Paramount has hired trial lawyer Beth Wilkinson to defend its $81 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery after a difficult July hearing with state attorneys general. Wilkinson, 63, is simultaneously representing Nexstar Media Group in its $6.2 billion Tegna acquisition and Walt Disney Co. in its FCC broadcast license dispute. Known for distilling complex cases into simple narratives, she has won roughly 60 cases with only four jury losses and no client judgments paid. Her clients include the NFL, Pfizer, and Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings.

Wilkinson left Paul Weiss to found her Washington, D.C. firm a decade ago. She prepares for Paramount's March trial despite the company's preference to settle and avoid over $1 billion in fees. For Disney, she filed suit against the FCC alleging unconstitutional regulation of "The View." Her jury selection playbook frames cases emotionally, famously asking jurors in tobacco litigation if they could defend a verdict for Philip Morris at their places of worship.

The daughter of a nuclear submarine captain from Ledyard, Conn., Wilkinson graduated Princeton on an ROTC scholarship and earned her law degree from University of Virginia. She served as an Army lawyer at the Pentagon, then prosecuted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh at age 34, securing the death penalty. Merrick Garland officiated her Nantucket, Mass. wedding to NBC News journalist David Gregory.