New York

Firm overview

Kasowitz’s core focus is commercial litigation, complemented by our exceptionally strong bankruptcy/restructuring and real estate transactional practices.  We are known for our creative, aggressive litigators and willingness to take on tough cases.  We outthink and outflank our opponents, and understand how to win for our clients.  We have extensive trial experience and are always trial-ready, representing both plaintiffs and defendants in every area of litigation.  We are committed to pursuing aggressive and innovative approaches to our clients’ most challenging legal matters.  Our lawyers have been recognized by, among others, Chambers USA, Legal 500, Benchmark Litigation, Law360 and National Law Journal for excellence in their fields.

Our clients include Fortune 500 companies, private equity and other investment firms across a wide range of industries, including significant experience across financial services (banking, investment management and insurance), technology and real estate.

We have successfully secured billions of dollars in awards and settlements for our clients, who have recently included:

• Aman Resorts
  
• BD Hotels
  
• Centerbridge Partners
  
• Comcast
  
• Condé Nast
  
• Davidson Kempner
  
• Douglas Elliman
  
• Elie Tahari
  
• Fairfax Financial Holdings
  
• Ford Motor Company
  
• Georgetown Company
  
• Harbinger Capital Partners
  
• Icahn Partners
  
• Intellectual Ventures
  
• InterContinental Hotels Group
  
• Levi-Strauss
  
• Liggett Group
  
• Mahindra & Mahindra
  
• Major League Wrestling
  
• Marc Fisher Footwear
  
• MBIA
  
• MF Global Holdings
  
• Morgans Hotel Group
  
• National Grid
  
• NJOY
  
• Nokia
  
• Northwell Health
  
• Pilgrim's Pride
  
• Purolite
  
• Renco
  
• Rescap
  
• SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment
  
• SL Green
  
• Starwood Capital
  
• State of Hawaii
  
• TerraForm Power
  
• Teva Pharmaceuticals
  
• The Palm Restaurant
  
• TPG
  
• U.S. Bank
  
• Vector Group
  
• Waterfall Asset Management
  
• W.C. Bradley
  
• XPO Logistics
  
• Yellow

Updated Oct 2024

Firm overview

Kramer Levin provides its clients proactive, creative and pragmatic solutions that address today’s most challenging legal issues. The firm, headquartered in New York with offices in Silicon Valley, Washington, D.C., and Paris, fosters a strong culture of involvement in public and community service. For more information, please visit www.kramerlevin.com.

Litigation: Kramer Levin lawyers have taken on and won precedent-setting federal and state court cases and bet-the-company matters, handling trials and appeals, and resolving disputes through arbitration, mediation and negotiated settlement. Kramer Levin’s litigators are regarded as trial-ready, formidable opponents, which often enables them to resolve cases advantageously without litigation. They are also known for their success in achieving early case dismissal through skillful motion practice.

Bankruptcy and Restructuring: For more than 30 years, creditors, debtor corporations, investors, lenders and acquirers have turned to Kramer Levin to solve complicated bankruptcy and restructuring problems, to structure and lead negotiations that harmonize divergent interests and achieve consensual solutions, and to win suits in bankruptcy court, courts of appeal and the U.S. Supreme Court. Representing clients throughout the United States, Kramer Levin lawyers typically take on cases that involve multiple debtors with competing secured and unsecured creditors, complex restructurings, and contested interdebtor and intercreditor issues.

Corporate Transactions and Finance: Kramer Levin represents buyers and sellers, including financial and strategic acquirers ranging from entrepreneurial startups to large multinationals, in mergers and acquisitions of public and private companies. They focus on the middle market and are exposed to a high volume of M&A deal flow in this market segment, which gives them keen insight into deal terms, conditions and trends. Kramer Levin’s Banking and Finance group represents a large number of borrowers and major lenders, providing legal and transactional advice on a wide variety of financing arrangements. Because they represent both borrowers and lenders, they can offer clients uncommon perspective and tremendous insight into each party’s needs as well as deep knowledge and broad experience in market-leading terms and the latest financing strategies. The firm’s Private Equity team has extensive experience advising and representing private equity funds, fund sponsors and their portfolio companies in all aspects of their business, from fund formation and operation to private placement, mergers and acquisitions, financings, and control and minority investments, including growth equity transactions.

