Parker Profiled in Law360's "Most Admired Attorneys" Series

O'Melveny partner and antitrust practice co-chair Richard Parker was recently spotlighted as one of Law360's 10 Most Admired Competition Attorneys.

In the profile, published in the August 23 edition of Law360, Parker is said to have "has a wit that can leave judges doubled over with laughter and a razor-sharp mind for translating economic analysis into plain language."

Parker's antitrust practice co-chair, of counsel Tim Muris, is quoted as saying:  “Rich has a very unusual ability, especially in a courtroom, to translate complex antitrust and economic issues into a way that nonspecialists can understand them.  I've seen very few antitrust lawyers who can do that.  He's clearly on the short A list of prime antitrust litigators.”  Partner Michael Antalics (DC) calls Parker the best attorney he has ever seen in court.  "With a little bit of humor at the end of his point, he really cements the concept with the judge, and people in the courtroom are laughing hysterically as he does it,” he said.

Parker's circle of admirers extends far beyond O'Melveny.  “He's the top antitrust litigator in the country, in my opinion,” Honeywell Associate General Counsel and Chief Antitrust Counsel Gary Zanfagna told Law360.  “There's a lot of economic speak in the antitrust world.  Rich cuts through that.”  That sentiment is echoed by FTC Chief Trial Counsel J. Robert Robertson, who calls Parker "the top antitrust defense trial lawyer in the country.”  Claudia Higgins of Kaye Scholer LLP is quoted as saying:  “I found his unassuming nature to be very valuable.  People expect litigators to be bombastic and egotistical . . . but when someone comes in being unassuming and low-key and gentlemanly, it's much harder to fight against him.”

Colleagues also remark on Parker’s inimitable style.  “When he was at the FTC, we used to joke that the only way we could be sure it was Friday was if Parker was wearing cowboy boots with his suit,” former FTC colleague Bill Baer said. “That is his only concession to casual Fridays.  To this day.”

As an O'Melveny associate, Parker handled a series of high-profile antitrust cases against IBM Corp., in which he represented the company in nongovernmental suits brought by Memorex, Transamerica, and others.  He then moved to the FTC, where he served as Director of the Bureau of Competition.  While at the FTC, he was lead counsel for the FTC in a 1999 case against Intel and worked on the Exxon-Mobil and AOL-Time Warner merger cases.  Upon returning to O'Melveny in 2001, Parker, on behalf of Triton Coal, led a successful defense of the Arch Coal-Triton Coal merger against the FTC in federal court. 

 
Parker told Law360 that he considers the closing arguments in the Arch Coal case, along with those he delivered in merger cases involving Cardinal Health Corp and CCC Information Services, to be among the greatest tasks of his career.  “Putting together the summations in those cases was extremely challenging, and I thought they were great learning experiences,” he said.  “There's a level of complexity in these cases, but the key is to lay it out in simple fashion because there is an underlying logic and common sense.”  But it is the two successful death penalty cases in which he and a team of O'Melveny lawyers were able to turn death sentences into life sentences that Parker calls the most gratifying he has ever worked on.

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