Mark C. Zauderer

Mark C. Zauderer is a New York trial and appellate lawyer, and a senior partner in the New York law firm of Ganfer, Shore, Leeds & Zauderer LLP.[1] He frequently comments on legal issues in the print and television media and lectures on litigation-related issues.

Mark C. Zauderer
Mark C. Zauderer
EducationUnion College, B.A.
New York University
School of Law, J.D.
OccupationLawyer
EmployerGanfer, Shore,
Leeds & Zauderer LLP
Known forTrial and appellate advocacy
Bar leader
Media legal commentary

Early life and education

Zauderer was raised in Brooklyn, New York and is a graduate of the Brooklyn Friends School.[2] He is a 1967 graduate of Union College where he was awarded a Bachelor of Arts with Distinction and Departmental Honors. Union College recognized Zauderer's legal career in 2007 by awarding him the Eliphalet Nott Medal for alumni achievement.[3]

In 1971, Zauderer received a Juris Doctor degree from New York University School of Law.[4]

Professional history

From 1971-1972, Zauderer served as the law clerk to the Honorable Robert Shaw, United States District Court for the District of New Jersey.[5] In 1981, he co-founded the law firm of Solomon, Zauderer, Ellenhorn, Frischer & Sharp.[2][6] In 2005, he joined Flemming Zulack Williamson Zauderer LLP, where he remained until 2018.[1] In July 2018, Zauderer joined the litigation department of Ganfer, Shore, Leeds & Zauderer LLP, a New York City litigation and real estate boutique law firm.[1]

Zauderer has served as the lead trial lawyer in many significant business litigations. He litigated the successful appeal of a seminal case defining the extent of the extraterritorial application of the U.S. Securities Laws.[7]

Zauderer served as defense co-counsel in a suit brought by Eliot Spitzer, who was at the time the attorney general of New York state, against the former chief of the New York Stock Exchange, Richard Grasso, to recover Grasso's allegedly improper $187.5 million pay package.[8] All claims against Grasso were eventually dismissed.[8]

Zauderer has frequently represented major law firms in complex litigations and trials involving breach of fiduciary claims by former partners, and in significant malpractice matters. In 2010, he obtained a dismissal of a $500 million malpractice suit against the international law firm of Chadbourne & Parke.[9][10] In 2012, Zauderer represented a group of 57 former partners from the failed law firm of Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP in a highly publicized bankruptcy proceeding seeking to claw back pay and other benefits from the former partners.[11][12] In 2015, he was appointed a referee with all the powers of the New York Supreme Court, to adjudicate all disputes between the partners of the national law firm Napoli Bern, and to oversee the dissolution of the firm and transition of its 24,000 clients.[13]

Zauderer represented former Clinton administration cabinet member Ronald Brown, at the time the United States Secretary of Commerce, in a lawsuit brought against him and the major television networks by former presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy. McCarthy alleged that Brown, former chair of the Democratic National Committee, had improperly excluded him and others from the televised 1992 presidential debates.[14][15] The claims against Brown were dismissed.[16]

Zauderer is a director of the New York International Arbitration Center and a member of the American Arbitration Association's National Roster of Commercial Arbitrators.[17]

Public service

Zauderer is a past president of the Federal Bar Council and is a member of the Board of Editors of the New York Law Journal.[18][19][20] In 2003, he was appointed by New York's then Chief Judge, Judith S. Kaye, as chair of New York's Commission on the Jury, a blue-ribbon panel of lawyers and judges charged with finding ways to improve New York State's jury system.[19][21][22] In 2004, after holding public hearings, the Commission issued a lengthy report recommending significant improvements to New York State's Jury system.[23][24] In 2005, at the request of Chief Judge Kaye, Zauderer conducted town hall meetings in the New York Court of Appeals and courts throughout New York State to engage high school students in a dialog on the American jury system.[25] He also served as a member of the Chief Judge's Commercial Courts Task Force, which implemented the establishment of the New York State Court System's Commercial Division, and as a member of the Office of Court Administration's Program on the Profession and the Courts, which drafted New York's current sanctions rules.[2] In 2012, Zauderer was appointed by New York Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman as a member of the Task Force on Commercial Litigation in the 21st Century.[26] In 2013, he was appointed by New York Chief Judge Lippman as a member of the permanent Advisory Committee of the Commercial Division of the New York State Supreme Court.[27]

In 1991, then New York Chief Judge Sol Wachtler chose Zauderer as lead trial counsel in the New York Judiciary's constitutional lawsuit against the Governor of New York and New York State Legislature to secure adequate funding for New York's Judiciary.[2][28] The case was successfully resolved just prior to trial.

In 2004, Zauderer served as a member of a four-person delegation to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States to advise on the establishment of a commercial court for nine former or present British territories.[29]

In 2015, Zauderer was honored by the New York Law Journal with its award for his contributions to public service.[30]

Zauderer is a past chair of the Commercial and Federal Litigation Section of the New York State Bar Association, served as a delegate to its House of Delegates, as a member of the Special Committee on Cameras in the Courts, and chaired the Association's Steering Committee on Commerce and Industry.[6] He has served as a member of the Committee on the Judiciary, the Committee on Professional Responsibility, and the Committee on State Courts of Superior Jurisdiction of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.[6]

Zauderer currently serves as a member of Governor Andrew Cuomo's Judicial Screening Committee for the Appellate Division, First Department and a member of the Chief Administrative Judge's Advisory Committee on Civil Practice.[6][31] In 2015, New York's Chief Judge appointed Zauderer to the new Commission on Statewide Attorney Discipline, made up of leading attorneys and judges in New York State.[32]

