A. Joshua (“Josh”) Podoll’s practice focuses on complex civil litigation and government investigations. He has represented clients in bench and jury trials across the Country, including three overlapping trials against federal and state regulators defending a proposed merger, a five-month trial against the Washington Attorney General’s Office on behalf of a large healthcare company, and multiple trials on behalf of major financial institutions related to mortgages and mortgage-backed securities. Josh also guides clients through complex, multi-jurisdiction litigation including litigation formally consolidated through the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, state-court litigation proceeding alongside an active multidistrict proceeding, and informally coordinated litigation moving forward on parallel tracks. In addition to his litigation practice, Josh represents clients from a range of industries in investigations by State Attorneys General and by the United States Government.
Josh has experience with a range of substantive areas of law, including financial services, healthcare, antitrust, and securities. He frequently engages with State Attorneys General and Federal prosecutors, whether as opposing counsel in litigation or as counsel for a company or an individual in an investigation.
Josh was named to Benchmark Litigation’s 40 & Under list in 2024. Before joining Williams & Connolly, Josh graduated from Cornell University, summa cum laude, in 2008 with a double major in Classical Civilization and Comparative Literature. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 2011, where he helped to found—and later was Editor in Chief of—The Harvard Journal of Sports and Entertainment Law. Josh clerked for Judge Danny J. Boggs of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
Representative Experience
Though all cases vary and none is predictive, some of Josh's representative experience includes:
- Represented a pharmaceutical distributor in claims concerning opioid distribution.
- Represented a large bank in a jury trial against the government involving claims arising out of the financial crisis.
- Defended a media company in a defamation trial brought by the subject of an investigative report.
- Represented a corporation in a trial arising out of a dispute with minority shareholder of closely held company.
- Represented a pharmaceutical company in a Supreme Court case addressing the meaning of the on-sale bar after the America Invents Act.
- Represented a real-estate-investment trust in a Supreme Court case involving the definition of “whistleblower” in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
- Represented an accounting firm in a Supreme Court case involving the enforceability of a class-action waiver in an arbitration agreement.
- Represented a healthcare company in a Supreme Court case addressing when a statement of opinion may be actionable under Section 11 of the Securities Act of 1933.
- Briefed and argued an appeal in the D.C. Court of Appeals on behalf of a newspaper seeking access to court records.
- Represented a large bank in connection with fraud and breach-of-contract claims brought by a monoline insurer.
- Represented an investment fund suing a former investor for breach of a release.