A Barclay Damon team led by Karim A. Abdulla and Joseph M. Finnerty succeeded in its request to have court documents in the legal fight between law partners Ross M. Cellino Jr. and Stephen E. Barnes unsealed. The ruling was made June 26 by State Supreme Court Judge Deborah Chimes.

 The complaint filed last month by Cellino seeking to break up the prominent law firm had previously been sealed by Judge Chimes due to undue anxiety she believed disclosure of its contents would cause the firm’s clients and employees. Barclay Damon’s request to have it unsealed was made on behalf of the Buffalo News, New York Daily News, and New York Post.

 The high-profile decision has been widely covered by media, including extensive quotes from Abdulla, who is cited in the Buffalo News saying, “Open courts help to ensure that the legal process remains fair and transparent.” 

Click here for the full Buffalo News article, and click here for the report on NPR-affiliate WBFO.

Abdulla and Finnerty are members of the firm’s Media & First Amendment Law Practice Area. Finnerty serves as the practice’s chair.

In an article accompanying its 2016 list of the country’s  500 largest law firms, the National Law Journal says, “Barclay Damon jumped onto several of our top charts, including largest gains in total attorneys, size of the partnership, and associate ranks.”

The article notes attorney numbers at the firm were level from 2008 until last year, and quotes John P. Langan, managing partner: "When there is no growth, it's weird in the group dynamics [of a firm]. Things can get stale or intractable."

But with growth came excitement, the article says, explaining that “the chart-topping happened because of the combination between Hiscock & Barclay, a NLJ 350 firm last year with more than 200 attorneys, and the 90-lawyer Damon Morey.”

"There's dust in the air, and noise and coffee cups with cigarettes in them,” Langan says in the article, “but when you're done, you're so happy you did it."

Barclay Damon is the 157^th largest law firm on the NLJ 2016 list.

Barclay Damon is expanding its renewable energy practice with the addition of four attorneys from the New England-based firm McCauley Lyman. The new lawyers—Don McCauley, Frank Lyman, Jill D. Winans, and Michael J. Blasik—will join Barclay Damon as of counsel, while remaining partners of their firm. This strategic alliance will provide additional bench strength to Barclay Damon’s already substantial renewable energy practice by adding four lawyers with 30 years of experience in the areas of solar and wind energy development.

Barclay Damon’s renewable energy practice, led by Richard R. Capozza and Brenda D. Colella, represents clients across the renewable energy sector, including in hydropower, wind, solar, and biomass. McCauley Lyman has national experience in renewable energy project development, siting, and finance, with an emphasis on solar energy projects. The strategic alliance of the firms will expand the scope of each firm in terms of energy expertise and geographic reach.

John P. Langan, Barclay Damon’s managing partner, said, “The deal presents an opportunity for our firm to enhance the services we already provide nationally to the renewable energy sector, increasing our capabilities in particular on the east and west coasts and in the southwest. With a team of attorneys that is well aligned with us, the combination of McCauley Lyman attorneys with Barclay Damon will allow us to deliver even stronger energy capabilities to our clients while providing McCauley Lyman clients with additional services in a wide range of areas our firm is known for, such as regulatory, environmental, tax, and mergers and acquisitions.”

Don McCauley noted, “We look forward to providing expanded services to existing and new clients through Barclay Damon’s breadth and depth of practice expertise. The added practices and resources of this full-service firm combined with its established reputation as a key provider to the renewable energy industry will enable us to offer more comprehensive solutions.”

Barclay Damon LLP, listed as a “Top 250 Firm” by The National Law Journal, is a full-service law firm with offices throughout the major cities of New York State and in Toronto, Boston, Washington, DC, and Newark. At 275 lawyers, Barclay Damon is the largest law firm in the Northeastern United States that is not centered in a major market. Barclay Damon provides comprehensive legal and business counsel to a diverse client base in 33 practice areas regionally and nationally.

