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jonathan Harris

Founder & MANAGING PARTNER

Jonathan Harris is the Firm’s Founder and Managing Partner. Trained as a trial lawyer, and having extensive business and financial experience, he is equally successful in the courtroom and in business negotiations.

Mr. Harris is lead counsel in litigations, arbitrations, mediations and investigations. He advises companies, C-Suite executives, founders, portfolio managers and top producers in employment, partnership and business matters, and represents clients facing internal, regulatory and criminal investigations.

AWARDS

Mr. Harris was selected by Lawdragon as one of the 500 Leading Lawyers in America for 2024; is double ranked by Chambers in Litigation: White Collar Crime & Government Investigations and in Labor & Employment: Mainly Plaintiffs; is ranked as a Litigation Star by Benchmark Litigation; and has been named a Super Lawyer for thirteen consecutive years. Mr. Harris is also ranked by Lawdragon as one of the nation's top 500 Leading Plaintiff Employment & Civil Rights Lawyers, has been named American Lawyer’s Co-Litigator of the Week, and been named by the National Law Journal to its 2021 national list of Trailblazers in Employment Law.

Notable Matters

Mr. Harris is one of New York’s leading trial lawyers and regularly tries high profile cases as lead counsel, often working with other prominent trial firms.  His public cases include: 

• currently bringing a malicious prosecution case against an international bank for a former trader who was acquitted of all criminal charges related to Libor market manipulation; 

• trial counsel, with co-counsel, for a ground-breaking 2023 federal jury trial involving trademark protection for NFT’s in the Metaverse; 

• obtaining, with co-counsel, public recognition of Avi Dorfman as a founding team member of real estate brokerage Compass, along with a financial settlement for which Compass publicly announced a $21 million legal charge;

• winning, with co-counsel, a record-setting $52 million defamation award in FINRA on behalf of a hedge fund portfolio manager against his former employer; 

• defending the family of a former President of Taiwan in a forfeiture case brought by the US Department of Justice; 

• successfully resolving a Black Friday internet gambling action brought by the Department of Justice against a world-renowned poker player and founder of Full-Tilt Poker; 

• winning, with co-counsel, a $20+ million federal jury award for a founder cut out of a partnership venture; 

• winning, with co-counsel, the complete exoneration of a prominent financial advisor on SEC charges following a month-long federal jury trial and all appeals; and

• winning, with co-counsel, a $61 million award for a hedge fund against an international bank relating to a complex derivative transaction.

PAST EXPERIENCE AND EDUCATION

Mr. Harris is a 1984 graduate of Stanford University, Phi Beta Kappa, and a 1987 graduate of Stanford Law School, Order of the Coif. He is a member of the Board of Visitors of Stanford Law School.

Prior to founding the firm, he practiced with legendary trial lawyer Peter Fleming, Jr., and with prominent plaintiffs’ firm Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossman LLP. In 2005, Mr. Harris served as lead clemency counsel for Stanley Tookie Williams.

Mr. Harris clerked for Federal Judge Thomas P. Griesa in the Southern District of New York, and is admitted to the bars of New York, District of Columbia and California.

ARTICLES

• Investigations Carried Out by Private Employers May Still Be Subject to Constitutional Protections for Public Employees

• Navigating Employee Non-solicits When Recruiting Multiple Employees from a Single Employer

• Navigating Executive Compensation Negotiations: Balancing Behavior and Legality

• Navigating a Parting of Ways

• Caught in the Crossfire: Tools to Thrive — Navigating the Complex Terrain of New York Litigation