Karen M. Chau is a partner in the Litigation department of Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. She is a seasoned litigator whose practice includes work on a variety of complex civil, commercial, employee, bankruptcy, and real estate litigation, with experience representing clients in federal and state courts and arbitrations. She has represented both U.S. and international clients in a variety of industries, including the financial services, manufacturing, pharmaceutical, restaurant, and residential real estate industries. Karen has also advised clients on a wide array of potential liabilities, regulatory and transactional compliance, enterprise risk management, and other legal rights and obligations.

Ms. Chau started her career at Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP in the litigation group, where she worked on numerous complex and consequential matters over the course of nearly a decade and a half.  For example, she represented the Trustee in the SIPA liquidation of Lehman Brothers Inc., the largest broker liquidation ever attempted and one of the largest and most complex insolvency proceedings of any kind in history.  Among other things, Ms. Chau acted as lead counsel in briefing and arguing numerous litigations arising from this liquidation — including matters valued at hundreds of millions of dollars that touched on equity, employment, contract, bankruptcy, and numerous other fields — in Bankruptcy Court, District Court, and the Second Circuit.  During the course of this bankruptcy, Ms. Chau won every litigation that she touched, including successfully creating several new precedents in the Second Circuit, negotiating positive settlements, winning numerous dispositive motions and resulting appeals, and victoriously representing the Trustee at trial.  Ms. Chau also represented the Lehman Brothers Inc. Trustee on the non-litigation bankruptcy front, including collecting amounts owed, determining claims, drafting bankruptcy proposals and structures, and helping to return over $115 billion to customers and other creditors.  Ms. Chau further represented additional clients in other bankruptcy-related litigation, including litigation related to equitable subordination, lender liability, and other matters.

Ms. Chau also represented major pharmaceutical companies, including million- and billion-dollar litigations relating to drug development and alleged side effects.  She represented numerous large financial institutions, individual members of their boards, and their employees in various state and federal litigations and arbitrations ranging from, for example, alleged breaches of noncompete agreements to fraud to large class actions.  Ms. Chau also represented a trustee in a major probate matter, including responding to numerous subpoenas, conducting extensive and complex international discovery, defending against major class actions and racketeering allegations, settling claims, and interfacing with government agencies.

In addition to her diverse litigation practice, Ms. Chau also conducted numerous investigations and provided advise concerning enterprise risk management, litigation risks, and potential remediation and proactive business actions.  For example, she conducted internal investigations of alleged misconduct and/or discrimination in various large companies, including identifying interviewees, conducting interviews, analyzing internal company and individual employees’ documents, and advising boards and executives about advantageous structural changes and liability risk.  Ms. Chau also conducted risk-management assessments of large, international corporate groups facing potential class actions and/or multi-district litigation, including investigating corporate structures and practices, finances, historical actions, and potential liability, as well as advising these companies concerning potential ring-fencing and other actions designed to limit or remediate potential future litigation risk.

At Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C., Ms. Chau has represented a wide variety of clients in a large array of litigations.  She, for example, represents an individual broker in litigation against his former brokerage in which she has successfully obtained a judgment finding the brokerage liable for extensive wrongdoing, and is currently representing numerous other brokers in similar litigation.  She also represents boards of cooperatives and condominiums, individual unit owners and shareholders, potential unit owners and shareholders, and landowners in a wide variety of complex litigations including disputes about board actions, elections. defamation, adverse possession, breach of contract, negligence, property damage, and many other matters.  Recently, Ms. Chau represented majority corporate owners in litigation against minority owners, including representing those majority owners at trial.

Ms. Chau received her bachelor’s degree magna cum laude from Kenyon College and juris doctorate from Columbia Law School, where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and Productions and Submissions Editor of the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law.  Ms. Chau is a member of the bars of New York, the Second Circuit, and the Southern, Eastern, and Northern Districts of New York.