Honors and awards

Union College recognized Zauderer's legal career in 2007 by awarding him the Eliphalet Nott Medal for alumni achievement.[3]

In 2015, Zauderer was honored by the New York Law Journal with its award for "Lawyers Who Lead By Example" for his contributions to public service.[33]

On May 29, 2016, Zauderer delivered the Commencement Address at Touro Law School and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree.[34]

Teaching

Zauderer has taught trial advocacy and related skills to practicing lawyers for the Federal Bar Council, New York State Bar Association, and the Practising Law Institute, and has served on a panelist on many legal topics, including libel tourism for the American Enterprise Institute [35] and the 2011 Second Circuit Judicial Conference, "The Legal Brain-scape: Neuroscience and the Law".[36] In 2013 Zauderer served as moderator of the Practising Law Institute's program, "Judges' Pet Peeves: Tips from the Bench on Trial Practice".[37]

Media

Zauderer has been the subject of eight half-hour interviews on the PBS television program, "The Open Mind" including:

He frequently comments on legal issues in the print and television media and lectures on litigation related issues.

References
  1. Ganfer, Shore, Leeds & Zauderer LLP
  2. "Mark C. Zauderer '63" Archived 2014-01-20 at Archive.today. Alumni Profiles. brooklynfriends.org. March 2002. Retrieved December 5, 2013
  3. "A Record-setting ReUnion". Union College Magazine. September 5, 2007. Retrieved December 5, 2013
  4. "The New York Law Journal names eight NYU Law alumni to 2013 Rising Stars list". May 14, 2013. Retrieved December 13, 2013
  5. Mark C. Zauderer - Faculty/Author Profile. Practising Law Institute
  6. Mark C. Zauderer - Lawyer Profile Marindale-Hubbell. ISLN: 902538847
  7. Itoba Ltd. v. Lep Group PLC, 54 F.3d 118 (2d Cir. 1995), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 1044 (1996)
  8. Anderson, Jenny (June 25, 2008). "New York’s highest court sides with Grasso". The New York Times. Retrieved November 25, 2013.
  9. Rudd, Hilary (June 25, 2010). "End to $500m Chadbourne suit affirmed" Law360. Retrieved November 25, 2013
  10. "Panel upholds dismissal of suit against Chadbourne". New York Law Journal
  11. Smith, Jennifer (July 12, 2012). "Dewey seeks 'clawbacks". The Wall Street Journal
  12. Fuchs, Erin (May 23, 2012) "Ex-Dewey partners enlist big-league lawyer to represent them in possible fight with the firm". Business Insider. Retrieved December 10, 2013
  13. "Napoli, Bern Firms Told to Stop Soliciting Each Other's Clients". New York Law Journal. February 11, 2016. Retrieved February 29, 2016
  14. McCarthy v. National Broadcasting Co., 162 F.3d 1148 (2d Cir. 1998)
  15. McCarthy v. National Broadcasting Co., No. 95 Civ. 2301 (JSM), 1996 WL 288220 (S.D.N.Y. May 30, 1996)
  16. Eugene McCarthy
  17. New York International Arbitration Center. Annual Update 2014. p. 5. Retrieved March 3, 2016
  18. "Board of the Federal Bar Council"
  19. Ramirez, Anthony (June 18, 2004). "Courts Plan to Waste Less of Jurors Time". The New York Times. Retrieved December 3, 2013
  20. New York Law Journal Masthead
  21. "Chief Judge's Appointment of New Commission Marks Start of Second Phase of Jury Reform in New York". New York Courts. Press Release. April 9, 2003
  22. American Bar Juror Kit
  23. Zauderer, Mark C. (June 2004). "Interim Report of the Commission on the Jury to the Chief Judge of the State of New York". The Commission on the Jury
  24. "Veteran Lawyer Leads Latest Jury Effort". New York State Jury Pool News. Fall 2004. p. 1. Retrieved December 13, 2013
  25. www.nycourts.gov
  26. Commercial Litigation Task Force
  27. New York Courts - Press Release. March 26, 2013
  28. Sack, Kevin (September 28, 1991). "Cuomo Denounces Judge’s Lawsuit on Budget". The New York Times. Retrieved December 3, 2013
  29. Continuing Legal Education Event Details. Mark C Zauderer.docx. Nebraska Supreme Court MCLE Commission. Practising Law Institute. Activity ID: 64265. Retrieved December 13, 2013
  30. "Lawyers Who Lead by Example 2015 Awards". New York Law Journal. October 14, 2015. Retrieved November 21, 2017
  31. First Department Judicial Screening Committee Archived 2013-11-19 at the Wayback Machine
  32. "Press Release: Chief Judge Designates Members of New Commission on Statewide Attorney Discipline". New York State Unified Court System. March 30, 2015. Retrieved October 6, 2015
  33. "Lawyers Who Lead by Example". New York Law Journal. August 21, 2015. Retrieved October 6, 2015
  34. "Touro Law Announces Mark C. Zauderer to be Touro Law’s 2016 Commencement Speaker, Eric L. Adams to Receive Honorary Degree". Touro Law Center. May 22, 2016. Retrieved May 22, 2016
  35. Adams. (March 27, 2009). "Panel on Libel Tourism and the First Amendment at American Enterprise Institute". International Free Press Society. Retrieved December 12, 2013
  36. The Legal Brain-scape: Neuroscience & the Law. 2011 Second Circuit Judicial Conference. June 8–10, 2011
  37. "Judges' Pet Peeves 2013: Tips from the Bench on Trial Practice". The Practising Law Institute. October 21, 2013
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