On the afternoon of April 18, 2023, Stephen Shackelford was pacing back and forth before an empty jury box in an otherwise packed Wilmington, Delaware courtroom. He was set to give the opening statement on behalf of Dominion Voting Systems in its groundbreaking defamation lawsuit against Fox News and Fox Corporation. Having been tapped by Dominion as co-lead counsel just a little over two years earlier, Shackelford and his Susman Godfrey team had crammed four or more years’ worth of litigation into two years’ time, relentlessly pushing to get the documents and deposition testimony that made Dominion’s case so strong while not letting the trial date slip. The parties had picked a jury and were ready to go.
It was not to be. Instead, Dominion secured a $787.5 million settlement with Fox, believed to be the largest defamation settlement in U.S. history. The Susman Godfrey legal team, working closely with talented co-counsel and a deeply involved and invested client, had secured both accountability and some measure of justice for Dominion. In legal filings in the months leading up to trial, the team exposed the truth of what went on at Fox in the weeks and months after the 2020 election, when Fox was publicly broadcasting horrible lies about Dominion while privately mocking those same lies and the individuals promoting them. The monetary settlement, as Shackelford explained at a press conference, was itself a critical form of accountability.
Lawdragon Honors
| Honor | Year | Practice |
|---|---|---|
| The 2026 Lawdragon 500 Leading Lawyers in America | 2026 | Litigation |
| The 2026 Lawdragon 500 Leading Litigators in America | 2026 | Complex Litigation |
| The 2025 Lawdragon 500 Leading Plaintiff Financial Lawyers | 2025 | Commercial Litigation |
| The 2025 Lawdragon 500 Global Plaintiff Lawyers | 2025 | International Litigation |
| The 2025 Lawdragon 500 Leading Lawyers in America | 2025 | Litigation |
| The 2025 Lawdragon 500 Leading Litigators in America | 2025 | Complex Litigation |
| The 2024 Lawdragon 500 Leading Plaintiff Financial Lawyers | 2024 | Commercial Litigation |
| The 2024 Lawdragon 500 Leading Lawyers in America | 2024 | Litigation |
| The 2024 Lawdragon 500 Leading Litigators in America | 2024 | Complex Litigation |
| The 2023 Lawdragon 500 Leading Plaintiff Financial Lawyers | 2023 | Commercial Litigation |
| The 2022 Lawdragon Global 100 Leaders in Litigation Finance | 2022 | Complex Litigation |
The case, and the settlement, made waves in the national media, receiving attention from The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, and NPR, among other leading news outlets. Shackelford was interviewed by MSNBC’s Morning Joe and MSNBC’s The Katie Phang Show (among other outlets) to discuss the milestone deal. He and his SG co-lead counsel were named Litigators of the Week by Law.com and Entertainment and Media Litigation MVP’s by Law360 for the result. Mediaiate, in its year-end story, Most Influential in News Media 2023, called Dominion the #1 “most influential in news media” and said “2023 was a year of chaos for the news industry; it may be remembered far more by the tribulations faced by major players than their victories. Of all those, one towered over the others: Dominion Voting Systems and its defamation suit against Fox News. In the end, a voting technology company slayed and humbled an American media titan.”
Shackelford continues to serve as co-lead counsel for Dominion’s related defamation lawsuits against Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Mike Lindell and MyPillow, Patrick Byrne, One America News Network (OAN), and Newsmax. In these matters, he and his team have already secured several important judicial victories, including defeating motions to dismiss by all these defendants, and securing dismissal of various counterclaims filed by some of them. Click here to see Shackelford interviewed on CNN in 2021 about the cases.
The Dominion cases are the latest in a series of major cases Shackelford has litigated and tried in federal and state courts across the United States. He has secured recoveries worth hundreds of millions of dollars for plaintiffs and protected defendants from billions of dollars in potential exposure.