HSW and Julie Withers Share Runner Up Honors As The American Lawyer’s Litigators of the Week
August 4, 2022
In a notable event for a twenty-lawyer firm, Harris St. Laurent & Wechsler and firm counsel Julie Withers (working independently of HSW) received recognition in the The American Lawyer’s Litigators of the Week column for July 15 for separate cases. This weekly features honors litigators across the country who achieved notable results at trial and arbitration across all practice specialties.
HSW, along with its co-counsel Clare Locke LLP and Wallison & Wallison, received runner-up recognition for securing a $52 million individual FINRA arbitration award on behalf of Daniel Michalow, the former co-head of global hedge fund D.E. Shaw's Macro Group, against his former employer. The FINRA panel found that D.E. Shaw had defamed Michalow and that Michalow did not commit sexual misconduct. D.E. Shaw and four members of its executive committee were found jointly and severally liable.
According to FINRA databases, the damage award is the sixth-largest overall award handed down to an employee by FINRA, the largest ever awarded by FINRA for defamation, and the largest to an individual employee. HSW’s managing partner, Jonathan Harris, worked on the Michalow case along with Yonaton Aronoff, Marilyn Yuan, Monica Delgado, Vanessa Biondo and Julie Withers.
Ms. Withers was separately recognized as a runner-up for her representation (with a team from Reichman Jorgenson Lehman & Feldberg LLP lead by Michael Feldberg) for their amazing work in securing a full acquittal for a client charged with criminal antitrust violation in the poultry industry.
HSW managing partner Jonathan Harris is a trial lawyer with extensive business and financial experience. He regularly advises companies, founders and executives in employment matters, partnerships and business deals. His cases, such as Learning Annex and Compass, have made new law around quantum meruit and equitable remedies, particularly in the common startup situation where a client has no formal agreement with co-founders.
Julie Withers has 15 years of experience litigating and trying cases in a wide variety of areas with a special emphasis on the financial services industry and white collar and regulatory defense. Since joining the firm in 2011, Withers has been a member of litigation teams that won a federal jury verdict of over $20 million in a business dispute, a victory against the SEC on fraud charges for a stockbroker accused of market-timing, the successful resolution of a “Black Friday” internet gambling action brought by the United States Department of Justice against a world-renowned poker player and an arbitration award for an investment banker against his former employer. Withers also represents individuals and companies in general business disputes.