Co-founding partner Dan Benson is one of the country’s leading complex commercial litigators, known for his strategic and creative insight, meticulous preparation, and results-driven advocacy. He has successfully handled some of the country’s most complex and high-stakes disputes, including business litigation, class actions, mass torts, and environmental cases.

His matters have included the representation of:

• Numerous companies in defending securities, consumer, product liability and other class actions.

• Real estate company in complex lease disputes.

• Prominent businessman in multi-district federal litigation against alleged perpetrators of hack-and-smear campaign.

• Major energy company in successful appeal to U.S. Supreme Court challenging criminal fines in environmental case.

• NFL Hall of Famer Brett Favre in defending a civil lawsuit against him and numerous other defendants brought by the State of Mississippi arising out of the alleged misuse by state officials and others of federal grant funds and in his lawsuit against a state official alleging that the official maliciously defamed Mr. Favre by, among other things, falsely accusing him of criminal conduct.

• Clothing company in trademark and licensing disputes.

• Wealthy business owner in disputes relating to company valuation in buyouts of other owners.

• Bond insurer, in its $120 million fraud lawsuit against leading investment bank and hedge fund for fraudulently inducing it to issue a financial guaranty.  The lawsuit was settled after a seminal New York Court of Appeals decision on pleading standards for fraud claims reversing the dismissal of the lawsuit.

• Cigarette manufacturer Liggett, in conceiving, negotiating and implementing the revolutionary settlement of smoking and health litigation, including health care cost recovery lawsuits brought by state attorneys general and private class actions—the first-ever settlement after decades of litigation, which led to industry-wide national settlements and changes in industry conduct to protect public health, as well as extraordinary financial benefits for Liggett.

• Alaskan frozen fish suppliers, in securing a pathbreaking preliminary injunction in the District of Alaska enjoining the U.S. government from assessing penalties for alleged Jones Act violations during adjudication of the legality of previously assessed penalties.

• Several thousand residents of Alabama town contaminated by dangerous chemicals, in suing the major chemical company responsible for the contamination and achieving one of the largest settlements ever in an environmental case.

• Jewish and Israeli students at Harvard, NYU, Columbia, Barnard, and the University of Pennsylvania, in federal lawsuits alleging antisemitic hostile educational environments, including pervasive acts of discrimination, harassment, and intimidation, in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. NYU and, after its motion to dismiss was denied in a seminal decision by the district court of Massachusetts, Harvard entered into groundbreaking settlements, in which, among other important protections for Jewish and Israeli students, they agreed to implement the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism.

• Major monoline insurer, in successful defense of New York special proceeding brought by numerous large banks seeking to overturn, on alleged fraudulent conveyance grounds, government approval of the insurer’s corporate restructuring.

• Prominent hedge fund in fraud action against major investment firm arising from its acquisition of telecommunications company.

• Trade association of leading monoline insurers, in successful First Circuit appeal challenging Puerto Rican law allowing Puerto Rico, rather than Congress, to restructure its debt as unconstitutional and preempted by the Federal Bankruptcy Code.

• Leading magazine wholesaler in antitrust conspiracy action against magazine publishers and distributors, which settled on favorable terms.

• Leading chemical manufacturer in defense of nationwide mass product liability litigation concerning plastic used in allegedly defective plumbing systems installed in six million homes.

Dan has been recognized as a Litigation Star by Benchmark Litigation and a Leading Litigator by Lawdragon.  He was a founding partner of Kasowitz Benson Torres and played a pivotal role in the firm becoming one of the country’s leading litigation firms, as featured extensively in The American Lawyer’s August 2004 cover story, “Fast Rise to the Top.”

He is a member of the Board of Directors of Commentary magazine, one of the country’s leading magazines of opinion and culture.

EDUCATION

• Harvard Law School
  J.D., cum laude.

• Harvard University
  A.B., cum laude.

ADMISSIONS

• New York

• U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York

• U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York

• U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit

• U.S. Court of Appeal, Third Circuit

• U.S. Court of Appeal, Ninth Circuit

• U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit

• U.S. Supreme Court