In the News Archive

Asked whether there was any chance the bill could be enacted, Elizabeth Marvin, a Washington-based lawyer with Lewis Baach, told IBTimes UK: "there's a very slim chance... they certainly could enact it but it would be challenged and in light of the Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v Hodges it would be struck down as unconstitutional."

"The federal courts are pretty jealous about their jurisdiction, and Article III standing is a brick
wall," said Ronald Abramson of Lewis Baach PLLC.

Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss represents Al Jazeera's Ahmad Zeidan and independent correspondent Bilal Kareem in an action challenging their inclusion on the United States’ “Kill List.”  Kate Toomey explains the case in an audio interview.

Elizabeth Marvin, a partner with Lewis Baach in Washington DC, told IBTimes UK: "In my practice, I came to learn pretty quickly that neither side really feels like they win usually when a case is settled".  According to Marvin, the repeal isn't doing anything for North Carolina's LGBT communities: "What the repeal did was basically return the state to pre-HB2."

The men’s lawyer, Jeffrey D. Robinson, said that they should be given the right to contest their inclusion on any list that could get them killed.  “Before the state applies its power in force to lead to my death, give me an opportunity to show that you got the wrong person,” said Mr. Robinson.

Jeff Robinson comments to Politico on new litigation filed by Lewis Baach on behalf of two journalists against the Trump administration.    The new suit contends that plaintiffs Zaidan and Kareem have been mistakenly included on the U.S. “kill list.” And must have a mechanism to challenge their status. "This is a very deliberate process that needs to give some access to people who deny they should be included," Robinson said.

“The transgender community is certainly in limbo, which is difficult because the community has been highlighted and sort of brought to the surface in recent months,” said Lewis Baach PLLC partner Elizabeth Marvin. “A lot of attention has been placed on them, and there are no specific protections for them.”

Beginning April 1, 2017, Lewis Baach will operate worldwide under the name Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss.  

However, Lewis Baach’s Ronald Abramson called the ruling ‘concerning’.  "In my view, by extending copyright protection to these designs, the court has broken a key limitation on copyright protection, and this will come back to haunt the courts in very troublesome
ways, not only in the fashion industry, but in other areas, such as architecture and computer
software, where design and functionality are often intertwined and the designs can be highly 'free form'.”  He added, “Businesses in those fields will now start asserting these ‘copyrights’ very aggressively, in ways that were never intended by the Copyright Act. Note also that the law also provides for design patents, a form of IP specifically created for designs of useful articles.  However, design patents have a relatively short term of 15 years. Copyrights, by contrast, typically have a 100-year term. The result here is very concerning.”

Ronald Abramson, an IP litigator with Lewis Baach PLLC, New York, was critical of the ruling,
saying the “Supreme Court just did what Congress would not: extend copyright protection to clothing designs.” Abramson told Bloomberg BNA in an email message that the ruling “has broken a key limitation on copyright protection, and this will come back to haunt the courts” in areas like architecture and computer software, “where design and functionality are often intertwined and the designs can be highly ‘free form.’”

Lewis Baach's Ron Abramson said the verdict illustrates SCOTUS’ “disinclination to have ‘special rules’ for patent law that widely diverge from the resolution of analogous questions in related legal fields.”  He added, “What the decision does do is cut way back on a defence that occasionally allows a patent infringement defendant to escape liability for damages. Due to the infrequency that this defence prevailed, I would say this decision will not have a monumental impact.”

The impact of the decision will be limited because laches was rarely asserted in patent cases and was even more rarely successful, said Ron Abramson, a partner with Lewis Baach.  "The decision was widely expected and again illustrates the Supreme Court’s disinclination to have `special rules' for patent law that widely diverge from the resolution of analogous questions in related legal fields," Abramson said in an e-mailed analysis.

Elizabeth Marvin, an attorney with Lewis Baach in Washington, D.C., said that whether Title IX encompasses gender identity discrimination "could potentially have an impact on employers, because it would require the [Suprerme] Court to consider whether Title IX's prohibition on discrimination on the basis of sex includes gender identity," should the issue again reach the Supreme Court. "A decision that 'sex' as used in Title IX encompasses gender identity would effectively expand the definition of 'sex' as used in other statutes, such as Title VII."

