Profile: Paul C Saunders

Commercial Litigation

Biography: Commercial Litigation

Paul C Saunders is a partner in the Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP litigation Department. Paul's practice includes trials and international arbitration, primarily in the areas of antitrust, securities, intellectual property, public and private international law and employment discrimination. He speaks frequently on those and other subjects. Recently, Paul chaired the symposium "Raising the Bar - What Being a True Professional in the Practice of Law Means", presented by the New York State Bar Association.

Paul was part of the team that successfully defended IBM in its major antitrust litigation in the 1970s and Time Inc. in its successful defense of the libel case brought by Ariel Sharon in 1984. He is a principal litigator for Vivendi SA and his other clients have included Lucent Technologies, WorldCom, IBM, Thomson-CSF (now Thales), Hertz, CBS Inc., Wells Fargo Bank, Fiat, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Campbell Soup, Covenant House, the Republic of Suriname, J&W Seligman, Dr. Henry Kissinger, the Afro-American Police Association of Buffalo NY and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.

In 1995 and 1996, Paul was co-chair of the National Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and in 2000, he received the Whitney North Seymour Award from that Committee. He was also chair of the Board of Visitors of the Georgetown University Law Center and continues as a member of that Board. In 2006, he received the Paul R Dean Award from the Georgetown University Law Center. From 1983 to 1989, Paul was a member of the board and vice president of the Legal Aid Society. In 2000, he was appointed to the New York State Judicial Institute on Professionalism in the Law and currently serves as its co-chair. Paul is a member of the Board of the Office of the Appellate Defender and was a member of the Board of Directors of Volunteers of Legal Service from 1996 to 2007. He was chair of the Constitution Project and continues as a member of that Board In addition, Paul is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, was chair of its National Moot Court Competition Committee and is currently chair of its Downstate New York Committee, vice chair of its Committee on Special Problems in the Administration of Justice and chair of its Task Force on Discovery. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of Fordham University and, in 2003, was appointed Distinguished Visitor from Practice at Georgetown University Law Center, where he is currently on the faculty.

Paul was cited as one of the country's leading practitioners in the litigation arena in Chambers USA 2005: America's Leading Lawyers for Business. In addition, Cravath received the publication's highest ranking for its litigation practice. Paul was also recently named in The Best Lawyers in America 2008 as a leader in alternative dispute resolution, "Bet-the-Company" litigation and commercial litigation.

Paul was born in New York, New York. He received an AB, egregia cum laude, from Fordham University in 1963, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and a JD from Georgetown University Law Center in 1966, where he was Notes Editor of the Law Journal. Paul also attended the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Paris, France. From 1967 to 1971, he was on active duty as a Captain in the US Army Judge Advocate General's Corps and was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal in 1971. Paul joined Cravath in 1971 and became a partner in 1977.