Cindy L. Sobel

“The energy, humor, and drive for equity that Cindy brings to her role are true assets to the firm and her colleagues.” -The Chicago Daily Law Bulletin and Chicago Lawyer magazine

Cindy Sobel serves as the firm’s hiring partner and concentrates her practice on complex financial cases for Fortune 100 companies, accounting firms, hedge funds, insurance companies, and private equity firms. Before practicing law, Cindy was an accountant and tax consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers, where she worked in the international tax and transfer pricing groups. Cindy uses her accounting background to simplify complicated financial transactions, damages, and other related issues for judges and juries.

Cindy has significant trial experience in state and federal courts nationwide. Most recently, Cindy represented Pratt & Whitney in a multi-week bench trial regarding the Department of Defense’s $210 million claim related to Cost Accounting Standards. Cindy also served as trial counsel in a series of residential mortgage-backed securities cases, including a matter for MassMutual against Credit Suisse that settled four weeks into trial.

Cindy’s drive for justice extends well beyond her legal work, as she leverages her experience to mentor others and to foster diversity and inclusion in her community. Cindy is an active member of the Advisory Council for Prep for Prep, a New York-based organization devoted to creating a generation of diverse leaders. She also served as a fellow for the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity in 2018 and on the Chicago board of directors for Step Up from 2015 to 2019, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing mentorship and after-school programming to girls in under-resourced communities. Cindy chaired the Step Up board in 2018. Before joining Bartlit Beck, Cindy established a domestic violence clinic in collaboration with the City of Chicago that trained lawyers to represent victims of domestic violence in obtaining emergency and plenary orders of protection. The clinic still exists and has been used as a model by several Chicago law firms.

Representative Matters

United States ex rel. Poehling v. UnitedHealthCare (C.D. Cal.) 
Represents United HealthCare in False Claims Act litigation related to United’s Medicare Advantage health plans.

Appvion, Inc. Retirement Savings and Employee Stock Ownership Plan v. PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (Outagamie County, WI)
Trial counsel for PwC in case related to allegedly inflated valuations of the Appvion Employee Stock Ownership Plan. Plaintiff alleged PwC and others schemed to inflate the value of Appvion at the expense of its employee-owners. Successfully moved to dismiss all claims against PwC. Plaintiff’s appeal of the trial court’s dismissal order remains pending.

Nigel John Eccles et al. v. Shamrock Capital Advisors, LLC, et al. (State Court, New York)
Trial counsel for FanDuel founders and more than 120 former employees and angel investors in lawsuit against late-stage private equity investors and six of the seven former members of the board of directors of FanDuel. The suit alleges that the private equity investors and former board members wiped out the founders, former employees, and angel investors' in the company by breaching their fiduciary duties and unjustly enriching themselves in the wake of a 2018 merger between FanDuel and European bookmaker Paddy Power Betfair. Read the Complaint here, coverage in the Wall Street Journal here, and coverage in Reuters here.

Appeal of Pratt & Whitney (Armed Services Board of Contract Appeal)
Represented Pratt in three-week bench trial of the Department of Defense's $210 million claim that Pratt breached government contracts and violated Cost Accounting Standards in accounting for jet-engine parts made by Pratt's risk- and revenue-sharing partners. The trial court rejected the DoD’s primary claim and otherwise ruled substantially in Pratt’s favor.

Elliott Associates L.P. v. AbbVie Inc. (Circuit Court, Chicago, Illinois)
Lead counsel for various investment funds in fraud actions arising from AbbVie's aborted $50 billion acquisition of Shire in 2014. 

Massachusetts Mutual Life Ins. Co. Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities Litigation (Federal District Court, District of Massachusetts)
Represented MassMutual in its actions under the Massachusetts Uniform Securities Act, against underwriters Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs, arising from their sales of residential mortgage-backed securities to MassMutual in 2005-2007. Credit Suisse settled after four weeks of trial, taking an additional $79.5 million charge to earnings because of the settlement payment. Goldman Sachs settled shortly thereafter.

