Dan K Webb

Practice Areas

Dan Webb, co-executive chairman of Winston & Strawn, is one of the most distinguished and sought-after trial lawyers in the United States. He has tried more than 100 jury cases involving a wide variety of claims and been named a fellow of the prestigious American College of Trial Lawyers. Notably, Dan achieved international acclaim for his successful prosecution of retired Admiral John Poindexter in the Iran-Contra Affair. He served as the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois and has served in special prosecutor or similar roles on several occasions, including for the successful prosecution of actor Jussie Smollett in Chicago, for which he was named Am Law’s “Litigator of the Week” in December 2021.

Dan Webb’s trial practice concentrates in the areas of major commercial, civil, regulatory, and white collar criminal cases. He has tried more than 100 jury cases, including numerous successful complex commercial and white collar criminal trials, representing, on several occasions, large corporations in jury trials lasting two months or longer. 

He received national attention for his work as lead trial counsel for General Electric, successfully defending it against criminal price-fixing allegations related to industrial diamonds, as well as for his representations of Microsoft Corp. in its antitrust litigation, Philip Morris in its sprawling tobacco-related litigation, and Verizon in obtaining a US$58M verdict in a patent litigation matter.

Dan delivered a historic win for client BPI in its defamation action against ABC News relating to a series of reports by ABC News in which its broadcasters referred to BPI’s product in a defamatory way, leading BPI to massive financial losses. With BPI seeking over US$1.9B in actual damages, the case has been widely reported as the “largest” and “one of the most significant” defamation cases in U.S. history. After weeks of putting on witnesses to prove ABC intentionally and knowingly made nearly 200 hundred false statements about BPI and its product and with our team about to put on damages witnesses, the case settled. The settlement vindicated BPI and put the company on the path to recovery. 

A team of Winston attorneys, led by Dan, conducted an internal investigation at the New York Stock Exchange related to the compensation of its former Chairman and CEO, Richard A. Grasso. Following Winston's investigation, summarized in what is now known as the “Webb Report,” the New York Attorney General’s Office sued Grasso for the return of more than US$120 million in compensation.

Other successes for clients in securities matters include obtaining favorable settlements for Ernst & Young in a securities class action brought by stockholders of HealthSouth Corporation and for Cisco Systems in a securities class action brought by the Plumbers & Pipefitters National Pension Fund and obtaining summary judgment for Scientific-Atlanta in a securities fraud class action.

On the antitrust front, Dan successfully represented Wyeth (Pfizer) against an antitrust class action relating to its patented potassium chloride product K-Dur®, C.R. Bard against claims of anti-competitive conduct relating to sales contracts with group purchasing organizations for catheters, and Monsanto against the antitrust claims brought by competitor DuPont relating to Monsanto’s patented Roundup Ready® weed killer.

As for other class action experience, one of Dan’s most significant cases was for Philip Morris. He served as lead trial counsel in Engle, et al. v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, et al., the first—and to date, only—class action brought by cigarette smokers for punitive damages to be tried to verdict. He also served as chief trial counsel for Lexecon in another high-profile class action civil trial that resulted from the failure of Lincoln Savings, the S&L institution owned and operated by Charles Keating, Jr.