Lee Kaplan

We are a premier team of civil and white-collar trial and appellate lawyers with a proven track record of victories. We’ve been successful because we listen carefully—to our clients so that we understand the concerns and goals that drive them, to judges so that we understand how to persuade them, and to opposing counsel so that we understand how to beat them. We think creatively and strategically through every litigation step, and we focus efficiently on what’s necessary to win.

Maximizing value for clients is a top priority. We are responsive lawyers who communicate clearly, regularly, and honestly. We are nimble with our fee arrangements, using hourly, fixed, contingency, or hybrid agreements that best suit a given case and that align our financial interests with those of our clients. Ultimately, we care little about how it’s always been done—we focus on how it should be done.

This is smart law.

Our focus is trials, investigations, and appeals.

Civil Trials. Our lawyers have handled virtually every kind of complex civil litigation in federal and state courts: energy, intellectual property, healthcare, insurance, employment, environmental, securities, bankruptcy, and a wide array of other commercial disputes. We represent both plaintiffs and defendants, individuals and entities. We are deeply experienced in every stage of litigation, from pre-suit demands to post-judgment enforcement. While we regularly resolve cases favorably for our clients before trial, we’re ready and willing to go to trial. Our lawyers are stand-up courtroom advocates with dozens of successful high-stakes bench and jury trials under their belts.

White-Collar Trials and Investigations. Our lawyers have played major roles in some of the country’s most significant white-collar criminal matters of the last three decades: alleged financial fraud, tax evasion, public corruption, trade-secret theft, money laundering, commodities manipulation, insider trading, environmental violations, and more. We represent companies and individuals, whether targets, subjects, or witnesses in a criminal investigation. We often accomplish favorable outcomes for our clients in an investigation’s early stages, including helping clients avoid charges altogether. But we are also ready and willing to vigorously defend our clients at trial—and have done so successfully, obtaining high-profile dismissals and acquittals.

Appeals. Appellate experience, encyclopedic trial-record knowledge, excellent briefs, and persuasive oral argument win appeals. That’s what we offer our clients, whether we represented them in the trial court or are newly representing them on appeal. All of our lawyers clerked for federal courts of appeals or state supreme courts. Founding partner Michelle Stratton clerked for the Supreme Court of the United States. We have written scores of appellate briefs for parties and amicus curiae, as well as petitions for discretionary review or mandamus. All of our lawyers have made multiple appellate arguments, including before three-judge federal or state appellate panels, state supreme courts, and appellate arbitrators. We advise on appeals outside of our firm, too. We serve as moot judges, and we analyze the strength of a potential or pending appeal for lawyers, their clients, or their insurers.