Lewis Baach’s Ron Abramson said SCOTUS had “cut off” an argument that could have expand US patent jurisdiction beyond reason.  “Everyone on the court agrees that there has to be more than one US component under the provision in question [to infringe]… the decision does straighten out an area where the lower court had pushed US law too far,” Abramson said.

Ron Abramson, partner at Lewis Baach, agreed with Dragseth that the ruling raises questions.  “I’m not sure I buy the fine points of the court’s statutory construction reasoning, and I see many open questions raised by this decision.  However, the big point here is that the Supreme Court has, quite properly in my view, cut off an argument that could have expanded US patent jurisdiction beyond reason by an exporter who did nothing more with respect to the US than supply a commodity component that is later used in making some further product abroad, where only the final product would have infringed had it
been made in the US.”

Critical of the judgement, Ron Abramson, partner at Lewis Baach, was unsure whether he “buys the fine points of the court’s statutory construction reasoning” and sees “many open questions raised by this decision.” [...]

Manuel Varela and Cristián Francos were interviewed by AUNO legal magazine on Litigation Funding

Manuel Varela y Cristián Francos fueron entrevistados por la revista legal AUNO respecto del financiamiento de litigios

Lewis Baach is pleased to announce the release of “Getting the Deal Through:  Litigation Funding 2017,” which offers the first comprehensive overview of the laws and regulations governing litigation funding on a country-by-country basis. Lewis Baach attorneys David Liston, Alex Patchen and Tara Plochocki authored the chapter on the United States.

A host of likely legal challenges will confront Middle East related entities doing business in or with the United States under President Trump, write Waleed Nassar and Kate Toomey.

As the market continues to pound out a separation between the niche players and the global elites, major legal consumers are increasingly turning to boutique firms for some of their more challenging work. Between their dexterity, fee flexibility, and, depending on the size of the boutique, deeper resources, we are seeing a growing interest in boutiques and niche firms in the legal market.

Complaints brought by employees belonging to what is traditionally the majority group should be taken as seriously as complaints brought by employees belonging to historically disadvantaged groups, noted Elizabeth Marvin, an attorney with Lewis Baach in Washington, D.C.

“This is a really important action for this court,” Ali Jaber’s attorney Jeffrey Robinson said to the D.C. Circuit’s three-judge panel Tuesday morning.

Robinson called on the court to decide whether it will be held hostage to the political-question doctrine that prevents courts from interfering in executive policymaking – one of the primary reasons cited by U.S. District Judge Ellen Huvelle for dismissing the lawsuit back in March.

On Monday, Dec. 12, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision clarifying subsection 1 of the bank fraud statute, 18 U.S.C. §1344, in Shaw v. United States. Notwithstanding a veritable ocean of case law, regulations and statutes that delineate the difference between a bank’s property and that of its customers, the court quickly pushed such technical arguments to the side, holding that — for the purposes of the bank fraud statute — there is no practical difference between targeting a bank customer’s funds and targeting the bank’s own funds.

For the first time ever, the victim of an apparent U.S. drone strike got a hearing in a U.S. court. 

“The court’s decision is in keeping with the long-standing principle that a fraud can be prosecuted under the criminal law even if the victim does not suffer a loss — which is an important distinction between criminal fraud and civil fraud,” said A. Katherine Toomey, a partner at Lewis Baach PLLC.

For two years, stock traders and the attorneys who represent them said the law surrounding insider trading was a muddle, with no one knowing what exactly is or isn’t legal.
The U.S. Supreme Court Dec. 6 said it had ‘‘easily’’ settled the question (Salman v. United States, 2016 BL 404795, U.S., No. 15-628, 12/6/16).

‘‘Going forward, even remote tippees of inside information are at risk if the government can demonstrate that the defendant knew he was trading on inside information and the chain of disclosure is sufficiently close, even if no money changes hands.’’ Eric Lewis, Lewis Baach PLLC

Both the speed and the unanimity of the decision sent a strong message re-affirming existing insider trading prosecutions, according to Eric Lewis, a partner at Lewis Baach, a Washington DC law firm specializing in financial crimes.

"It was somewhat surprising that the Supreme Court took this case," Lewis told ValueWalk, noting that it had been two decades since the high court took up an insider trading case.

Eric Lewis got a phone call from an old friend’s sister shortly after he wrote an op-ed in The New York Times in 2013 detailing his time playing under a high school football coach who was also a serial sexual predator.

