Cathleen M. Devlin

Cathleen Devlin is a vice chair of Saul Ewing’s Litigation Department. She handles business litigation matters in the state and federal courts, including complex commercial contract, tort and fraud matters and environmental disputes. Ms. Devlin has extensive trial experience, including recent appearances as lead counsel in the trial of an employee stock option contract dispute in state court in Pittsburgh, and as co-lead counsel in a two-week bench trial in a CERCLA cost recovery action in federal court in New York. Ms. Devlin has also served as co-lead counsel in the defense of a Fortune 500 company and two former corporate officers in a six-month bench trial in New Jersey state court involving fraud and breach of contract claims arising from a joint venture’s formation, operation and dissolution. She has significant experience in alternative dispute resolution (ADR) contexts, including AAA and court-annexed arbitration and mediation proceedings. She has achieved favorable outcomes for clients by way of trial judgments, arbitration awards and negotiated settlements.

Additionally, Ms. Devlin focuses her practice on representing clients in conjunction with large-scale corporate investigations. In this regard, Ms. Devlin recently played a key role in Saul Ewing’s representation of a bankruptcy court-appointed independent examiner investigating creditors’ allegations of wrongdoing in the $3.6 billion leveraged buyout of the Tribune Company in 2007. She also played a significant role in the firm’s representation of an SEC-appointed independent examiner investigating Time Warner/AOL’s historical accounting for online advertising revenues, which led to a revenue restatement of over $500 million by the company.

Ms. Devlin has extensive experience litigating environmental matters and representing corporate clients identified as potentially responsible parties (PRPs) at former landfill and industrial sites throughout the northeastern United States. Her work on these matters regularly involves negotiation with federal and state environmental agencies, coordination with experts and active participation on PRP committees at various stages of threatened and pending enforcement and cost recovery actions. Her experience includes negotiating and litigating corporate successor liability issues, contractual indemnification claims and equitable allocation of cleanup costs.

Ms. Devlin’s practice also involves counseling golf industry clients on a wide array of topics, including course design safety issues, disputes with neighboring property owners and a variety of other contract, tort, real estate and environmental matters. Ms. Devlin has authored and contributed to articles in various golf industry publications, including Golf Magazine, primarily on the subject of tort law affecting golfers and public and private golf course owners and operators. Her experience in this area includes speaking to audiences of PGA of America Golf Professionals about liability and damages arising from errant golf shots, cart accidents and other golf course mishaps.

Ms. Devlin is admitted to practice before the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Third and Federal Circuits, the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern, Western and Middle Districts of Pennsylvania and the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.