Sonya D. Winner

Winner's clients hail from disparate industries, from banking to pharmaceuticals to professional sports teams. As a partner at Covington & Burling and chair of its consumer and class action litigation practice, she said her 30-plus years as a litigator have given her a useful depth of knowledge and the willingness to learn new things.

"These cases require a lot of the same basic instincts and experience, even if the facts are different. It helps that I don't come in with a lot of preconceptions," she said.

Recent major clients have included Navient Solutions Inc., formerly Sallie Mae Inc., Wells Fargo Bank, and the National Football League.

Winner is co-counsel for the NFL member clubs in a pending Northern District of California case. The plaintiffs are seeking a class action on behalf of thousands of retired NFL players, alleging the players were injured by improperly administered medications for decades. Evans et al. v. Arizona Cardinals Football Club LLC et al., 4:16-cv-01030 (N.D. Cal., filed March 1, 2016).

Winner principally authored the defendants' motion to dismiss, and the district court dismissed a majority of those claims in February.

The NFL lawsuit has attracted a lot of public and media attention, as have consumer class action suits involving her client Navient Solutions: Ubaldi v. Navient Solutions Inc., 11-cv-01320 (N.D. Cal. Dec. 19, 2014); Blyden v. Navient Corp. et al., 5:14-cv-2456 (9th Cir. Dec. 15, 2016); Beechum v. Navient Solutions Inc., 2:15-cv-8239-JGB (C.D. Cal. Sept. 21, 2016). All have been dismissed, with plaintiffs later dismissing their appeal.

The closely watched cases involved plaintiffs disputing the interest rates and fees on their student loans, asserting the banks that made the loans were not the true lenders, according to Winner.

"I handle big stakes cases. They're usually very complicated, and involve new issues that no one has dealt with before," she said. "I'd like to think that I bring a lot of creativity. I look outside the box to really solve a problem. That's what we ultimately are is problem solvers. Sometimes that means a win, and sometimes it means to resolve a case in a different way."

— Jennifer McEntee