Since its inception in February 2018, New York’s Selendy & Gay has been one of the most talked-about firms in New York and beyond. Founding partners Philippe Selendy and Faith Gay, both venerated stars with Quinn Emanuel before launching this venture, have built a firm that encapsulates “diversity” in both its roster of partners as well as the varieties of work it takes on. It has emerged as a leader in securities (often in the plaintiff capacity), commercial, and appellate disputes, as well as novel public interest matters. The team of 13 seasoned litigators has been lauded for their “trial acumen, innovative courtroom strategies, and reputation for success” as voiced by a competitor. The firm is also one of the only majority women-owned firms of its status in the nation.
Gay and co-managing partner David Elsberg are lead counsel pro bono to the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in the Remington Outdoor Company chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings in Alabama federal court. The shooter used a Bushmaster brand AR-15 made and marketed by Remington. The team secured favorable terms for the families in the Remington debtors' bankruptcy plan, including a mechanism to allow the families and other tort claimants to continue their litigation efforts against Remington. The families have since filed notices with the bankruptcy court that they intend to proceed with their litigation efforts in Connecticut, where the families also brought wrongful death claims against Remington, and a trial is scheduled for next year. Gay, along with co-managing partner Jennifer Selendy, represent McKinsey & Company against claims by AlixPartners founder Jay Alix in a series of high-profile and high-stakes objections and motions brought by Alix in bankruptcy courts across the nation. Fellow founding partner Philippe Selendy and appellate specialist Caitlin Halligan (formerly a star with Gibson Dunn) are part of the lead counsel team appointed by a New York federal judge as interim lead counsel in what has been called a “blockbuster” bitcoin market manipulation case against Bitfinex and Tether. The team beat out two other sets of legal teams vying for lead plaintiff appointment in the proposed class action. The putative class action alleges that the controllers of the cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex falsely represented that their purportedly stable cryptocurrency Tether was backed by US dollars in order to control the price of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in a market-manipulation scheme that cost investors hundreds of billions of dollars.
