James F. Hurst, Partner

Jim Hurst is a litigation partner who focuses on complex commercial and patent litigation. He is the chairman of the firm’s 100-lawyer intellectual property practice, which IP Law & Business routinely ranks among the most active in the United States.

Mr. Hurst has served as the lead trial attorney in contested hearings of every kind, including jury trials, bench trials, and arbitration hearings. He also has argued many appeals, including appeals before the Seventh Circuit, the D.C. Court of Appeals, the Ninth Circuit, and the Federal Circuit.

Mr. Hurst has handled a wide array of commercial cases, including patent, antitrust, insurance, class action, and employment cases. In one insurance coverage case arising from the Chicago Flood, Mr. Hurst’s client prevailed in a three-week trial involving a $151 million dispute. He is currently lead counsel for a Fortune 100 company in an ERISA class action arising from a $5 billion spinoff.

Mr. Hurst also has litigated dozens of patent cases concerning leading products with combined annual sales easily exceeding $15 billion. This includes cases involving the highest-selling cancer drug (Taxol), the then highest-selling AIDS drug (AZT), and the then highest-selling antidepressant (Prozac). The press called the Prozac case the “mother of all patent challenges,” which resulted in his client taking a significant portion of the $2 billion market for the drug. Fortune magazine said that the victory “stunned . . . the entire pharmaceutical industry.”

Mr. Hurst has served as lead counsel in patent cases involving a broad range of products, including pharmaceuticals, surgical devices, MRI systems, an Internet service platform, DNA probe products, glucose monitoring devices, and blood diagnostic tests. He also has examined and cross-examined dozens of technical experts, including two Nobel prize-winning chemists.

Because of his experience in patent litigation, Mr. Hurst is often interviewed and quoted in articles in the national media, including numerous articles in the Wall Street Journal and Business Week.

Mr. Hurst typically leads his cases from inception through trial to appeal. His appeals include:

• In Re Abbott Laboratories Norvir Antitrust Litigation, No. 08-17699 (argued; decision pending)
• Lupin v. Abbott Laboratories, No. 2007-1446 (argued; decision pending)
• Abbott Laboratories and Regents of University of California v. Dako, 517 F.2d 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (argued; prevailed on key patent)
• Caraco Pharmaceutical Laboratories v. Forest Laboratories, 527 F.3d 1278 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (argued; prevailed)
• Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical, Inc. v. Sun Pharmaceutical Ind., 476 F.3d 1321 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (argued; prevailed)
• Schor v. Abbott Laboratories, 457 F.3d 608 (7th Cir. 2006) (argued; prevailed)
• Medrad, Inc. v. MRI Devices Corp., 401 F. 3d 1313 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (argued; prevailed)
• Kensey Nash v. Abbott Laboratories, 57 Fed. Appx. 864 (Fed. Cir. 2003) (argued; prevailed)
• 3M v. Barr Laboratories, 289 F. 3d 775 (Fed. Cir. 2002) (argued; prevailed)
• Pharmachemie v. Barr Laboratories, 276 F. 3d 627 (D.C. Circuit 2002) (argued; mooted before decision)
• Eli Lilly v. Barr Laboratories, 251 F.3d 955 (Fed. Cir. 2001) (principal briefer; prevailed)

Honors and Awards

Mr. Hurst was named in the 2008 edition of “Lawdragon 500: Leading Lawyers in America,” an annual guide to the nation’s top lawyers and in 2009 as an Illinois Super Lawyer.

In 2002, Illinois’ leading bar journal selected Mr. Hurst as one of the top 40 attorneys in the state under the age of 40, describing him as “a terrifically bright, aggressive and relentless advocate for his clients.” The journal noted that this list included attorneys who have “achieved career heights that many more experienced litigators never achieve.”

Activities

In addition to chairing the firm’s intellectual property practice, Mr. Hurst also chairs the firm’s Associate Evaluation Committee and serves on the firm’s Finance Committee and Executive Committee.

Mr. Hurst is the William M. Trumbell Adjunct Professor of Law at Northwestern University School of Law, an appointment awarded for excellence in teaching. He teaches an appellate advocacy course and frequently lectures on a variety of other topics, including trial skills.

In 1990, Mr. Hurst served as a law clerk in the Northern District of Illinois for the Hon. Marvin E. Aspen.

Mr. Hurst’s pro bono cases have included representing a client in a successful age discrimination lawsuit, a church in a civil rights action, and many indigent defendants facing criminal charges ranging from distributing drugs to bank robbery to murder. In his most recent criminal case, he represented an indigent defendant in a first-degree murder trial that resulted in an acquittal despite the testimony of six prosecution witnesses against his client, including an eye witness and three other witnesses who claimed that his client had confessed.  

Education