Melissa H Maxman

A D.C.-based C&G team comprised of Melissa H Maxman, Ronald F Wick, and Erica Lai helped secure a victory in the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling that all workers are protected under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation.

The Legal 500 has once again recognized Cohen & Gresser in its United States guide. The firm is recognized for its excellence in the following categories:

• Corporate Investigations and White Collar Criminal Defense: Advice to Individuals
• Corporate Investigations and White Collar Criminal Defense: Advice to Corporates
• General Commercial Disputes
• Securities Litigation: Defense

Mark S Cohen is ranked as a “Leading Lawyer” for Securities Litigation: Defense and is described as “an outstanding trial lawyer and strategist who has excellent judgment.” The Legal 500 also notes that “[t]he Cohen & Gresser team does extremely high quality work” and that C&G is “a go-to firm for managing complex disputes.”

We are pleased to announce that 33 of our New York and Washington D.C.-based C&G attorneys have been recognized by Super Lawyers this year across a wide range of practice areas. Super Lawyers also selected C&G co-founder Mark S Cohen and partners Jonathan S Abernethy and Daniel H Tabak to its list of the top 100 lawyers in the New York metropolitan area, and partner Karen H Bromberg to its list of the top 50 women lawyers in the New York metropolitan area.

The Legal 500 has once again recognized Cohen & Gresser in its United States guide. The firm is recognized for its excellence in the following categories:

• Corporate Investigations/White Collar
• Corporate Investigations/White Collar – Advice to Individuals
• General Commercial Disputes
• Securities Litigation Defense

The Legal 500 notes that C&G has “impressive cross border capabilities and is often retained by clients in multijurisdictional disputes” and that our disputes team members are “true litigators, focused, and thoughtful - no stone is left unturned.”

C&G helped secure a victory in a case alleging that President Trump violated the Foreign Emoluments Clause of the Constitution by accepting benefits from foreign governments without seeking and obtaining congressional consent. C&G represents five legal historians who filed an amicus brief citing extensive historical sources demonstrating that the Founding Fathers shared the plaintiffs’ definition of emoluments. Judge Emmet Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, in denying Trump’s motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, expressly stated that “[t]he Court appreciates the illuminating analysis provided by the amici,” and that “Amici Legal Historians soundly reject the President’s narrow definition of Emolument as inaccurate, unrepresentative, and misleading.”

The National Law Journal published a piece about the importance of our clients’ amicus brief, mentioning Cohen & Gresser’s role, and quoting Washington, D.C. Managing Partner, Melissa Maxman, linked here.

This is the second time a district judge has relied in large part upon our legal historian clients’ brief in construing the Emoluments Clause.

We are pleased to announce that thirty of our New York and Washington, D.C.-based C&G attorneys have been recognized by Super Lawyers this year across a wide range of practice areas. Super Lawyers also selected C&G co-founders Mark S Cohen and Lawrence T Gresser to its list of the top 100 lawyers in the New York metropolitan area, and partners Karen H Bromberg and Alexandra Wald as two of its top 50 women lawyers in New York. Super Lawyers ranks outstanding lawyers who have attained a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement. Fewer than five percent of all lawyers in the U.S. receive this honor.

Cohen & Gresser helped achieve a precedent-setting ruling in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Jerry Reeves v. Fayette SCI, et al. (No. 17-1043), that clears the way for wrongfully convicted defendants to seek federal habeas relief where their trial counsel failed to present credible evidence of their actual innocence. There is a split among federal circuit courts over what type of “new evidence” of actual innocence is required before courts can consider the merits of untimely habeas corpus petitions that allege constitutional violations.  Some circuits consider evidence only if it is newly discovered after trial, while others permit evidence available at the time of the trial that defense counsel failed to present. The Third Circuit had not weighed in on the issue. Cohen & Gresser filed a pro bono amici curiae brief on behalf of the Innocence Network and the Innocence Project of Pennsylvania urging the Third Circuit to adopt the broader newly presented standard, because the narrower newly discovered evidence standard would cut off a pathway to exoneration for innocent individuals whose attorneys failed to present exculpatory evidence at trial. In a precedential decision on July 23, 2018, the Third Circuit agreed, vacating the denial of Mr. Reeves’ habeas petition and instructing the district court on remand to consider his newly presented exculpatory evidence.

The Legal 500 has once again recognized Cohen & Gresser in its United States guide. The firm is recognized for its achievements in the following categories:

• Corporate Investigations/White Collar – Advice to Corporates
• Corporate Investigations/White Collar – Advice to Individuals
• General Commercial Disputes
• Securities Litigation Defense

The Legal 500 notes that C&G has “an excellent group of sophisticated lawyers” and "has the ability to explain complex structures in plain English.” Nine C&G partners were individually recognized in the guide.

Twenty-eight of our New York and Washington D.C.-based Cohen & Gresser attorneys have been recognized by Super Lawyers this year across a wide range of practice areas. Super Lawyers also named C&G co-founding partner Mark S Cohen to its list of the top 100 lawyers in the New York metropolitan area, and partners Karen H Bromberg and Alexandra Wald to its top 50 women lawyers in New York list. Super Lawyers ranks outstanding lawyers who have attained a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement. Fewer than five percent of all lawyers in the U.S. receive this honor.

Melissa H Maxman was quoted in a Bloomberg article regarding Google’s internet dominance and the effects on internet searches, noting that “bringing plaintiff cases in the U.S. will be challenging, especially after the Federal Trade Commission closed its investigation of Google in 2013.”