Intellectual Property: Kramer Levin’s litigation-focused Intellectual Property team regularly asserts and defends IP-related claims in courts throughout the United States and Europe, and before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as well as the European Union Intellectual Property Office and foreign national intellectual property agencies. Well known for their success in the courtroom, including in many high-stakes patent litigation cases, the team also advises clients on worldwide IP portfolio management and IP-based transactions. 

Real Estate, Land Use and Environmental: For the past 50 years, Kramer Levin has advised on many of the most significant real estate developments and other projects in New York City and throughout the United States, helping transform city skylines and reshape the landscape. The firm is among only a handful of large New York-based firms with a destination real estate practice — one that attracts clients interested primarily in their real estate talents. The Real Estate team is involved in many of the major real estate transactions throughout the city, including acquisitions and sales, joint ventures, financings, and development. Kramer Levin’s Land Use practice is the largest and most experienced in New York City. With a core group of partners that has practiced together for more than 35 years and support from a cadre of other lawyers, a veteran real estate litigator, two condemnation lawyers, an engineer and three planners, it offers unmatched technical knowledge, synergy, industry insight and experience. The practice has handled many of the thorniest and most sophisticated land use matters, has represented most of NYC’s leading developers and institutions, and has advised on many of NYC’s megaprojects. Kramer Levin’s Environmental lawyers help developers, investors and companies across industries manage environmental issues so they can focus on improving properties, maintaining efficient operations, building projects, closing transactions and planning for the future. 

Tax: With a clear understanding of clients’ business needs and a deep knowledge of the ever-changing tax laws, Kramer Levin tax lawyers develop creative and practical client-specific solutions to help clients accomplish their goals. They advise U.S. and foreign public and private companies, including private equity firms and hedge funds, as well as high net worth individuals, on U.S. transactions and the U.S. tax aspects of international transactions. 

Employment and Immigration: Kramer Levin’s Employment lawyers provide practical and proactive counsel to employers, helping them make decisions and take action to minimize their risk of litigation, promote their workplace culture and values, and achieve their specific business objectives. The team is composed of highly responsive advisers and litigators focused exclusively on employment law matters, and each team member is well versed in a broad range of employment law issues and able to act quickly and decisively when clients need help. Kramer Levin’s internationally recognized Immigration group is among the largest and most respected immigration practices in the United States. With decades of experience, their immigration lawyers advise global brands and preeminent corporations across a wide range of industries, including media and advertising, financial services, technology, and performing and fine arts. 

Updated Aug 2024

Firm overview

Cohen Ziffer Frenchman & McKenna LLP, which opened its doors in New York in January 2021, is built on the reputations and experience of nationally recognized lawyers who have worked together and represented policyholders as a unified team for more than 20 years, recovering billions of dollars for their clients and securing landmark judicial rulings. The group has earned a national reputation as fierce advocates for policyholders in high-profile, high-dollar disputes against insurance companies. The team—which has tripled in size since the firm’s founding—represents a client base of Fortune 500 companies, hedge funds, and private equity firms.

Many of those recoveries have come in closely watched cases, including a first-of-its-kind appellate decision on flood limit clauses that allowed New Jersey Transit to access $400 million in coverage after Superstorm Sandy. For a pump manufacturer, the firm won a precedent-setting $500 million ruling over insurance coverage for asbestos liabilities. And on issues at the frontier of insurance law, the firm has won multiple significant rulings—dealing with, for instance, damage from email spoofing under computer crime policies and a first-impression test of insurance coverage for SPACs. The firm has also earned a reputation for gaining precedent-setting rulings and shifting the landscape of D&O and E&O coverage in favor of policyholders.

Additional precedent-setting wins in recent high-profile disputes include:

