Akiva Shapiro is a litigation partner in Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s New York office, Chair of the Firm’s New York Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Group, Co-Chair of its Religious Liberty Working Group, and a member of the Firm’s Appellate and Constitutional Law, Media, Entertainment and Technology, and Securities Litigation Practice Groups, among others. Akiva’s practice focuses on a broad range of high-stakes constitutional, administrative, commercial, and appellate litigation matters. He is regularly engaged in front of New York’s trial courts, federal and state courts of appeal, and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Akiva has been named by The Legal 500 as a “key lawyer” in Gibson Dunn’s Tier 1 commercial disputes practice, and included in City & State New York’s inaugural 2024 40 In Their 40s list, which features “New York’s 40-something power players.” In 2023, he was presented with the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists’ Pursuit of Justice Award, which is given to “distinguished jurists and attorneys who exemplify the Biblical dictate, ‘Justice, justice shall you pursue.’”
Akiva was named Litigator of the Week by The American Lawyer in August 2021 for what it called an “extraordinary SCOTUS win for New York landlords,” obtaining an emergency injunction from the Court on due process grounds in Chrysafis v. Marks. He was named a runner-up Litigator of the Week by The American Lawyer in November 2020 for “two big wins . . . scored late on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving,” including obtaining an emergency injunction from the U.S. Supreme Court in The Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, New York v. Cuomo, a landmark religious liberties decision. Referencing both emergency decisions, The American Lawyer recognized Akiva’s “knack for getting the attention of the U.S. Supreme Court. Quickly.” Akiva has been named a runner-up Litigator of the Week or received a Litigator of the Week shout out another half-dozen times for trial and appellate wins in the constitutional, administrative law/CPLR Article 78, commercial litigation, defamation, and religious liberties spaces. City & State has described him as “one of the nation’s leading defenders of religious liberties.”
Updated Oct 2025
