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LITIGATION

The firm represents clients in all areas of civil litigation, encompassing litigation in federal and state trial and appellate courts, bankruptcy courts and in arbitration proceedings. We are regularly involved in all phases of litigation, including investigation, pleadings, discovery, motion practice, trials and appeals, and of course counseling clients as to how to avoid litigation in the first place or, if litigation is inevitable, how to best position one's conduct for the most effective defense or prosecution of claims.

The areas of litigation in which the firm specializes include claims involving the federal securities laws; shareholder disputes (including share appraisals and judicial dissolutions); dealer, representative, franchisee and distributor terminations; contract and other business disputes (including lawsuits arising from acquisition, employment and shareholders agreements); licensing claims; real estate and brokers disputes; accounting matters; banking and finance; lender liability; fraud and conspiracy claims under the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Practices Act (RICO); antitrust; trade secret and unfair competition; employment relations (EEOC, discharge, termination, discrimination, sexual harassment; negligent hiring and other similar issues); enforcement of restrictive covenants and non-competition agreements; unfair competition issues; fraudulent transfers; intellectual property, including patent, copyright and trademark infringement; domain name disputes; entertainment industry issues; constitutional issues (including issues involving freedom of speech and of the press); privacy and publicity rights; defamation and libel claims; personal injury, products liability and medical malpractice; matrimonial, divorce and family laws matters; letters of intent and other pre-contractual agreements; government regulatory investigations; and internal investigations conducted at the request of management, independent members of boards of directors and in-house counsel.

The litigation department recognizes that lawsuits are often a stressful activity for our clients and that advancing their goals in this area requires personal attention, patience and understanding. Toward that end, we strive to make our most experienced litigators personally available and attentive to our clients' needs and requirements in guiding them through the litigation process.

Whether as counsel to our clients or as special or local counsel to large and small out of town and overseas law firms, we are cognizant of the short and long term goals which our clients and referring co-counsel wish to achieve in the pleading, discovery, motion, pre-trial, trial and appellate phases of each case. We recognize that this can only be achieved through clear and open communication between client and counsel and through the confidence and trust which develops over time between us and those whom we represent.