Liat handles all types of civil and criminal litigation, at all stages. Her civil practice has covered a broad range of substantive areas, including products liability, environmental and mass tort, consumer fraud, trade secrets, and antitrust litigation. She has litigated high-stakes disputes across a variety of industries, including pharmaceutical medications, medical devices, health care, fire protection, and automotives. Liat also has significant experience in both civil and criminal appellate matters, including arguing before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the Maryland Court of Special Appeals.
Liat has experience with all aspects of litigation, including pleading attacks, discovery and related motion practice, dispositive motions, depositions, trial, appeals, and complex mediation and settlement. She is currently a member of the court-appointed Defense Coordination Committee in the In re: Aqueous Film-Forming Foam Products Liability (MDL No. 2873), one of the largest and most complex products liability/environmental MDLs pending in the country.
She has also represented both white collar and pro bono criminal defendants in trial and appellate proceedings, including before the United States Supreme Court. In 2020, she spent eight months seconded to the Maryland Office of the Public Defender, where she represented hundreds of individuals in pretrial and trial proceedings. Recently, she obtained voluntary dismissal of all criminal charges against her client in a complex theft-scheme matter.
Originally from Chicago, Illinois, Liat earned her bachelor’s degree, summa cum laude, from Washington University in St. Louis in 2009 where she triple-majored in Economics, Mathematics, and Political Science and was a member of the varsity track and field team. After college, Liat taught sixth grade mathematics in Houston, Texas through Teach for America. In 2014, she received her J.D., magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School. She joined Williams & Connolly in 2015 after clerking for Judge Ann Claire Williams on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
Liat is a member of the firm’s Diversity & Inclusion Committee and Women’s Initiative. Throughout her career, Liat has maintained an active pro bono practice, particularly in criminal defense. She has also enjoyed volunteering with Lawyers Without Borders to provide trial advocacy training programs in Africa in the past.