Jim Sanders

Abstract

Certain companies in America—some more frequently than others—find themselves in such high-profile, high-stakes litigations that they need to assemble a cadre of trial lawyers with the experience, the savvy, and the gut-set to defend what some would consider the indefensible. These are lawyers who take the “bet-the-ranch” cases: the cases that, if lost, would have severely negative financial and reputational consequences for their corporate clients. James F. Sanders is one of those lawyers. Trained by Jim Neal, one of the most highly-regarded corporate defense lawyers of his time, Sanders’ most notorious client is likely Exxon Mobil Corporation, which he represented most publicly in the Valdez oil spill litigations and more recently in the 2006 Baltimore gasoline leak cases.