- Yale College (B.A., magna cum laude, 1994)
- Yale Law School (J.D., 1997)
Jacob W. Buchdahl
Partner
Education
Judicial Clerkship
- Law Clerk to the Honorable Charles S. Haight, Jr., United States District Court, Southern District of New York (1997-98)
- Law Clerk to the Honorable John M. Walker, Jr., United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit (1998-99)
Jacob W. Buchdahl is widely recognized as a leading trial lawyer. He has been named by Lawdragon among the Leading Lawyers in America, he is listed in Chambers USA, and he has been named repeatedly as a New York Super Lawyer. Buchdahl represents both plaintiffs and defendants in commercial litigation across the United States. Buchdahl tries cases in every setting, from federal and state courts to AAA and FINRA arbitrations. His most recent trials were defending a medical device manufacturer in a patent infringement case before a jury in the Eastern District of Texas and representing a private equity fund suing the issuer of a convertible bond in a bench trial in New York Supreme Court’s Commercial Division. Representative clients include Third Point, Nasdaq, Hermitage Capital Management, and Memorial Sloan Kettering.
Before joining Susman Godfrey, Buchdahl was a federal prosecutor in the Public Corruption Unit of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. Buchdahl obtained the convictions of sixteen defendants after jury trials, including the former highest-ranking Russian at the United Nations on money-laundering charges.
Buchdahl is a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School. He is married to Angela Warnick Buchdahl, the Senior Rabbi of Central Synagogue, and they live in New York City with their three children. Buchdahl is a member of the Board of Directors of Lawyers for Children, the Board of Trustees of the Abraham Joshua Heschel School, and the Board of Directors of Recess Activities, Inc.
Honors and Distinctions
- Recognized in the Chambers USA Guide to America’s Leading Lawyers
- Ranked for three years in a row as one of the “Top 100 Trial Lawyers in America” by Benchmark Litigation’s Guide to America’s Leading Litigation Firms and Attorneys
- Included in the Lawdragon 500 Leading Lawyers in America
- Named among “Super Lawyers,” New York Metro Edition (Law & Politics Magazine, Thomson Reuters)
- Assistant United States Attorney, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York (2002-07)
Wins
- Won a jury trial in the Eastern District of Texas defeating patent infringement claims brought against a manufacturer of spinal implants.
- Won an arbitration on behalf of a leading New York hospital alleging breach of a licensing agreement against one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies.
- Won an administrative trial before the SEC defeating antitrust claims brought against an exchange over its pricing of market data.
- Won a bench trial in the Southern District of New York on breach of contract claims brought by a bond insurance company against Flagstar Bank over nearly a billion dollars of RMBS.
- Won at arbitration against Morgan Stanley in which FINRA rejected the bank’s attempt to recover on promissory notes extended to two of its former brokers and instead awarded over a million dollars in lost commissions to the brokers.
- Won a summary judgment in California state court granting our client the exclusive right to develop a promising cancer treatment and rejecting all of the plaintiff’s claims for damages.
- Won a summary judgment in Manhattan federal court defeating all of the plaintiff’s claims for trademark infringement.
- Won a summary judgment in New Jersey state court ending a multi-billion dollar lawsuit asserting state RICO and other claims against a prominent hedge fund relating to short-selling.
- Won a multi-million dollar New York state court judgment (subsequently upheld by the Appellate Division) against Ron Perelman on behalf of a movie development company.
- Won a AAA arbitration on behalf of a client seeking to enforce a finder’s fee contract against a company following its acquisition by a multi-billion dollar financial institution.
Professional Associations and Memberships
Member of the Federal Bar Council.