Biography: Competition

Evan Robert Chesler is presiding partner of Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP.

Mr Chesler received his law degree (cum laude) from New York University Law School, where he was elected to the Order of the Coif, was topics editor of New York University Law Review, served as a junior fellow at the Center for International Studies, twice received the John Norton Pomeroy Prize for academic excellence and was also awarded the Benjamin Butler Prize.

Following his graduation, Mr Chesler served as law clerk to Judge Inzer B Wyatt of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. Mr Chesler became head of the litigation department in 1996. He was elected presiding partner and took over the position on 1 January 2007.

Mr Chesler has tried numerous cases in federal and state courts all over the country. He regularly represents many large corporations including Alcoa, American Express, Bristol-Myers Squibb, IBM, Morgan Stanley, Novartis, Qualcomm, Time Warner, Xerox and others.

He is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, the American Bar Foundation and the New York Bar Foundation, and a member of the executive committee of the Center for Public Resources. He is the president of the Dwight D. Opperman Institute of Judicial Administration, the oldest nonpartisan organisation in the US devoted to the education of the judiciary. Mr Chesler is also a trustee of the New York Public Library and is chairman of its lawyers' committee.

Mr Chesler is an adjunct professor of law at New York University Law School and has been an adjunct faculty member at NYU's college of arts and science, where he has taught an honours seminar entitled 'Constitutional Rights in Times of National Crisis'. He is a recipient of the Outstanding Contribution to the Legal Profession Award from Chambers & Partners (2009); the Anti-Defamation League's 2007 Human Relations Award; and the Office of the Appellate Defender's Gould Award for Outstanding Oral Advocacy (2006). Currently, Mr Chesler serves on the New York regional board of the Anti-Defamation League and is chair of its New York professional partners programme. He was recently appointed a trustee of the Supreme Court Historical Society.

Mr Chesler received an AB degree, with highest honours in History, from New York University, after which he earned an MA in Russian Area Studies at Hunter College. He is a member of the board of trustees of New York University and of the New York University School of Law. Mr Chesler is also a member of NYU's board of overseers of the faculty of arts and science and founder and chairman of LAMP (the Lawyer Alumni Mentoring Program), which provides mentoring and curriculum enrichment programmes to prelaw students. He has received two awards from the University, the Alumni Distinguished Service Award (2001) and the Alumni Meritorious Service Award (2004).

Other Practice Areas

Evan R Chesler also features in the following practice areas:

• Patents
• Commercial Litigation