Deutsche Bank AG v. Deloitte & Touche LLP; Neil F. Luria v. Deloitte & Touche LLP; Ocala Funding, LLC v. Deloitte & Touche LLP (Circuit Court, Miami-Dade County, Florida)
National lead trial counsel representing Deloitte & Touche in a multi-billion dollar accounting malpractice case concerning the failure of Taylor Bean & Whitaker, formerly one of the largest mortgage origination companies in the nation.

Hedge Fund Litigation Counseling – Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities
Counsel to numerous hedge funds on issues involving rights and remedies of securitization certificate holders and securitization trusts, including review of documentation, design of legal strategies, and negotiation with adverse parties.

Aspirin Combination Products Litigation
Represented Bayer in an MDL comprised of eleven alleged class actions relating to Bayer aspirin combination products. MDL in Eastern District of New York.

Confidential Arbitration
Represented Fortune 500 medical device manufacturer in dispute with private equity firm stemming from the firm's acquisition of client's subsidiary. Case settled favorably.

ACP Master, Ltd., et al. v. Bank of America, N.A., et al.
Represented hedge funds in action for breach of contract against lenders that failed to fund the construction of the Fontainebleau casino in Las Vegas. Case filed in New York 2009.

Private Equity Fund Arbitration
Represented private equity fund buyer of company in post-closing and indemnification dispute with private equity fund seller of company. Case settled 2009.

Amaranth LLC v. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.
Represented hedge fund and trading advisor in their action for breach of contract and tortious interference with prospective economic advantage against investment bank, commercial bank, and futures commission merchant.

DK Acquisition Partners, L.P., et al. v. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., et al.
Represented holders of more than $1 billion in Enron bank debt in their action against J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Citigroup, and affiliates, alleging fraud and other wrongdoing based on defendants' knowledge of and participation in scheme to conceal Enron's true financial condition. Case settled 2009.

Racepoint Partners LLC v. JPMorgan Chase Bank
Represented holders of more than $1 billion in Enron bonds in their action against JPMorgan Chase Bank as indenture trustee, alleging breach of contract, breach of implied duty of good faith and fair dealing, and breach of fiduciary duty.

Bayer Pharma v. Watson & Lupin Ltd. (District of Delaware)
Trial counsel for Bayer in Hatch-Waxman litigation against challengers seeking to market a generic version of the oral contraceptive Natazia®. Complete trial victory for Bayer.
Read more here.

Las Vegas Hepatitis C Litigation (District Court, Clark County Nevada, 2013-2014)
Lead counsel and trial counsel for defendants. Provided strategic direction and coordinated trial teams in litigation encompassing over forty individual cases, pending before approximately twenty different judges in state court in Las Vegas. Plaintiffs were individuals who claimed to have contracted Hepatitis C during endoscopy procedures performed at clinics that were on defendants' networks of approved healthcare providers. Defendants were health plans and other entities affiliated with UnitedHealthcare.

• Martin v. Pacificare of Nevada Trial counsel for PacifiCare of Nevada on claims for negligence and punitive damages. Worked extensively on trial witness preparation and direct examination outlines. Tried case to verdict. The jury found compensatory damages substantially below the amount awarded in previous trials arising out of the same events and denied plaintiffs' claim for punitive damages.

Rago v. Federal Signal
Represented Federal Signal at trial of product liability claims made by firefighters who allege that they have noise-induced hearing loss from exposure to sirens. 

Confidential v. Novartis
Represented Novartis in an arbitration involving claims that Novartis breached a contract for the development of a drug compound licensed from a third party.

Professional Activities and Community Service

Advisory Council for Prep for Prep

Step Up, Executive Committee Member

National Association of Women Lawyers, Member

Leadership Council on Legal Diversity (2018)