Law Firm Defense
and Legal Ethics
Aurelian law firm defense and legal ethics:
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Aurelian represents lawyers and law firms facing investigation, litigation, or the threat of litigation from non-clients.
We are not a malpractice firm.
Rather, we defend lawyers who are attacked for doing their jobs—whether that attack comes in the form of retaliatory litigation or government investigations.
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Aurelian represents lawyers in New York grievance proceedings.
We advocate for lawyers facing ethics investigations, helping attorneys navigate the grievance process.
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Aurelian lawyers have deep and broad experience with legal ethics matters.
We advise law firms and lawyers facing difficult ethical issues. Our team has advised both private sector and public sector lawyers on thorny issues arising during legal practice.
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Sometimes, lawyers overreach. Attorneys abuse their positions and violate ethical rules to gain unfair advantage.
Aurelian advocates for clients and lawyers impacted by unethical conduct. Our team has successfully challenged overreach by government lawyers and private practitioners alike.
Experience
Illustrative experiences of Aurelian attorneys, including from prior representations before founding Aurelian Law:
Killmer, Lane & Newman, LLP v. BKP, Inc., 535 P.3d 91 (Colo. 2023). Aurelian partner Brian M. Feldman represented a nonprofit law firm in defending against defamation and related claims by a company that the law firm’s clients had sued. In this decision, the Colorado Supreme Court shut down the attempt to hold the attorneys liable for a press release issued at the outset of the litigation. The Court adopted litigation privilege arguments developed and argued by Mr. Feldman to protect lawyers from retaliatory defamation litigation. The precedent led legal commentators to caution litigants to “exercise caution and pick their battles,” rather than raise defamation claims against opposing counsel.
Meyer v. Kalanick, 212 F. Supp. 3d 437 (S.D.N.Y. 2016). In this widely covered opinion, Aurelian partner Brian M. Feldman served as lead counsel in successfully invoking the crime-fraud exception based on attorney and investigator misconduct, securing the payment of compensatory attorneys’ fees and an injunction against further litigation misconduct. U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff began his opinion with these two sentences: “It is a sad day when, in response to the filing of a commercial lawsuit, a corporate defendant feels compelled to hire unlicensed private investigators to conduct secret personal background investigations of both the plaintiff and his counsel. It is sadder yet when these investigators flagrantly lie to friends and acquaintances of the plaintiff and his counsel in an (ultimately unsuccessful) attempt to obtain derogatory information about them.”