See Politico’s coverage of the event here.

Chambers USA and The Legal 500's United States guides have recognized Cohen & Gresser and a number of the firm's lawyers for outstanding achievements during the past year in the categories of Commercial Litigation, Securities Litigation, Patents, and Corporate Investigations and White Collar Defense.

The Capitol Forum Interview Series features a discussion with Melissa H Maxman, Managing Partner of C&G's Washington, D.C. office. 

View the interview here. 

Twenty-two of our New York and Washington, D.C.-based attorneys have been recognized by Super Lawyers this year across a wide range of practice areas. Super Lawyers also named C&G co-founding partners Mark S Cohen and Lawrence T Gresser to its list of the top 100 lawyers in the New York metropolitan area, and partner Karen H Bromberg to both its list of top 50 women lawyers and top 100 lawyers in the New York metropolitan area.

Cohen & Gresser is pleased to announce the opening of its fourth office in Washington, D.C. The Washington office will be led by partner Melissa H Maxman, and will handle a range of commercial litigation and regulatory enforcement matters, with a focus on U.S. antitrust issues, criminal and civil litigation, and compliance and regulatory disputes in the federal agencies.

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Melissa H Maxman co-authored a New York Times OpEd advocating that the U.S. Senate open its upcoming impeachment debate to the public.

In this C&G Client Alert, Melissa H Maxman, Ronald F Wick, Erica Lai, and Danielle Morello discuss the U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) announcement that it will now consider crediting companies for “robust” compliance programs at the charging stage of criminal antitrust investigations. This signals a reversal of the DOJ’s longstanding policy of allowing substantial penalty reductions only for “early-in” whistleblowers.

C&G partner Melissa H Maxman discussed alternative dispute resolution in the U.S. for Financier Worldwide’s global Annual Review on the topic.

Melissa H Maxman and Ronald F Wick examine the impact of the Leegin Creative Leather Products Inc. v PSKS Inc. ruling a decade after the decision.

Melissa H Maxman presented a CLE on "Preventing and Defending a Private Civil Class Action Price-Fixing Lawsuit: Best Practices for a New Decade" at a program hosted by Lawline.  She outlined clear steps to ensure the best strategies to prevent and defend against different types of anticompetitive allegations.

Melissa H Maxman appeared on an episode of Our Curious Amalgam’s podcast series, titled “When is Doing Good Bad? Antitrust in Social Responsibility Agreements,” hosted by John Roberti, leader of the Antitrust Section of the American Bar Association.

Listen to the episode here.

Melissa H Maxman moderated a panel at the 2019 American Bar Association National Institute on Class Actions. The panel, “Collective Actions on a World Stage – A Global Musical,” discussed how other markets might benefit from class or collective actions in an increasingly harmonized world.

Melissa H Maxman spoke on a panel, titled “At The Intersection of Labor and Antitrust: New Trends in Non-Poaching Litigation,” at an Antitrust Economics Workshop at the 46^th Annual Conference on International Antitrust Law and Policy hosted by Fordham University School of Law.

Melissa H Maxman participated in a presentation, titled “The Incoherent Justification for Naked Restraints of Competition: What the Dental Self-Regulation Cases Tell Us about the Cavities in Antitrust Law” at the 19^th Annual Loyola Antitrust Colloquium at the Loyola University Chicago School of Law.

Partner Melissa Maxman spoke at the 22^nd Annual National Institute on Class Actions hosted by the American Bar Association in Chicago. The panel discussion, “Big Price Tags, Big Issues”, explored the proliferation of third-party financing and its challenges.

Partner Melissa Maxman appeared on Legal Talk Network’s podcast series ‘On the Road’ on the ‘Antitrust Exemptions in Sports--& More!’ episode. She joined host Creighton Macy of Baker McKenzie, and panelists Sathya Gosselin of Hausfeld and Kim Scott of Miller Canfield, in a discussion about antitrust exemptions in sports, antitrust careers, and litigating sports cases.

Melissa H Maxman moderated a panel at the 2017 American Bar Association National Institute on Class Actions, titled “Tapping the Collective Consciousness: How Americans Feel About Class Actions and Why.” The panel discussed legislation designed to correct class-action lawyers’ alleged abuse of an inefficient legal system.

Consumer Antitrust Institute in Chicago

ABA Antitrust Spring Meeting Panel, Washington DC 

ABA 20^th Annual National Institute on Class Actions in Las Vegas NV

International Association of Korean Lawyers, IAKL Seoul Conference Program, Washington, D.C.

In-House Counsel Forum, Jeju, Korea

Association of Transportation Law Professionals (“ATLP”)  87th Annual Meeting in New Orleans

Melissa Maxman moderated this event. 

Melissa Maxman was a panelist at this event. 

Melissa Maxman was a panel chair for this event. 

Melissa was a panelist at this event. 

Melissa was a speaker at this event. 

Melissa was a panelist for this event. 

Melissa was a primary commentator at this event. 

Melissa was a speaker at this event. 

Melissa was a panelist at this event. 

Melissa was a panelist at this event. 

Melissa was a panelist at this event. 

Melissa was a speaker at this event. 

Melissa was a speaker at this event. 

Melissa was a speaker at this event. 

Melissa was a speaker at this CLE course.

Melissa was a speaker at this event.