Noelle M. Reed is the head of Skadden’s Houston office and the Houston litigation practice. She has extensive experience representing clients in complex litigation in state and federal trial and appellate courts and arbitrations.
Reed was a trial attorney with the Department of Justice’s Terrorism and Violent Crime Division and an assistant United States attorney in the Southern District of Texas. As a prosecutor, she handled criminal cases involving terrorism, public corruption, fraud, organized crime, drug trafficking, money laundering, environmental violations and tax offenses.
Reed’s practice includes representing corporations and individuals in a variety of complex civil and criminal litigation matters. She represents clients as plaintiffs and defendants and has served as lead trial counsel in more than 40 jury trials and arbitrations. She also regularly represents companies and their directors, officers and financial advisors in multiforum securities and fiduciary duty cases arising from mergers and acquisitions. She has represented clients in acquisition-related cases involving more than 100 billion dollars in transaction value.
Lawdragon Honors
Reed recently served as a member of Skadden’s Policy Committee, the firm’s governing body, and is a member of the American Law Institute. During Reed’s tenure as a prosecutor, she served as a trial advocacy instructor at the National Trial Advocacy Center, which provides litigation training to all federal prosecutors, and as an instructor at the International Law Enforcement Academy in Budapest, Hungary.
Representative matters in which Reed has been involved include:
- Aspen Technology, Inc. v. M3 Technology. As lead trial counsel, Reed obtained a $12 million jury verdict and a permanent injunction for client Aspen Technology on its copyright, trade secret misappropriation and tortious interference claims. She successfully defended the verdict on appeal to the Fifth Circuit.
- Oxbow Calcining v. Port Arthur Steam Energy. Reed served as co-lead counsel in the successful arbitration of contract claims brought by and against client Port Arthur Steam Energy. She successfully defended the arbitration award through appeal to the Texas Supreme Court.
- Archer Well Company v. GW Holdings. Reed was lead counsel for Archer Well in this contract and securities litigation in the Southern District of New York arising from Archer’s acquisition of five companies.
- Virgin Mobile. As lead trial counsel for Virgin Mobile, Reed obtained permanent injunctions against numerous defendants in a series of trademark infringement cases arising from the hacking of Virgin Mobile cellular phones.
- PISC v. Woolslayer. As lead trial counsel, Reed obtained a directed verdict on behalf of client Woolslayer in the jury trial of a contract dispute.