LITIGATION AND APPELLATE PRACTICE

From its inception, Harkins Cunningham LLP has been a go-to firm for clients that need litigators who can tackle complex and significant disputes successfully and efficiently. We help business entities, organizations and individuals resolve challenging controversies through court or agency litigation or appeals, or through alternative dispute resolution. We are frequently involved in federal multi-district litigation and in class action litigation in both federal and state courts. Matters that illustrate the firm's litigation practice include:

  • Securities class actions involving alleged violations of the federal securities laws and related state law violations, as well as suits arising out of financing arrangements including limited partnerships and debt transactions;

  • Antitrust actions brought under the federal and state antitrust laws; as well as unfair competition claims, deceptive advertising claims, and claims involving distribution relationships;

  • Derivative lawsuits in which directors are accused of breaching their fiduciary duties;

  • Partnership disputes, in which individuals or entities are accused of breaching their fiduciary or contractual duties to their partners;

  • Mergers and hostile takeover litigation, involving efforts to effect or resist a hostile takeover, or where shareholders seek to prevent a friendly merger from taking place;

  • Trade secret, patent infringement, patent licensing and other intellectual property disputes;

  • Complex contract disputes and business tort litigation;

  • Civil RICO and fraud claims;

  • Constitutional law matters, at both the federal and state levels;

  • ERISA class actions alleging breaches of fiduciary duty with respect to defined contribution and defined benefit plans;

  • Employment matters including employment contract claims and employment termination claims;

  • Mass tort liability;

  • Consumer-protection laws;

  • Price-Anderson Act related matters;

  • Controversies involving NEPA and other environmental statutes;

  • Agricultural marketing litigation;

  • Bankruptcy Act related matters;

  • Litigation under federal economic regulatory statutes;

  • Internal Revenue Code and state tax controversies; and

  • Defense of professional malpractice and breach of fiduciary claims against law firms and other professional organizations.

We also have many years of experience practicing before the state and federal appellate courts. Our complement of appellate lawyers includes former clerks in the United States Supreme Court and various federal Courts of Appeals and District Courts. We are frequently called upon by clients as well as trial counsel to take on matters at the appellate level to secure relief from adverse decisions or to preserve positive results obtained in the lower courts. Our appellate engagements have covered a wide range of subjects, including those where the firm is not regularly engaged at the trial court level but for which experience and credibility in the appellate courts is critically important. Our attorneys have appeared on behalf of our clients, including as amicus curiae, before the Supreme Court of the United States as well as the United States Courts of Appeals for the District of Columbia and for the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh Circuits. In the Pennsylvania state courts, we have represented clients in the Supreme Court and in the intermediate appellate courts.