• A rare jury verdict reversal for Conduent State Healthcare in its pursuit of insurance coverage from AIG and other insurers for defense costs relating to a $236 million Medicaid fraud settlement. It was the first jury verdict that Delaware Superior Court Judge Mary Johnston reversed in her nearly 20 years on the bench.
• A series of significant victories for Walmart in a lawsuit against nearly 40 insurance carriers related to coverage for hundreds of millions of dollars in defense costs incurred in defending against thousands of lawsuits arising out of the sale and distribution of opioids and related settlements totaling more than $3 billion. The team recently defeated efforts by dozens of Walmart’s insurers to dismiss their Arkansas action and earned a precedent-setting ruling establishing Walmart’s right to coverage for defense costs incurred in opioid lawsuits.
• A Delaware court ruling that directors and officers of Clover Health Investments Corp. count as “insured persons” under a D&O policy issued to Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings Corp., a SPAC that took Clover Health public. In one of the first decisions addressing coverage for a SPAC, the court ruled that the SPAC’s D&O insurers must pay defense costs for not only the SPAC itself, but also for its future officers and directors.
• A favorable decision for Paramount Global (f/k/a Viacom Inc.), finding that Viacom’s insurers cannot rely on a bump-up exclusion to avoid covering the $122.5 million settlement that had resolved Viacom shareholders’ lawsuit over the company’s merger with CBS.
• A win for Crystal Windows & Doors Ltd. in a dispute over coverage owed for alleged construction defects that allegedly caused over $20 million in damages. The New York Supreme Court dismissed the insurer’s action seeking to resolve its indemnity obligation as premature and, in a precedent-setting ruling, held that the insurer’s acknowledged duty to defend also required the insurer to pay the insured’s costs in defending against the coverage action.

With decades of insurance recovery and advisory experience, Cohen Ziffer also assists clients with their insurance counseling needs, guiding organizations through complex insurance issues and advising on the insurance coverage that is right for them. The firm’s attorneys work with clients and their insurance brokers to identify the most likely liability risks and to review their insurance policies and advise on whether they are likely to cover those risks. When incidents do occur, they also guide their clients through the insurance claims process.

The firm’s commercial litigators are first-rate trial lawyers who also have experience tackling a host of complex commercial insurance disputes on behalf of organizations across the country, and have handled a spectrum of very large, complex, high-stakes, and cutting-edge cases. The team litigates these high-stakes coverage suits in a variety of state and federal courts and tribunals and jurisdictions around the world, and represents organizations in a diverse array of economic sectors, including financial services, manufacturing, professional services, and real estate.

Practice Areas:

• Insurance Recovery
• Insurance Advisory Services
• Commercial Litigation

Updated Aug 2024

Firm overview

For over 50 years, Morvillo Abramowitz Grand Iason & Anello PC has been at the forefront of advising companies and individuals on complex white collar and regulatory matters and sophisticated business disputes. We are best known for our unparalleled trial experience and our expertise in white collar defense, securities enforcement, and regulatory matters. Equally important is the sophisticated civil litigation we do for financial institutions, other business entities, and their senior executives. Our size and expertise allow us the flexibility to provide the highest quality legal services at competitive rates. 

We are renowned for our accomplishments litigating cases at all levels of the federal and state courts, in arbitrations, and before government agencies, regulatory organizations, and other tribunals. More than a quarter of the firm’s partners are Fellows of the American College of Trial Lawyers, a prestigious organization that was created to recognize excellence in trial lawyers. We regularly represent companies and individuals in Foreign Corrupt Practices Act inquiries and investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice, Securities and Exchange Commission, and foreign regulators and prosecutors. We also are well-known for our appellate practice and regularly handle complex civil and criminal appeals before federal and state courts throughout the nation. Our expertise as litigators, and the respect it has earned our firm, enables us to negotiate effectively with regulators, prosecutors, and adversaries on behalf of our clients. 

We have persuaded the government not to indict identified grand jury targets, thereby helping individuals and corporations avoid criminal charges altogether. When a client has been indicted, because of our experience, reputation as skilled trial lawyers and advocates, and through hard work, we often are able to obtain favorable pretrial dispositions. Similarly, in civil disputes, our ability and willingness to try high-stakes cases often helps us achieve advantageous settlements without trial. 

Our lawyers also provide litigation-avoidance advice, FCPA guidance, securities law-related analysis, and other confidential legal counseling, often in highly sensitive contexts. Institutional clients frequently retain us to conduct sensitive internal investigations aimed at uncovering or resolving allegations of officer, director, trustee, or employee misconduct, both in the U.S. and globally. Our lawyers also have led court-appointed independent monitorships, acted as independent examiners for U.S. Department of Justice initiatives, and been appointed to government-approved positions as corporate integrity counsel. 

Our lawyers are thought leaders who have been recognized for their trial skills by professional organizations, lecture frequently on issues relating to criminal law, and regularly contribute to various well-known publications.        

Updated Oct 2024