Glenn D. Pomerantz

Last year, Pomerantz was retained by the U.S. Department of Justice to serve as co-lead trial counsel in its lawsuit seeking to block the merger of AT&T Inc. and T-Mobile USA Inc. on antitrust grounds.

The assignment required him to leave his firm and move to Washington, D.C. Then, AT&T - recognizing that it had significant hurdles to overcome, he said - abandoned the deal shortly before trial. Pomerantz then returned to Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP . United States v. AT&T Inc., 11-01560 (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, filed Aug. 31, 2011).

"It was a terrific and unusual opportunity for me," he said. "I was coming in as an outsider and handed my team. The case had already been filed and it was on a fast track toward trial. I had to get up to speed and learn both the case and about my team."

Pomerantz said that he found the experience "exhilarating."

"They don't hire someone from outside often," he said. "The antitrust division didn't have a lot of experience in trying cases at that time."

But, he added, "What they may have lacked in trial experience, they more than made up with antitrust smarts and a lot of hard work."

While he was able to get a good result without having to try the case, Pomerantz said, "I worked there for three months, figuring out the trial strategy. I felt like we would have been fully ready to go. We had a winnable case."

In other significant matters, Pomerantz is representing Universal Music Group Inc. - the largest record company in the United Sates - in connection with the Federal Trade Commission's now-pending review of the company's plans to acquire EMI Music Publishing, the fourth largest record company in the country.

Pomerantz also represented ABC in a lawsuit filed in May by CBS in an attempt to keep ABC from airing a new reality TV show, "The Glass House."

CBS claimed the program copied its long-running series, "Big Brother." In June, Pomerantz defeated the motion for a temporary restraining order, and the case was later dismissed. CBS Broadcasting Inc. v. American Broadcasting Cos., 12-CV-04073 (C.D. Cal.).

"This raises the interesting question of what, if anything, is copyrightable in reality television," Pomerantz said. "Because it's unscripted, it's very hard to meet the test of the law that was established to prove copyright infringement."

- PAT BRODERICK