BakerHostetler’s New York office exemplifies the firm’s objective of creating highly qualified attorney teams to meet client needs in traditional practice areas, within niche specializations and across multiple industries. The New York office serves a diverse client base, including international corporations, domestic market leaders, municipalities, trade organizations, emerging businesses and entrepreneurs.
The New York office opened in 2001 with just a handful of attorneys and experienced rapid growth as the firm established a strong reputation in the region. Today, the office features over 100 attorneys, making it one of the largest offices in the firm. Several of our attorneys joined BakerHostetler after successful in-house careers with such industry-leading companies as IBM and Union Carbide. Other BakerHostetler New York attorneys previously served with such government agencies as the Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the National Association of Securities Dealers (now FINRA), the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the New York County District Attorney’s Office.
With this foundation for success, the New York office of BakerHostetler provides a broad spectrum of legal services, with particular emphasis on:
Our New York Litigation practice encompasses more than 40 lawyers who are experts in the breadth of industries that comprise the business community. Our litigators handle the entire range of business disputes—from contract and partnership disputes, to business fraud and business tort cases; from fiduciary duty, securities, antitrust and corporate governance matters, to product liability and environmental matters; and from real estate and construction litigation to employment, noncompete and trade secrets litigation—virtually everything in the business world that can end up in court or arbitration.
The New York Litigation team has current clients and long-standing involvement in all of New York's leading industries, including: finance, insurance and real estate; media; technology; advertising; fashion and retail; healthcare; and accounting, public relations and other professional services. We represent well-known FORTUNE 100 and FORTUNE 500 companies, mid-market businesses and smaller local-, family- and individually-owned enterprises.
Our litigators have deep roots in New York's courts and governmental institutions. Our ranks include a former Assistant to the Mayor of New York City, members of federal and state court judicial screening committees, the immediate past Chair of the Federal and Commercial Litigation Section of the New York State Bar Association, a member of the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board, former senior Assistant U.S. Attorneys and Assistant District Attorneys and former clerks to federal judges. Our litigators are extremely active in bar associations and legal advocacy organizations and are well-known in New York's judicial and legal communities.
Our White Collar Defense and Corporate Investigations group represents clients who are facing federal and state criminal and SEC investigations and litigation, and in parallel civil and administrative proceedings. The practice team also represents clients in FTC, IRS and other agency matters. We are routinely engaged to provide counsel on and have served as government-appointed monitors and examiners of financial institutions and other entities, compliance programs, preventive measures and the collateral consequences of government proceedings.
We regularly conduct internal investigations on behalf of corporate boards, audit committees and special committees, and provide legal and tactical advice to those entities in response to the findings of such investigations. Representative matters involve analysis of the entity’s application of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX), SEC enforcement inquiries, FCPA issues and other governmental investigations, Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, and financial disclosure issues in connection with Section 10A investigations.
We have been involved in many of the most prominent representations for individual and corporate clients facing corporate crises. These matters involve investigations by the SEC, DOJ, New York Attorney General and other regulatory authorities. Many of our attorneys joined us after prestigious careers with the United States Attorneys office, SEC, DOJ, Treasury, the FTC and offices of the District Attorney.
BakerHostetler represents public corporations, broker-dealers, insurance companies, mutual funds and hedge funds, as well as their officers, employees and committees, that face complex securities litigation and regulatory investigations. We handle private securities-related litigation, shareholder class actions, derivative suits, shareholder and partnership disputes, as well as AAA and FINRA arbitrations. Our lawyers achieve favorable trial and arbitration results and settlements on matters involving all kinds of securities, derivatives, insurance products where there are claims of fraud, insider trading, suitability, registration violations, breach of fiduciary duty and accounting irregularities. Many times these actions overlap or are proceeded by SRO investigations and those by the SEC, CFTC, U.S. Attorney's offices and state attorneys general. With our protective yet always professional stance for our clients, we are able to resolve many cases without any regulatory action.
Our New York attorneys have first-hand knowledge of the securities enforcement process and include a former Branch Chief and Senior Counsel with the SEC's Division of Enforcement, a former Regional Counsel with FINRA and others. Members of our team have handled hundreds of securities and commodities investigations for regulated and unregulated financial and investment management firms and their officers and associated persons. Often teaming up with members of our White Collar practice, we are regularly retained to conduct internal investigations of potential accounting fraud, SOX issues, mutual fund market timing, stock option backdating and other securities laws violations. Based on the breadth of our experience, we have been appointed four times as Third Party Examiner in separate FINRA settlements for broker-dealers concerning the suitability of selling mutual funds' Class B and C shares. Our task has been to assist, in and report on, the remediation plans to compensate customers pursuant to the terms of these settlements.
With these capabilities, the BakerHostetler New York Securities Litigation team represents a significant number of high-profile clients in various securities and other related litigation matters.
Members of our Business group provide responsive, expert counsel to clients across a broad spectrum of industries and markets. We listen to our clients and work with them to fashion solutions to the problems they encounter in starting, growing and managing their businesses.
Our business and corporate lawyers are active in a variety of transactional disciplines, including private equity, mergers and acquisitions, debt and equity financings, fund formation, joint ventures, licensing and distribution arrangements and employment matters. We seek to establish strong relationships with enterprises large and small, domestic and international, and to provide them with legal services across the full range of their business, commercial and corporate matters. We are particularly experienced in advising public companies as to ongoing securities compliance and corporate governance issues.
