Palermo, Mario

Jon Cohen practices in the firm's complex commercial litigation and bankruptcy departments. Through Jon's experience as in-house legal counsel for a Fortune 500 Company and during his many years in private firms, he has represented public and private companies, partnerships, creditors, creditor groups (including retirees), LLCs, and individuals in actions arising out of breaches of contract, trade secrets, closely held company and shareholder disputes, securities fraud, internet domain name disputes, restrictive covenants, product liability actions, consumer fraud, manufacturer representative disputes, property disputes, Federal and State appeals, and a wide range of injunctive actions.

Jon's litigation experience includes many Federal and State hearings throughout the country, defense and prosecution of over eighty arbitration actions (AAA, NASD, NYSE, SEC, ADR), successful appeals in several Federal and State actions, and dozens of temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction actions (in employment, restrictive covenant, trade secret, conversion and domain name cases). Jon has also negotiated hundreds of settlements involving a wide variety of clients in different legal settings.

In the context of Chapter 11 bankruptcies, Jon and Trent Cornell lead a group that concentrates on the representation of Section 1114 Retiree Committees. As large companies in Chapter 11 often seek to slash "legacy" or retiree costs, Retiree Committees serve an important role to ensure that welfare benefits are not reduced unless absolutely necessary, and if a reduction is required that the benefit levels be reduced as little as possible. Where retiree benefits needed to be reduced, Jon undertook creative and probing analysis of asserted reduction levels and successfully challenged those reductions on behalf of his clients. As a result, the Retiree Committees represented by Jon have been able to obtain meaningful and continuing benefits for the remainder of the retirees' lives. Jon has represented Retiree Committees in the steel and automotive industries where the retiree benefits at issue exceeded $150 million dollars, and which impacted thousands of retirees. Jon was also instrumental in assisting retirees to obtain healthcare benefits at a lower cost, efforts that helped to maintain benefit levels for the retirees while allowing the companies to successfully emerge from bankruptcy with the ability to afford continuing benefits long in to the future.

Jon further acts in the capacity as general business counsel to several corporations and high net worth individuals. Jon prides himself in making himself available whenever clients need him, timely responding to any client inquiries, working closely with clients to understand their needs, and creative approaches to litigation and timely resolution of disputes to reduce legal costs.