a suit against the major chicken processing companies for colluding to suppress compensation, resulting in $169 million in settlements to date. And, Ms. Noteware represents a class of students in Henry v. Brown University (N.D. Ill.), a case alleging that seventeen elite universities colluded to artificially depress financial aid awards, resulting in $284 million in settlements to date.

Ms. Noteware earned her most notable trial victory in Cook v. Rockwell Int’l Corp. (D. Colo.), in which a jury awarded her clients – thousands of people who owned property near the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons facility – $554 million after a four-month trial. Along with the team, Ms. Noteware won the “Trial Lawyer of the Year” award from the Public Justice Foundation for her efforts.

Ms. Noteware has also successfully litigated employment, consumer, securities, and breach fiduciary duty class action cases under the Employee Retirement Income Securities Act (“ERISA”). In the Qwest securities litigation, Ms. Noteware secured a $45 million opt-out settlement for the State of New Jersey. Her ERISA settlements include In re Lucent Technologies, Inc. ERISA Litigation (D.N.J.) ($69 million settlement); and  In re Nortel Networks Corp. ERISA Litigation (M.D. Tenn.) ($21 million settlement).

Ms. Noteware is a graduate of Cornell University (B.S. 1989) and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School (J.D. 1993) where she won the Daniel H. Grady Prize for the highest grade point average in her class, served as Managing Editor of the Law Review, and earned Order of the Coif honors. Ms. Noteware clerked for the Honorable J. Calvitt Clarke, Jr. in the Eastern District of Virginia. She is currently a member of the Pennsylvania, New York, and District of Columbia bars and is the mother of two grown daughters and an adorable Shiba Inu.