Affordable, Experienced Legal Representation by Attorney with Ivy League Training - Antitrust and Other Commercial Litigation for Plaintiffs or Defendants in Federal or State Courts

Types/Place of My Legal Representation

The type of representation I offer is in civil cases, any federal court in the United States, or in any Supreme Court or Appellate Division in New York State or the New York Court of Appeals. I am not interested in any cases outside of New York State that do not involve a federal court. The reason for this is that the rules for federal courts are pretty much the same throughout the United States, but the same is not true of the state courts. The statutes and rules vary considerably, making it more difficult to provide the desired representation in differing state courts.

I represent either plaintiffs or defendants, and would like to observe that quite often it is advantageous for a threatened defendant to become an immediate plaintiff, to select the court in which the action is to be heard, and to take first crack at defining the issues in the complaint. It also makes it appear, at least for a while, that the defendant is the aggrieved party.

I am not interested in representation of clients outside of the United States for a variety of good reasons. In Canada, for example, it is illegal to provide representation on any type of contingent-fee representation, the last time I looked. But for such law, I would have accepted a most appealing case in Canada. The United Kingdom has the same law. And I suppose that Australia does as well, as another English-speaking country. This pretty much would eliminate my usefulness outside of the United States.

Having raised the issue, I went out to find out the current status of contingent-fee lawsuits in the UK, Canada and Australia, and found the following discussion in an article published by a tax-free think tank (Cato) seeking to abolish contingent-fee lawsuits:

Dissatisfaction with civil legal aid in the United Kingdom, particularly its burgeoning cost, led to legislation passed in 1995 which permits a limited form of contingent fees in personal injury actions. Attorneys may now enter into a fee agreement with plaintiffs which provides no fee if the claim is unsuccessful, but allows the attorney to collect up to double his normal fee if the plaintiff recovers damages. U.K. lawyers have taken to calling these fees “conditional fees,” to distinguish them from American-style contingency fees based on the damages awarded, which remain banned.

In Australia, conditional fees of up to double the normal fee are currently permitted in the state of South Australia. New South Wales permits fee uplifts of up to 25 percent. A 1994 report of the Access to Justice Advisory Committee, appointed by the Australian attorney general, argues that the federal government should encourage Australian states that do not permit conditional fee arrangements to provide for an uplift above the lawyer's normal rates. If these states do not do so, the report recommends that the federal government should legislate to allow conditional fee arrangements for matters within federal power.