Commercial, regulatory, and special-situation disputes that threaten the enterprise, where the clock is running and a company's reputation is on the line. We litigate, we arbitrate, and where it serves the client, we resolve.
A corporate and private-capital boutique with international reach: a principal office in Chicago, a second office in Oakbrook Terrace, offices in London and Dubai through partner firms, meeting locations by appointment in seven further US cities, and a partner network across ~51 jurisdictions on five continents. Founded 2013.
A commercial dispute usually ends in a signature rather than a verdict, and the terms of the signature are set by what the other side believes you could prove. So we price the exposure before anyone answers the complaint, taking the merits, the counterclaims and the insurance together, so that the client decides on a number rather than an adjective.
The pleadings stage is spent narrowing the case, so that what reaches discovery is what we intend to try, and discovery is run to the trial calendar, each deposition timed to move the other side's number. Where the adversary is a regulator rather than a counterparty, the firm has represented clients in matters before the SEC and the CFTC, on the company's side of the table.
The dispute disciplines under this heading run from international arbitration to policyholder-side insurance recovery, and a cross-border matter runs as one case with locally admitted counsel wherever the witnesses and the assets are. We also know when not to file. A judgment is paper until it is enforced where the assets sit, and the matter is not over for us until it is.
Trial advocacy for complex business disputes, contract breaches, and commercial conflicts in state and federal court, from early case assessment through judgment and appeal.
Enter the practice: Commercial Litigation →Arbitration, mediation, and conciliation as a deliberate alternative to the time, cost, and uncertainty of trial, and leave the business relationship standing.
Enter the practice: Arbitration & Alternative Dispute Resolution →Commercial and investment-treaty arbitration under the ICC, LCIA, and ICSID rules for disputes that cross borders, seats, and time zones.
Enter the practice: International Arbitration →Appeals, briefing, oral argument, and certiorari strategy in state, federal, and U.S. Supreme Court forums, with the case framed for the panel that decides it last.
Enter the practice: Supreme Court & Appellate →Representation in futures-fraud, unauthorized-trading, and derivatives disputes involving brokers and trading conduct, including matters before the CFTC.
Enter the practice: Commodities, Futures & Derivatives Disputes →Defense for healthcare institutions facing regulatory scrutiny, privacy and HIPAA exposure, and industry disputes, with compliance reviewed before the inquiry and the defense ready when it comes.
Enter the practice: Healthcare Disputes & Regulatory Defense →Enforcement and defense of intellectual-property rights, trade secrets, and proprietary information, the assets that often carry the enterprise value.
Enter the practice: IP & Proprietary-Trading Disputes →Employer-side representation in employment disputes, discrimination claims, and workplace conflict under the federal and state statutes that govern the workforce.
Enter the practice: Labor & Employment Disputes →SEC and FINRA investigations, internal inquiries, and shareholder and securities-fraud litigation, with the defense prepared before the subpoena arrives.
Enter the practice: Securities Litigation & Enforcement →Internal investigations, government inquiries, and individual and corporate defense where criminal and civil exposure run in parallel, with the regulator and the board in view at once.
Enter the practice: White Collar Defense & Investigations →Merger review, monopolization claims, and cartel and price-fixing defense before the DOJ, FTC, and the courts that test them.
Enter the practice: Antitrust Litigation & Enforcement →Recall strategy and regulatory defense before the CPSC, FDA, and NHTSA, together with the product-liability litigation that follows a recall.
Enter the practice: Product Compliance & Litigation →Defense against UDAP, false-advertising, and consumer-fraud claims brought by regulators and the plaintiffs' bar, while defending the sales and marketing practices the business runs on.
Enter the practice: Consumer Protection Litigation →Patent, trademark, copyright, and trade-secret disputes in the courts and before the agencies that decide them, on the enforcement side and the defense side alike.
Enter the practice: Intellectual Property Litigation →DTSA and UTSA misappropriation claims, departing-employee disputes, and the counseling that protects the secret before it walks out the door.
Enter the practice: Trade Secret Litigation & Counseling →Patent, trade-secret, and Hatch-Waxman disputes for pharma, biotech, and medical-device innovators, where a single claim can decide a franchise.
Enter the practice: Life Sciences IP Litigation →Breach response, data-privacy class actions, and the regulatory exposure that follows an incident, handled together with the incident response itself.
Enter the practice: Cyber, Data & Privacy Litigation →Litigation holds, ESI protocols, and defensible collection, run the same way on every matter on the docket so discovery does not become its own exposure.
Enter the practice: eDiscovery & Information Governance →Class-certification fights and multidistrict and aggregate-litigation defense, the matters where exposure compounds with every additional plaintiff.
