Keker, 范巢 & Peters name partner 埃利奥特·彼得斯85年 frequently works on high-stakes litigation matters, representing clients such as cyclist Lance Armstrong, 美国职业棒球大联盟, 金融家弗兰克·夸特隆. 他被评为本周最佳诉讼律师 美国律师, he has twice been recognized as an Attorney of the Year by 加州律师，他已经取得了 日报美国律师协会曾三次评选出前100名律师.
Peters is also confident that he was the very last person admitted to his NYU 法律 class in 1982. “I was accepted off the waiting list the day school started,” he remembers. “我被bg视讯录取了, came down to the bursar’s office to give them my check, 一个上午就开始上课了.”
Peters says that NYU 法律 helped him find his path and gave him the tools to follow it. “If you can follow your heart, there’s a lot of amazing things to do with a law degree,他说. “You really do empower yourself in a lot of ways by getting a law degree and particularly going to such a fantastic law school…. Figure out your own path; find something to do with your law degree that connects with your heart, 让你活力四射, 感觉很有意义, 你会有一个精彩的人生.”
曼哈顿人, Peters says he first became interested in law as a member of his high school’s debate team. He earned an undergraduate degree in philosophy from Yale University and then worked on a US Senate campaign before starting at NYU 法律. When he became involved in the law school’s Criminal 法律 Clinic, 后来演变成了联邦辩护人诊所, its co-founder Chet Mirsky urged Peters to take a summer internship in the Brooklyn office of Federal Defenders of New York.
“I remember going to court with the federal public defenders and working on all different cases and trials,彼得斯说. “我完全被迷住了. Being in the courtroom, seeing the jury, and arguing in front of a judge is magic for me.他开始参加模拟法庭, 并获得了最佳简报奖, 最好Oralist, 和模拟法庭冠军由一组裁判, 他回忆说, 包括露丝·巴德·金斯伯格, then a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
法学院毕业后, Peters clerked for Judge Whitman Knapp in the Southern District of New York, 后来担任美国国务院助理国务卿.S. 同一地区的律师. In 1991, he moved to California with his wife and two young daughters and joined the firm that was then Keker & 范巢. He became a partner in 2004, then name partner in 2017.
在彼得斯处理过的事情中, he successfully defended investment banker Frank Quattrone against obstruction of justice charges in the first criminal case to result from several Wall Street conflict-of-interest probes in the early 2000s. Peters later represented the Major League Baseball Players Association, and he successfully challenged the US Department of Justice’s seizure of players’ drug testing records in the landmark computer search case 美国v. 综合药物测试. Peters also represented Lance Armstrong in both criminal and civil matters related to the doping scandal involving the cyclist. A federal criminal investigation into whether Armstrong and his teammates joined in a doping program was closed with no charges. Later Peters secured Armstrong a $5 million settlement deal in a years-long False Claims Act civil case in which the athlete faced liabilities of $100 million. Peters has also defended many top law firms from malpractice claims and represented tech companies in protecting their intellectual property. 去年秋天, Peters persuaded a judge to dismiss a 10-count indictment against his client, 房地产开发商约翰·威斯曼, in a high-profile public corruption case in Palm Springs.
But Peters cites his defense of John Tennison as the most meaningful work of his career. 2001年的一个早晨, Peters was heading into work when a parking attendant named Bruce Tennison stopped him to ask for help for his brother John. 17岁时, John Tennison had been sentenced to 25 years to life in prison after being convicted for a gang-related murder that he said he did not commit.
“(坦尼森)给了我一些关于这个案子的信息, and I read some newspaper articles about it and spoke with the defense attorney who had tried the case for John,彼得斯回忆道. “我开始意识到，他实际上是无辜的.” Peters represented Tennison pro bono in his habeas corpus case, 挖掘警方掌握的无罪证据, 包括另一个男人的认罪录音. 随后，他起诉了旧金山市和县, claiming that members of the San Francisco Police Department unconstitutionally withheld evidence at trial. 彼得斯谈成了4美元.6 million settlement for Tennison—the largest wrongful conviction settlement the city of San Francisco had ever paid. Peters received the Northern California Innocence Project's pro bono award in 2015, 部分原因是他在特尼森案中的工作.
“I’ve done a lot of cases for clients in big [legal] wars who have paid me,彼得斯说. “但是找一个可怜的, innocent man serving 25 years to life out of jail that is hard to beat in terms of satisfaction.”
今天, 他说, the sense of loyalty to his clients and responsibility for the firm bearing his name keeps him inspired. “I’ll find myself walking around my kitchen at four o’clock in the morning thinking about these cases,他说. “It brings me back to what happened in law school: I found this work and it spoke to me so deeply. I had a calling and was drawn to it, and that’s never changed for me.”
发布于2021年12月14日