Barclay Damon has experience representing dozens of colleges and universities across the Northeast.  The firm’s higher education services include: day-to-day academic, business and corporate matters; labor and employment; student discipline and affairs; NCAA compliance; tax matters (including tax-exempt issues); real estate, financing and construction; employee benefits; litigation; higher education regulatory issues; and health care. 

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Barclay Damon is pleased to offer clients newly enhanced legal services in the critical area of cyber security. 

There is no question that data is a strategic asset for any company, and commitments relating to its use, sharing, acquisition, and storage can have long-term impact on a company’s business. At Barclay Damon, we are focused on protecting businesses in a digital world. Our attorneys represent clients in investigations, crisis responses to data breach incidents, litigation, government relations, and transactions, providing sound counsel on the full range of legal issues concerning cyber security, privacy and data protection.  

Barclay Damon offers clients practical guidance across the spectrum of cyber risks, drawing on the deep experience of many lawyers whose backgrounds allow the firm to help clients keep up with fast-changing data protection laws. In addition, we assist clients in addressing complex workplace privacy issues, including employee data breach response, employee surveillance, data privacy policies, privacy issues arising from the use of technology, and unique data transfer issues for employees.  

Through cyber protection planning, data breach coaching, and the defense of clients’ interests in court, our objective is to assist clients in preparing for and reducing data and security related risks. 

Clients of many of the firm’s practice areas take advantage our attorneys’ multidisciplinary cyber security expertise. These practice areas include Commercial Litigation, Corporate, Insurance Coverage & Regulation, Labor & Employment, White Collar, and more.

In a federal district court patent infringement suit, Barclay Damon represented the top innovator in the broadband cable industry and successfully obtained a jury verdict of willful infringement against a major competitor.  

Barclay Damon sued on behalf of the innovator, won favorable claim construction rulings in district court, and defended the validity of the patents at issue in reexamination proceedings before the United States Patent and Trademark Office. 

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On June 16, 2016, the Supreme Court issued its long-awaited decision in University Health Services Inc. v. Escobar on the issue of implied certification as a basis for False Claims Act liability. The case squarely presented the unsettled question of where the line of materiality should be drawn where there has been no obvious departure from established conditions of payment, but liability was based upon a lack of technical compliance with applicable laws and regulations rendering a government claim technically improper.

The Court held that the “implied false certification theory” is a valid means of imposing liability on health care providers under the False Claims Act, identifying two conditions that must be met for the implied certification theory to apply: (1) the request for payment must make specific representations about the goods or services provided; and (2) the failure to disclose noncompliance with material statutory, regulatory or contractual requirements makes those representations “misleading half-truths.” According to the Court, a provider’s request for payment constitutes the provider’s implied certification of compliance with all material statutory, regulatory and contractual requirements for the provision of the service. Moreover, if a provider fails to disclose (or omits) its noncompliance with these requirements, then the provider is misrepresenting the claim and the claim is “false or fraudulent” under the False Claims Act based on the Court’s decision.

Related News:

Law 360: Attorneys React to High Court’s FCA Liability Ruling

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Richard R. Capozza, a partner in Barclay Damon’s Environmental Practice Area was elected as the Head of the U.S. Delegation of the International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation (“CIC”) at a meeting held on November 30, 2016 in New York City.

CIC is a politically independent  and globally respected hunter-conservation advisory organization dedicated to promoting sustainable hunting to conserve wildlife and wild lands, support communities and indigenous peoples, and preserve the hunting heritage across the globe.  CIC’s unique membership structure includes nation states, corporations, and individuals.  Under both the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the CIC is the only hunting organization worldwide that enjoys the official status of an Intergovernmental Organization (IGO)

The U.S. Delegation of  the CIC is a 501(c)(3) organization with an independent board and officers and is an affiliate of the CIC headquartered in Budapest, Hungary.  The U.S. Delegation now counts over 80 members including leaders from many of the most respected hunting and wildlife conservation organizations in the United States as well as experts from several American universities. Its mission is to support and promote the four global initiatives of CIC, namely - Combat Wildlife Crime, Promote Wildlife Conservation, Partner with International Organizations and Sustain our Global Hunting Heritage.

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