In October 2017, the Firm obtained summary judgment for its municipal clients in a First Amendment retaliation case.  The plaintiff, a long-time treasurer and secretary for a municipality alleged that the municipality, its board, and former chair violated his constitutional rights when they eliminated his salary and terminated his benefits.  Specifically, the plaintiff alleged substantive due process violations, a bill of attainder claim, and First Amendment retaliation claims based on his alleged objections to the process by which the municipality attempted to sell a parcel of land.  The defendants presented evidence that their actions against the plaintiff were the result of significant job performance issues that included irregularities and deficiencies in the municipality’s finances, a belief that the plaintiff had engaged in forgery, and the plaintiff’s failure to report to work and carry out his duties for months.

The District Judge granted summary judgment on all claims in favor of the defendants, adopting recommendations of the Magistrate Judge with respect to the bill of attainder, substantive due process, and First Amendment claim against the Board Chair.  With respect to the First Amendment claim against the District, the District Judge rejected the Magistrate Judge’s recommendation that the claim should proceed to trial and sustained the defendants’ objection, finding that the Mt. Healthy defense applied and  “a reasonable jury would have to conclude that the Board would have taken the same actions against Plaintiff in the absence of the protected speech.”

The Firm is proud to announce that six of its partners have been recognized as 2017 New York Super Lawyers.  The following Partners were selected for inclusion to the 2017 New York Metro Super Lawyerslist in the respective practice areas: Jeffrey Chester and Nancy Connery – Real Estate; Steven Gerber – Employment & Labor; Norman Greene – General Litigation; and Beth Kaufman and Charles Updike – Business Litigation.

On May 16, 2017, the Firm notched a significant win for one of its New Jersey higher education clients. After nearly five years of litigation, and just three weeks before trial, the U.S. District Court granted the university Defendants’ otion for summary judgment in its entirety, dismissing a case brought against the university and a full-time tenured faculty member. The dispute arose after the tenured faculty member learned that Plaintiff, an adjunct faculty member, had misappropriated, in violation of the governing collective bargaining agreement, her intellectual property, specifically a detailed syllabus for a graduate course she had created. The tenured faculty member circulated a few emails to a small group of individuals at the university regarding Plaintiff’s misappropriation that Plaintiff claimed were defamatory. Plaintiff was disciplined for his misappropriation and a grievance and arbitration followed. After settling the grievance, Plaintiff filed suit alleging claims for libel, fraud and equitable fraud, and breach of contract.

Partner Steven Gerber has published an article titled “No One-Size-Fits-All: Investigating and Addressing Complaints of Historical Sexual Harassment and Abuse” in the DRI’s In-House Defense Quarterly, Spring 2017 edition. The article focuses on investigations of recent complaints of historical sexual abuse and suggest plans of action for businesses and educational institutions when hit with sexual misconduct allegations. To read the article, please click here “No One-Size-Fits-All: Investigating and Addressing Complaints of Historical Sexual Harassment and Abuse”.

To read press release, please click here.

The Firm is pleased to announce that Lawrence J. Fox and Paul E. Hanau have joined the Firm as Partners.

Perhaps the country’s premier expert on legal standards of care, professional obligations and ethics, Lawrence Fox regularly serves as an expert with respect to these issues. He also adds expertise and years of experience to the Firm’s Corporate Governance and Securities Regulation practice areas.

A former Chair of both the ABA’s Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility and its Section of Litigation, Mr. Fox is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and its Law School. He currently serves as the George W, and Sadella D. Crawford Visiting Lecturer in Law and Supervising Lawyer at the Ethics Bureau at Yale Law School.

Even as a practicing lawyer in securities regulation and related litigation, he found time to teach at Cornell, Harvard, Yale and University of Pennsylvania Law Schools, and to lecture at more than two dozen others, including Moscow State University. His longstanding interest and work in the field of professional ethics has led to his current position at Yale. He has served as a consulting expert with respect to numerous legal ethics matters. A fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and the American Bar Foundation, Mr. Fox has long been active in various community and bar activities, for which he has received many awards. He serves on multiple corporate boards of both for profit and not-for-profit entities. His pro bono activities include representing prisoners facing capital punishment.

Paul Hanau has joined the Firm’s real estate practice. Mr. Hanau has over 30 years of experience with real estate, property and facility management. Most recently, he represented institutional clients in several lease transactions in Manhattan and large “build to suit” net lease transactions in the metropolitan New York area and in the southeast. He has broad experience with real estate (transactional and operational) in the United States and countries around the world. Mr. Hanau also has a wide range of experience with procurement, outsourcing and contract negotiation, having negotiated domestic and international outsourcing, service, and travel related contracts. In addition, he has extensive experience in the area of branding and sponsorship. He has served as lead attorney for the naming rights sponsors of two NFL stadiums, and has negotiated sponsorship agreements for the World Baseball Classic, the BWF World Superseries, U.S. Open Tennis Championship and the PGA. He has been involved with the branding of such diverse properties as buildings (including 200 Park Avenue and 1095 Avenue of the Americas in New York City), blimps and parks. Mr. Hanau is an Adjunct Professor at New York University, where he has taught for 20 years.