Our team plays a key role advising creditors, creditors' committees, venture funds, lenders, landlords, trustees, examiners, hedge funds and debtors in complex financial restructurings, asset sales, liquidations, workouts and business reorganizations both in and out of court. Our New York team includes the first United States Trustee for the Southern District of New York under the pilot program, a former senior trial attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of United States Trustee, former judicial law clerks, along with attorneys who have represented the complete array of interests and constituents in bankruptcy proceedings and litigation matters for FORTUNE 100 companies and other well-known names in industries including financial services, insurance, healthcare, hospitality, manufacturing, telecommunications and retail. Our team has the diverse bankruptcy experience, supplemented by the firm’s various specialists as necessary, to represent clients throughout the entire spectrum of interests that arise in stressed and distressed situations.
BakerHostetler’s attorneys regularly handle such situations as pursuing property recovery from debtors, investigating the financial situations of debtors and dealing with fraudulent transfer issues. Our team members also counsel clients on transactional matters, from acquiring debtor assets and drafting true sale opinions to providing advice on establishing bankruptcy remote entities and restructuring complex financial situations. Because of our extensive experience as counsel for companies in almost every major commercial sector, BakerHostetler can bring business advisory skills, as well as strong advocacy, to any representation – and we understand how to provide cost-effective services to clients of all sizes.
Our recent appointment as Trustee for the liquidation of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC continues a long tradition of BakerHostetler’s strength in investigating and resolving financial impropriety in bankruptcy and other types of proceedings, which includes prominent roles in D.H. OverMeyer, Hilton Head Properties, EquiMed and Paul J. Myer Security Finance. We are skilled at working with financial advisors in unraveling entangled and complex financial instruments and establishing the reality of a company’s balance sheet and conduct.
The New York office is home to one of the fastest growing Intellectual Property (IP) groups in the firm. We specialize in a variety of issues including patents, trademarks, copyrights, design rights, monetizing intellectual property asserts, trade secrets and trade dress, and rights in digital media and content.
Our team benefits from diverse backgrounds in addition to core individual strengths. Members of our New York IP team have worked as engineers and in-house patent, trademark and copyright counsel for companies and agencies as diverse as Union Carbide Corporation, the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Western Union Telegraph Co, and IBM. Many of our intellectual property attorneys and advisors have worked with manufacturing, electrical, chemical, software and hardware companies.
We have been on the forefront of major intellectual property issues in recent years. We frequently handle technology transactions involving computer systems, electronic commerce, user-generated content, content distribution, outsourcing, hardware purchases and software licensing. Our team coordinates a network of investigators, attorneys and government agencies pursuing entities that traffic in counterfeit goods. We train federal and state law enforcement officers on issues related to trademark counterfeiting.
Due to the strength and diversity of the New York office, the team has ready access to expertise in areas of law that often come into play in intellectual property litigation and counseling matters.
The New York office counsels clients large and small, union and nonunion, on a wide array of employment and labor relations issues in a variety of industries. Our employment attorneys have extensive experience providing advice from the pre-employment stages through termination, including the development of personnel policies and procedures, counseling clients on wage and hour issues under the Fair Labor Standards Act and New York labor laws and litigation, reorganizations and reductions in force, employment discrimination and harassment litigation, severance issues and noncompetition agreements and disputes.
We are experienced in conducting sensitive internal investigations, particularly those that implicate regulatory compliance issues, and frequently partner with attorneys in our renowned business crimes/corporate investigation and securities practices to achieve global resolution of issues. We similarly draw upon our extensive IP practice when assisting our clients with such employment related issues as social media policies and trade secret disputes.
Our employment attorneys are also seasoned labor negotiators with a depth of experience in collective bargaining negotiations, grievance and arbitration proceedings, union representation elections, and defense of unfair labor practice charges. Our attorneys are highly skilled at developing creative and business-oriented solutions to minimize the negative impact on companies.
We regularly represent clients before state and federal courts, as well as a variety of administrative bodies, including the New York State Division of Human Rights, the National Labor Relations Board, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the New York and New Jersey Attorneys General, and the New York and Connecticut Departments of Labor.
Our New York Tax team regularly advises clients on the tax aspects of mergers, acquisitions, restructurings, debt and equity offerings, financial instruments including hedging contracts, swaps, forward contracts, options, collars and other derivative instruments, accounting, depreciation and deductibility issues.
The Tax group represents public and private corporations, partnerships, hedge funds, private equity funds and energy companies in a full range of tax-related matters. Our attorneys have significant experience handling tax controversies, including litigation, at all levels: in the U.S. Tax Court, Federal District Court, Court of Federal Claims and in New York State Court.
Our New York Tax team has significant experience with New York State Tax issues, including handling high-profile residency cases, New York City unincorporated business tax cases, as well as dealing with corporate and personal income tax matters.
In addition, our attorneys represent clients in inbound and outbound international tax matters, including merger, acquisition and disposition transactions, cross-border financing transactions and cross-border planning issues.
Our New York Real Estate attorneys have wide-ranging experience in all aspects of real estate law and related business dealings. They regularly counsel clients on the full spectrum of traditional transactions, including sales, acquisitions, financings and leasing of shopping centers, office buildings, apartment complexes, industrial buildings and other properties.
Our local team is also proficient in workouts and restructurings and works closely with our firmwide network of real estate, finance, tax, corporate and bankruptcy attorneys to provide efficient national coverage for our clients.
The New York Real Estate group includes an attorney who serves as lead counsel for a client that owns one of the largest development sites in Manhattan, the development of which involves some of the most complex real estate issues in the city. Our attorneys counsel clients in all aspects of complex financing both on the lending and borrowing sides, joint ventures, preferred equity investments, development and other sophisticated transactions, as well as multi-asset workouts and restructurings.
We also regularly provide counseling and advice to institutions and individuals in connection with hybrid deals, including those involving REITs, co-mingled investment funds, securitizations and other capital market transactions.