Leslie Gordon Fagen

A senior partner in the Litigation Department, Les Fagen has litigated on behalf of both plaintiffs and defendants for more than 35 years, handling his clients’ most complex civil litigation matters.

Experience

Les has a strong track record of wins and favorable settlements at the trial and appellate levels in federal and state courts in multiple jurisdictions, and in alternative dispute resolution proceedings. Some of his illustrative case work includes:

• representation of major private equity companies and hedge funds in substantial commercial disputes concerning transactional matters and securities litigation and regulation;
• representation of major public company defendants in significant securities litigations, antitrust and transactional matters and internal investigations;
• representation of clients in major international and domestic arbitrations, including his role as lead trial counsel for Citigroup defending a $7.5 billion dollar claim brought by the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority in which an arbitration panel ruled in Citigroup's favor;
• representation of clients in the media, fashion and information services fields in intellectual property matters including trademark, copyright and licensing disputes;
• representation of major manufacturers in product liability defense work, including class action litigation in Texas, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, California, Illinois, Florida, South Carolina and Oklahoma, and the prosecution of plaintiffs' claims relating to defective products;
• representation of clients in real estate litigation matters including appraisal arbitrations;
• representations of clients in significant trusts and estates matters; and
• a court appointment to represent all future claimants who fall victim to asbestos-related disease in connection with the Manville Personal Injury Settlement Trust.

Les' major client representations have included Citigroup, Inc., Inc., UBS AG, JPMorgan Chase & Co., BNY Mellon, Viacom Inc., Dun & Bradstreet, Inc., American International Group, Harbinger Capital Partners, Paramount Pictures Corporation, Exor Group, CBS Corporation, MTV Networks, Showtime Networks, Madison Square Garden, ACNielsen & Co., The Nielsen Company, Nielsen Media Research Corporation, William Morris Endeavor Entertainment LLC,  General Atlantic, Veolia Environnement, Becton Dickinson & Company, Aisin AW Co., Ltd., Tokyo Electric Power Company, Inc., Perella Weinberg Partners LP, Reservoir Capital Group, LeFrak Organization, Alix Partners, Citco Corporate Services, Inc., Hollinger International, Cognizant Corporation, Wachovia Corporation, Kohlberg & Co., Walter Energy, Inc., Time Warner Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co., Christie's, Lazard Fréres & Co., IMS Health, Polo Ralph Lauren Corporation, Liz Claiborne, Inc., The Children's Place Retail Stores, Inc., Michael Kors (USA), Inc., Calvin Klein, Inc., Amtrak, The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, The New York City Transit Authority, The Long Island Rail Road, The Huffington Post, Suzuki Motor Corporation, The United Bank of Kuwait, Kate Spade, Inc., Buzzfeed, Thrillist.com, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc., HEB and Hochschild Mining plc.

Les' work on behalf of ACNielsen & Co. and other clients was profiled in an American Lawyer cover story, "The Lifesavers," in which Paul, Weiss was selected as the best litigation firm in the United States. He is noted as a leading practitioner in commercial litigation by Chambers USA, Benchmark Litigation and The International Who's Who of Business Lawyers. He has been named by his peers in The Best Lawyers in America as a leader in the fields of "Bet-the-Company," commercial and intellectual property litigation. He has been recognized as an "excellent trial lawyer and general counselor" in Legal 500 and a leading attorney in the competition and product liability litigation fields in Lawdragon 500.

Les is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, where he serves on the Judiciary Committee.

Les is an adjunct lecturer in law at Columbia Law School, where he teaches trial advocacy, and an adjunct professor of law at Brooklyn Law School, where he teaches an intellectual property litigation course. Les is also an Associate Fellow, Berkeley College, Yale University.

He has been a member of the firm's Management Committee. He is a former Chairman of the Partnership Committee and has served as Co-Chair of the firm's Litigation Department.

Les is a member of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, the International Bar Association and the Legal Advisory Board of the Copyright Alliance. He has also served on several City Bar committees, including Committees on the Judiciary, State Legislation and Transportation. Les has been a member of the American Bar Association and the New York State Bar Association Section of Commercial and Federal Litigation, where he served as chairman of the Committee on Magistrate Judges. He won, as co-author, the New York State Bar Association Commercial and Federal Litigation Section's award for "Excellence in Commercial Brief Writing."

Les is a director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. He has served as President and Vice Chairman of The Educational Alliance, Inc., a multi-disciplinary social service agency, and as a member of the Board of Trustees of Maimonides Medical Center. He has been a David Rockefeller Fellow at the Partnership for New York City. He currently serves on the Development Board of The Bingham Centre for The Rule of Law and the International Rule of Law Project, Inc., an affiliate of the Bingham Centre.

Les is the author of numerous publications on arbitration, intellectual property and product liability. He is also the author of a monograph on the life of the firm's late patriarch Judge Simon H. Rifkind published in The Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law. Ed. Roger K. Newman. New Haven, CT. Yale University Press, 2009. 459.

Les is a member of The Century Association.

Practices

• Litigation
• Antitrust
• Employment
• Insurance
• IP Litigation: Copyright & Trademark
• Internal Investigations
• International Arbitration
• Media & Entertainment
• Securities Litigation
  

Education

• J.D., Columbia Law School
• B.A., Yale College

Clerkship

• Hon. Jack B. Weinstein, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York

Bar Admissions

• New York
• District of Columbia

See Library Tab for articles, publications and presentations by Leslie Fagen