Debevoise & Plimpton

Debevoise represented four members of the Sackler family, which controls Purdue Pharma, the company that developed and marketed the painkiller Oxycontin.[9] Purdue, along with other opioid makers, faced over 2,000 suits in 2019 by state, city, and county officials who blame prescription opiates for the death of thousands of Americans in the opioid epidemic.[9] For its legal work amid the opioid scandal, Purdue Pharma paid Debevoise the majority of its legal spend: more than $11.4 million out of a total of more than $17.5 million.[10]

Attorneys from Debevoise & Plimpton worked on behalf of prisoners held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba.[11][12][13] Jeff Lang, of Debevoise & Plimpton, was one of the first Guantanamo Bay attorneys to file an appeal in the Federal appeal court in Washington DC of prisoners' Combatant Status Review Tribunal proceedings. The Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 included provision for prisoners to challenge whether the Tribunals' decisions complied with the Tribunal's mandate. Charles "Cully" Stimson, then Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs, stirred controversy when he went on record criticizing the patriotism of law firms that allowed employees to assist Guantanamo prisoners: "corporate CEOs seeing this should ask firms to choose between lucrative retainers and representing terrorists."[14] Stimson's views were widely criticized. The Pentagon disavowed them, and Stimson resigned shortly thereafter.

• Take-Two Interactive Software, in defense of lawsuit filed by actress Lindsay Lohan, which claimed that Take-Two subsidiary Rockstar Games was in breach of her image rights, as basing its Grand Theft Auto V "Lacey Jonas" character on Lohan without her consent, citing similarities.[15] The case was dismissed on September 1, 2016,[16] then dismissed on Appeal, on March 29, 2018.[15][17]