With an unusual structure that qualifies as “boutique” even while composed of a team domiciled in offices in New York and Washington DC, Harris St. Laurent & Wechsler is a new entrant into Benchmark, making its debut in this edition. The firm juggles a novel mix of white-collar crime, commercial litigation and employment work. Founded in 2009, the firm showcases talent with credentials from larger and better-known law firms. Name partner
Jonathan Harris was previously at Curtis Mallet as well as Bernstein Litowitz and is cheered by a client as “a very talented and hard-working lawyer. He is a great legal and commercial strategist and has very strong trial experience.” Harris represented a pioneering Web3 artist in a dispute against the luxury fashion house Hermès. The case involved the client’s creation of an artistic experiment, MetaBirkins, which were non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that depicted faux-fur-covered Birkin bags. Hermès claimed that the client’s NFTs constituted trademark infringement, dilution, and cybersquatting, while the client maintained the project was artistic expression protected by the First Amendment. Harris and employment specialist
David Wechsler represent a trader at Deutsche Bank indicted in the Southern District of New York relating to alleged manipulation of LIBOR. After a conviction at trial, the verdict was reversed and he was acquitted of all charges by the Second Circuit, which found his conduct did not constitute a crime. Following the acquittal, the Harris St. Laurent pair brought this current claim against Deutsche Bank for malicious prosecution, seeking $150 million in damages, alleging that the government outsourced its Libor investigation to Deutsche Bank and its counsel, and that Deutsche Bank, in order to cover up the conduct of its senior management related to Libor, targeted the client as a scapegoat.
Andrew St. Laurent specializes in white-collar crime. A peer in this field notes, “His instincts seem exactly right. I was dealing with him in the context of an investigation, and his manner made him a pleasure to deal with. As much as we like to give the government a good fight, you don’t have to be nasty when you do that.”