That call ultimately led Lewis to take a turn this week as a journalist—a departure from his busy career as a prominent lawyer handling international fraud disputes, including representing Bernie Madoff’s investment firm in its liquidation—at his nearly 40-lawyer firm Lewis Baach in Washington, D.C.

The Appellate Division, First Department, recently affirmed the dismissal of various claims brought by New Greenwich Litigation Trustee, successor to the claims of two feeder funds in the Bernard Madoff affair, against various third-party fund administrators, accountants and auditors.

"If you’re a public-integrity prosecutor, and you’ve been doing that for five years, you know who all the players are,” said Anthony Capozzolo, a former prosecutor in the Eastern District.

A decision by the Supreme Court overturning the 4th Circuit's decision could "considerably erode" the American Civil Liberties Union's (ACLU's) challenge to H.B. 2 in Carcaño, said Elizabeth Marvin, an attorney with Lewis Baach in Washington, D.C.

The justices directly confronted the issue of race in their questions, said Jeffrey Robinson, an attorney with Lewis Baach PLLC in Washington. Robinson extensively worked on civil rights and death penalty cases and formerly worked at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, though not in connection with Buck.

"It's still their burden to prove their allegations, which right now is based on a lot of innuendo and leaps of logic," said Waleed Nassar, a partner at Lewis Baach, which represents two of the Saudi charities named in the case.

“The government is looking for the Goldilocks number -- not too high and not too low,” said Katherine Toomey, a litigation partner at Lewis Baach Pllc in Washington who’s not involved in the Deutsche Bank case. “They want a deterrent for conduct and punishment, but without putting a major institution out of business or costing jobs.”

The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear arguments Tuesday in a case that could make it more difficult for federal prosecutors to bring some bank fraud cases, and may also help determine whether banks are legally owners of customer deposits once they are made.

"Had the government used the second clause to go after Shaw, there would be no case before the Supreme Court," said A. Katherine Toomey, the managing partner of Lewis Baach PLLC's Washington office.  "What seems the weirdest to me is that he was only charged under subsection one," she said.

Next week, for the second time in two years, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear argument in a case for the purpose of resolving a split in the circuits concerning the scope of the bank fraud statute — 18 U.S.C. §1344. 

Mr. Lewis said that “there is no there there” on the allegations of any Saudi government role in the attacks, given the kingdom’s long history of being at war with Al Qaeda.

“The notion that senior Saudi officials or the Saudi government had an interest in supporting Sept. 11 and the attack on the World Trade Center is patently absurd,” he said.

Anthony Capozzolo, counsel at Lewis Baach PLLC in New York who spent six years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York primarily, agreed. He told Bloomberg BNA that one of the biggest reasons the government didn't go forward was because the Supreme Court's decision “eviscerated” the government's case.

The ruling made it “nearly impossible to prove attempts,” Capozzolo said.

“The Department of Justice views this decision as having a material effect on the way they’ve been prosecuting quid pro quo cases in the past,” said Anthony M. Capozzolo, a former federal prosecutor, who interpreted the McDonnells’ decisions as “a sign that they’re going to handle these cases differently.”

Such an apparent disagreement is not uncommon, said Anthony Capozzolo, a former federal prosecutor who handled public corruption cases in New York. But he told the Two-Way that the Justice Department's action is a "game changer" that could impact other public integrity cases.

"The government had a good case in terms of jury appeal," Capozzolo said. "But it appears the department's decision is solely based on the view that McDonnell's activity did not rise to the level of the standard in the Supreme Court decision."

Elizabeth Marvin, an attorney with Lewis Baach in Washington, D.C., agreed, saying, "A holding that the bill also violates Title VII [of the Civil Rights Act of 1964] is a logical extension of the Aug. 26 holding." However, she added, "It is far too early to predict an ultimate outcome."

Transgender individuals are feeling the brunt of the law, said Elizabeth Marvin, an attorney with Lewis Baach in Washington, D.C. 

"Because H.B. 2 will be difficult if not impossible to enforce, it will create a culture in which private citizens feel that they have the right and duty to be gender monitors in public restrooms," Marvin said. She cautioned that this "could potentially result in more violence and harassment directed toward transgender individuals."

Financial institutions should worry about the anti-money laundering (AML) issues that the UK Bribery Act (2010) gives rise to despite the law having been in effect for just over five years, lawyers said. The danger was thinking that because the law had existed since 2011, that compliance and legal staff have it figured out, they said.