Alison M. Bonelli is an experienced litigator who represents companies and individuals in complex civil actions involving securities litigation, class action litigation, bankruptcy litigation, contract disputes, and intellectual property litigation. She also handles some of the firm’s most significant white collar defense matters and represents clients in internal corporate investigations.
She has been recognized by Chambers USA as an “Up and Coming” practitioner in General Commercial Litigation, where clients and peers have praised her as “a superb litigator” who “dives in, has full command of not just the matter, but the client and the industry” and is “aggressive in an understated way that is extremely effective with adversaries,” noting that she “is very responsive and knowledgeable” and “helps deliver the results that we need.” Ms. Bonelli has also been recognized by Benchmark Litigation in its “40 & Under” guide and by Lawdragon as one of its “500 Leading Litigators in America.”
Ms. Bonelli’s recent civil representations include: individuals in a seventeen-case family dispute over one of the world’s largest private art collections valued at over $1 billion; a performing rights organization in connection with a copyright dispute between two of its affiliates; a prominent multi-strategy hedge fund in a confidential arbitration; an individual in multiple securities class actions; a large financial institution in an internal investigation; and plaintiffs in connection with complex post-judgment litigation proceedings seeking to enforce a $16 billion judgment against a sovereign nation.
Ms. Bonelli has also played a key role in the firm’s defense of individuals in high-profile federal criminal proceedings, helping to earn Levine Lee recognition from Law360 as one of its White Collar Groups of the Year and Legal Lions of the Week, and from The American Lawyer as one of its Litigators of the Week. In recent years, she defended the former Chief Investment Officer of Allianz Global Investors US, who was indicted in a complex securities fraud in which the Government argued that the defendant caused billions of dollars in investor losses. Following years of litigation, the Firm’s efforts resulted in a non-jail sentence and a finding of zero loss attributable to the defendant. Ms. Bonelli was also a key member of the defense team during the recent trial of a former Platinum Partners portfolio manager in which the jury acquitted the defendant of the central charge against him, and the Court sentenced him to less than one year of probation.
Prior to joining the firm, Ms. Bonelli was a litigator at Milbank LLP and clerked for the Hon. William H. Pauley III of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School (cum laude) and Georgetown University (cum laude).