Samuel Spital Senior Associate

Representative Experience

• Providing counsel, along with a prominent civil rights organization, to intervenor-defendants in a major constitutional challenge to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The statute remains intact after the Supreme Court decided the case on narrow statutory grounds.
• Providing counsel to a capital client and successfully presenting oral argument to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which vacated the client’s death sentence in a significant opinion concerning the Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel in capital cases.
• Providing counsel to corporate clients in certiorari petitions to the United States Supreme Court challenging lower court decisions about the scope of arbitration agreements.
• Providing counsel to sovereign states in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in cases raising issues of choice of law, maritime tort law and treaty interpretation.
• Providing counsel to amici clients in Supreme Court cases involving indigent defense, the Federal Arbitration Act and federal statutes concerning cargo transportation.
• Providing counsel to a multinational corporation concerning US law relating to contract and insurance issues and strategic advice relating to the US regulatory regime as it might affect future operations.