Practice Groups:

Allan Taffet is the chair of the Firm’s Litigation Department and is co-chair of the Firm’s Distressed Real Estate Practice Group. Mr. Taffet has more than 20 years’ litigation experience, and has handled a variety of significant cases on behalf of private and public entities through trial and appeal. In the last ten years, Mr. Taffet has tried numerous matters in federal and state courts, and before arbitration panels and administrative bodies.

The matters that Mr. Taffet has litigated encompass a broad spectrum of complex commercial disputes involving securities, employment and non-competition, breach of contract and contract construction, fraud, RICO, shareholder and partnership disputes and dissolutions.

Among the clients Mr. Taffet recently has represented are Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Cowen & Co. LLC and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Mr. Taffet began practicing law as an associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore and later practiced as a litigation associate at Willkie Farr & Gallagher. He developed substantial federal trial and appellate experience as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York. In that capacity, Mr. Taffet litigated cases on behalf of the Government in the areas of environmental law, RICO, employment law, civil rights and the First Amendment. Mr. Taffet was promoted to the position of Chief of the Environmental Protection Unit in 1993, and later became Deputy Chief of the Civil Division, where he was responsible for supervising 15 civil litigators in all federal litigation in the Southern District in which the Government was a party. Mr. Taffet was a recipient of the U.S. Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service in 1990 and the Director’s Award for Superior Performance as an Assistant United States Attorney in 1989 and 1996, respectively.

Mr. Taffet’s experience in the distressed real estate area includes (i) filing of some of the earliest lawsuits (on behalf of the plaintiff) against defaulted subprime lenders, (ii) defending an institutional client against contract, tort and equitable claims filed by a commercial borrower alleging that the lender had defaulted in failing to fund a mixed-use construction project loan based on a detailed term sheet, and (iii) advising the Firm’s clients on litigation strategy.

Although Allan himself will protest its accuracy, we recall the statement about Allan made by one of our clients “We love Allan, he never loses.”

Mr. Taffet received his B.A., magna cum laude, from Columbia College in 1981, and his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1984. Mr. Taffet currently holds the title of Adjunct Professor of Law at Fordham Law School, where he has taught since 1990. Mr. Taffet also has served as a Member of the Panel of Arbitrators for FINRA.

Attorney Advertising: Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.