Robert Berezin is a litigation partner in Weil’s New York office, where he is a member of the firm’s Complex Commercial Litigation and Patent Litigation practice groups. Mr. Berezin has approximately two decades of experience successfully litigating and trying complex, high-stakes cases, with an emphasis on significant commercial, patent, trade secret and antitrust litigation, including class actions, multi-district litigation and bet-the-company disputes between competitors. He has represented clients in a wide range of industry sectors, including technology, telecommunications, transportation, finance/banking, private equity, infrastructure, entertainment and Internet commerce.
In cases involving technology, Mr. Berezin has played a leading role litigating cases involving Internet commerce and services, digital camera technology, computer memory, wind turbines, biometrics, video surveillance, security systems and associated networks, semiconductors, telephony and electronic distribution systems. In these and other cases, Mr. Berezin has successfully represented clients at every phase of litigation, including in numerous trials across the country, as well as on appeal before several United States Courts of Appeals and the New York Court of Appeals.
During the past several years, Mr. Berezin has represented sophisticated global clients including American Airlines, Samsung, CBS, Lehman Brothers, UnitedHealth Group, General Electric and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, among others, in major cases in courts around the country. Most recently, for example, Mr. Berezin successfully represented American as a plaintiff in a jury trial of a very significant antitrust litigation brought against competitors involved in the distribution of airline content to business travelers. Mr. Berezin had previously secured wins for American in connection with high-stakes tortious interference claims, a $40 million litigation brought by MBNA, several class actions, and American’s bankruptcy acquisition of the assets of Trans World Airlines, Inc. Mr. Berezin also has represented Samsung at trial in a high-stakes contractual and patent dispute against a competitor, and secured a complete victory (including attorneys’ fees) for Lehman Brothers in an arbitration that he first-chaired arising out of a commercial real estate dispute that involved breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty claims. He also secured a defense verdict for First Aviation Services during a jury trial of a multi-million dollar action alleging breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty and fraud.
In addition, Mr. Berezin has obtained numerous wins on motions to dismiss and for summary judgment. For example, he obtained summary judgment in favor of CBS and AOL in a patent dispute regarding Internet radio technology, summary judgment in favor of UnitedHealth in a multi-district class action brought by nearly all practicing physicians in the U.S. alleging civil RICO, ERISA and other violations, and early dismissal of claims for other clients, including GE.
Over the same time period, Mr. Berezin has led internal investigations concerning, among other things, matters relating to alleged trade secret misappropriation and possible violations of law, and has provided pre-litigation counseling to clients in several industries (such as transportation, security and technology) concerning potential offensive and defensive claims, often in the context of potential breach of contract, business tort or intellectual property litigation between competitors.
Mr. Berezin regularly publishes and speaks on a wide range of legal and litigation issues, including patent litigation, e-discovery, complex case management, and technology litigation. He is a faculty advisor to the Trade Secrets Institute at the Brooklyn Law School, and also maintains an active pro bono practice. For example, Mr. Berezin represented the Innocence Project in an important project to ensure that proper procedures were used for witness identification, and he is a litigation member of the Weil team working with the Epilepsy Foundation.
Mr. Berezin graduated from the Law School at the University of Chicago and obtained a B.A. with honors from the University of Missouri. Mr. Berezin is admitted to practice in New York and Florida, and in several United States District Courts.