Enter the practice: Class Action Litigation →Policyholder-side coverage disputes, denied and underpaid claims, and bad-faith recovery, so the policy pays what the company bought it to pay.
Enter the practice: Insurance Recovery Litigation →A clause agreed at signing decides whether a dispute runs through American-style discovery or through arbitration. The first means depositions and productions that can cost more than the claim. The second means narrow exchange and an award that is nearly unappealable but crosses borders by treaty, which a court judgment often cannot.
The duty to preserve evidence attaches when litigation becomes reasonably foreseeable, usually weeks before a complaint. Chat tools and phones delete on schedules nobody remembers setting. A written hold that names custodians and suspends those schedules costs a day. Messages that vanish afterward invite the inference that they hurt you, whatever they actually said.
Privilege covers a communication made to obtain legal advice, not every email that copies a lawyer. When privilege is challenged, courts read in-house counsel's messages line by line, protecting the legal advice and producing the business judgment. An investigation stays protected when counsel directs it from the first interview rather than reviewing it afterward.
Courts grant injunctions before a case is proven, so the first question is why you waited. Months between departure and filing tell the judge the harm was bearable, and the motion can fail on that alone. When an employee leaves with files, the laptop is imaged and the access logs pulled in the first week.
Most liability policies promise a defense against any suit whose allegations might fall within coverage, whether or not those allegations are true. That promise is often worth more than the indemnity behind it, and late notice can forfeit both. The complaint goes to the broker the day it arrives, before anyone drafts a response.
A judgment is a right to collect, worth what the defendant owns and where it sits. Before a complaint is filed, the counterparty is mapped: which entity signed, what it holds, and who stands ahead of you. Assets moved once a dispute was foreseeable can be unwound, if someone is watching.
We do not run a dispute on reflex. Before a matter escalates, we put it through an adversarial review that maps the arguments the counterparty will make, the discovery they will seek, and the failure modes that decide a case before trial. A partner leads the matter from the first assessment to the last argument, so the partner who sets the strategy is the partner who argues it.
The transactions, governance, and capital structures from which most commercial disputes, and most of their resolutions, arise.
Corporate →Workforce policy, executive agreements, and the compliance posture that keeps an employment dispute defensible or heads it off altogether.
Employment →Token, exchange, and trading disputes for digital-asset ventures and the institutions financing them. We have advised in the category since 2014.
Digital Assets →Adversarial review, partner-led judgment, and the preparation that decides a dispute before it reaches a courtroom.
Our approach →Hart David Carson LLP handles commercial litigation, arbitration and alternative dispute resolution, commodities, futures, and derivatives disputes, healthcare regulatory defense, IP and proprietary-trading disputes, and labor and employment disputes. The common thread is a dispute that threatens the enterprise itself. Depending on what serves the client, we litigate, arbitrate, or negotiate a resolution.
Both, depending on the matter, and the choice is made on the facts rather than by habit. When litigation is the wrong instrument, arbitration or mediation will often end a dispute faster and at lower cost while keeping a business relationship intact. When trial is the right instrument, we try the case.
The Pressure Test is the adversarial review we give a matter before it escalates. We write out the other side's strongest arguments, the discovery they will chase, and the points where cases like this one are usually lost, so that any weakness is found by us first.
Yes. We have represented clients in matters before the SEC, the CFTC, and the IRS; we do not speak for the agencies, only for the companies in front of them. Regulatory exposure is mapped early and handled with the rest of the dispute in view.
A partner leads every litigation matter from the first assessment through trial or settlement, and the partner who sets the strategy also argues it. Early on we assess the matter, narrow it to what is winnable, and set a pace the other side will not expect.
Reputation, insurance ramifications, regulatory exposure, and the continuity of operations. Each can turn on how a dispute is run, and we manage them alongside the merits so that the resolution leaves the enterprise able to move forward.
Before anyone answers a complaint, we issue the hold notice, interview the custodians, and price the exposure across merits, forum, counterclaims, insurance, and press. The client decides with a number in front of them.
Motions to dismiss, jurisdiction and venue fights, and arbitration-clause enforcement fill the months when a case is won by narrowing it. Every claim that survives the pleadings is one we chose to try.
Depositions, expert reports, and eDiscovery run to the trial calendar. Each production and each Rule 30(b)(6) witness is timed to move the settlement range before the pretrial conference does.
Trial, an arbitral award, or a resolution signed on the courthouse steps, then post-trial motions, appeal, and enforcement of the judgment where the assets actually sit. For us the matter ends when the money moves.
Cases settle at the number the other side believes you will prove.
Reviewed by Jonathan D. Herpy, Sr., Senior Partner · Last updated October 2026 · Educational overview · Not legal advice
One partner is accountable for the whole matter, and you have that partner's direct line. Chicago, London, and Dubai work to the same standard.