September 18, 2020Newsletters

Krantz & Berman LLP is proud to celebrate 23 years as a boutique litigation firm!

We have succeeded and thrived by staying true to our core business philosophy: providing powerful representation at the highest level of excellence, while caring for our clients as if they were family. We’ve been working remotely for much of 2020, but that has not slowed us down.

Our Firm news includes the following highlights:


Jerrold L. Steigman
Jerry Steigman
Jerry Steigman joined our ranks as Counsel, bringing our team to 7 attorneys. We are so pleased to have him! Jerry came to us following more than 8 years as a fraud and corruption prosecutor at the New York County District Attorney’s Office and the New York State Office of the Attorney General. At the Manhattan DA’s Office, Jerry served in the Investigation Division’s Racket’s Bureau, and in the Attorney General’s Office he served in the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Bureau. Prior to his service as a prosecutor, Jerry was an Associate at Morvillo, Abramowitz, Grand, Iason & Anello PC, where he represented individuals and corporations in white-collar defense matters and civil litigation. Following law school, he clerked for the Honorable Joan M. Azrack of the Eastern District of New York.


Larry H. Krantz
Larry Krantz
Larry Krantz continued his white-collar criminal defense and commercial litigation practice, scoring a total victory for his clients — three former federal law enforcement agents — in a civil RICO case brought against them by former hedge fund mogul Raj Rajaratnam. On K & B’s motion, a judge in the Eastern District of New York dismissed the entire complaint as legally deficient. A link to the ruling can be found here. Larry handled the case with Lisa Cahill.


Lisa Cahill
Lisa Cahill
Larry continued his commitment to the profession by serving as a Regent of the American College of Trial Lawyers, and by presenting two webinars on trial tactics — one on opening statements for the Federal Bar Council and one on cross-examination for the NYU Law School Asia-U.S. Law Institute. In his capacity as Chair of the Federal Bar Council Committee on Sentencing, he also organized a webinar on conditions in federal prisons and compassionate release applications during COVID-19.


Marjorie E. Berman
Margie Berman
Margie Berman continued to lead our employment litigation and compliance practice, coupled with her diverse work as a commercial and civil litigator. Together with co-counsel, she won an appellate victory securing coverage, under an Officers and Directors Liability Policy, of our client’s significant legal fees incurred in defending a civil action. She represented corporate executives, academic deans, corporations, law firms and others involved in employment-related disputes. COVID-19 has presented novel and challenging employment concerns that she has helped her clients navigate. She has continued her active practice as a mediator, successfully settling many federal disputes. Margie presented at a webinar on mediation ethics as part of a training program for mediators sponsored by the New York County Lawyers Association. She also remains committed to the work of Federal Bar Council, serving as Secretary of the organization.


Hugh Sandler
Hugh Sandler
Hugh Sandler continued his work as a commercial litigator and white-collar defense lawyer, while leading the Firm’s representation of victims of childhood sexual abuse. K & B has brought multiple cases in the last year under New York’s Child Victims Act, which was enacted in 2019. Since its enactment, we have obtained a multi-million dollar recovery in one case, and continue to litigate multiple other actions against religious institutions, school boards, and other entities.


Wendy Gerstmann Powell
Wendy Powell
Recently, K & B scored a complete victory in New York State court defeating an emergency Petition for a Preliminary Injunction brought against our client, a major life insurance carrier and broker-dealer.

The Petitioners had filed the application seeking to require our client to transfer the servicing of certain life insurance policies to them during the pendency of a FINRA arbitration they had simultaneously filed. The application for a Preliminary Injunction was filed, fully briefed and argued (by Skype) within 10 days. The court denied in full the requested relief against our client. The case was handled by Larry, Margie and Wendy Powell.

K & B continued to represent a major life insurance carrier in multiple state and federal litigations, including a putative class action, challenging the company’s increase to the “cost of insurance” for certain universal life insurance policies. This defense is led by Larry and Hugh.


Nicolas James Rovner
Nic Rovner
K & B also continued its commitment to pro bono work by representing several inmates seeking early release on account of the COVID-19 crisis. This work is being led by Wendy, Jerry and Nic Rovner. We were especially pleased that in August 2020, a judge in the Southern District of New York granted our compassionate release application and ordered the immediate release of one of our pro bono clients, due to his health problems coupled with the dangers posed by the COVID-19 public health crisis. That client had been serving a 10 year sentence.


Samantha Solomotis
Samantha Solomotis
All of our work is ably supported by our Office Administrator and Paralegal, Samantha Solomotis.


K & B also continued its charitable work, with Larry serving on the Board of the National Fragile X Foundation and Margie serving on the Board of Day One.

Share This Item:

Search

Categories

Tags

Archives