Law360 profiled McGuireWoods Richmond partner Lucy Jewett Wheatley in a Sept. 12, 2022, story recognizing her as an Intellectual Property MVP. The legal newswire’s annual awards honor top attorneys for successes in complex global matters, record-setting deals and high-stakes litigation.
Wheatley is an intellectual property litigator and trial attorney who has won complex cases in jurisdictions across the country. In 2022, she won two federal jury trials in trademark infringement cases for firm clients Sprint Communications and Lexington Home Brands. A jury in Miami returned a verdict for Sprint and awarded $9.7 million in damages, while a jury in New York returned a verdict for Lexington and awarded over $2.5 million in damages.
Wheatley told Law360 that one of the things that sparked her love for disputes in the trademark, copyright and advertising areas is that such matters go beyond monetary compensation.
“Trademark cases are rarely about money, but defending the client’s reputation. That just feels powerful to me, that that’s what you’re fighting for,” Wheatley said.
This year, Wheatley also co-led teams representing Vans Inc. in two high-profile suits alleging trademark infringement of the company’s iconic sneaker designs. In one, a federal judge in New York issued a preliminary injunction to temporarily block a Brooklyn art collective from selling a shoe modeled on Van’s “Old Skool” sneaker, despite the defendant’s assertion that the shoes are parody protected by the First Amendment.
Wheatley told Law360 that she was out having ice cream with her children when she got the good news about the injunction, and that the victory impressed her kids.
“Vans, they actually think, is pretty cool. So that has earned me some cool points,” Wheatley said.