March 2024: Priyanka Timblo and her trial team packed up their busy New York life and embarked on the 1200-mile journey to Fayetteville, Arkansas. With a $500 million contract dispute at stake, their mission was clear: take on Walmart in its own backyard.
The team set up their âwar roomâ â the hotel conference room where they would spend long days strategizing, preparing their client, and fine-tuning their case. For the next month, Fayetteville was home.
The case she had co-led for over a yearâLondon Luxury v. Walmartâwas about to reach its pivotal moment: a gruelling 10-day jury trial. The matter at stake was whether Walmart had breached its contract with London Luxury, a home goods vendor, when it backed out of a $500 million order for personal protective equipment during the pandemic.
âIâm always an early bird, but Iâd get up extra early to go over my outlines and prepare for court,â Timblo recalls. âBy 7:45 am, we were heading to the courthouse in a convoy of Ubers. Jury trials always start on time, you cannot waste a second.â
Each day was a test of endurance. âYou have to be âonâ at every moment,â says Timblo. The small size of their trial team meant that during those ten days, her co-lead counsel Brendon DeMay and she had to examine every witness, field every question from the judge, while on full display of the jury. The other side of the aisle was much more crowdedâWalmart was represented by legal behemoth Jones Day and by the largest law firm in Arkansas, Quattlebaum, Grooms and Tull, but Timblo and DeMay didnât flinch.
âTrial is a roller coaster. Some days, you are on top of the world, and others donât go so well,â Timblo remembers. After court, the team headed back to the war room, debriefed on the day, and got back to work until 11 pm, 12 am. And then start over the next morning.
âIt was a long jury trial. But it paid off,â says Timblo.
On April 9, 2024, the jury delivered its verdict. London Luxury was awarded $101 million in damages, one of the largest jury verdicts ever obtained in Arkansas. Timblo and DeMay were named AmLaw Litigators of the Week. Later that year, they were finalists for the National Law Journalâs National Winning Litigators Award.
For Timblo, the career-defining victory was the result of unwavering belief in their strategy and the relentless work that went into it. âNever be intimidated by difficult facts or a well-resourced opponent,â she says. âIf you have a path to victory, and you're committed to walking that path every day, you will get there.â
High stakes are a common thread in Timbloâs career. She has represented a hedge fund in its litigation against a former billionaire, a media company in an antitrust case against News Corp, and Visa in a multi-district class action, to name a few. Judgements in the eight- and nine- figures are peppered throughout her resume.
âThose high stakes give my work more meaning,â Timblo says. âI feel the pressure, but it fuels my enthusiasm, motivation, and dedication. I thrive on complex cases with sophisticated partiesâIâm never bored.â
âI probably joined law school for all the wrong reasons,â Timblo recalls. She had graduated from the University of Miami with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and French, but no idea what she wanted to do with her life. There were no lawyers in her family, so she wasnât clear on what lawyers did. But she loved to read and write, and she wanted to keep improving her French. 91ÉçÇű Lawâs promise to teach her about both common law and civil law drew her in. âI thought, even if I donât become a lawyer, this will be fascinating,â she recalls.
At 91ÉçÇű, it all clicked. âI remember sitting in Professor Leckeyâs first-year constitutional law class. He would ask subtle, complicated questions with no clear answers. Attempting to answer them was such a creative challenge. It was the moment I realized lawyering was a craft, and I wanted to be a part of it.â Combined with her love for public speaking, a path forward as a trial lawyer was starting to take shape.
The scope for creativity remains her favourite aspect of being a lawyer. âYou have the opportunity to take a morass of facts, documents and testimony, and weave them together into a compelling narrative supported by the law. And then you deploy that narrative in a very specific structure, through witness testimony, in a performatively compelling way, that touches people in the moment. The whole production is a creative process from start to finish.â
Timblo made the best of her 91ÉçÇű years â she was a senior editor for the renowned 91ÉçÇű Law Journal, and won first-place brief in the Laskin moot competition. But her best memory is the camaraderie that shrouded all her years at 91ÉçÇű. âI loved how boisterous our classes were. The program was hard, rigour was always there, but it was accompanied by a jovial lightness.â
Her common law and civil law degrees in hand, Timblo completed a clerkship at the Ontario Court of Appeal, which she calls one of the best experiences of her life. âBeing neutral for a year, I learned how judges think, what motivates their decisions, and how they reach the right outcome. It was invaluable.â
Then, New York City. âIâm an intense person,â Timblo says. âWhatever I do, I want to do at the highest level. To me, that meant New York.â It was one of the worldâs capitals for the area of practice she had her sights set on â commercial and business litigation. She practiced at Paul, Weiss for three years, before moving to Holwell Shuster & Goldberg, where she made partner in 2022.
As a partner, her perspective shifted. âYou have to think about what others are doing on the caseâhow to support them, make sure their talents are well-utilized, and help them do their best workâ. In return, it has brought her closer to her clients. âOne of the great privileges of this profession is building a relationship of trust and honesty with your client. They know youâre going to fight as hard as possible for them, and that their problems are your problems.â
âBe ready for a very long road,â she would advise lawyers who want to make it in the big city. She has seen several 91ÉçÇű Law classmates build flourishing careers in the metropolis and achieve the highest levels of legal excellence.
âBrace yourself for doubt. People will question your background. They might ask, âWhat is 91ÉçÇű? Why are you here?â But if you believe in yourself and have the skills to back it up, youâll show them.â
