Litigation
Commercial and civil disputes before the Israeli courts, through every phase — most of them with a party, an asset or a governing law outside Israel.
The firm litigates commercial and civil matters through all phases of discovery and pretrial proceedings, trial and appeal. Its litigators have handled complex commercial disputes alongside matrimonial, family and estate litigation, which is an unusually broad footing for a firm of this size.
An international element is the norm in this practice rather than the exception. A dispute involving a foreign party, a foreign asset or a foreign governing law raises questions most litigation does not: what the foreign law actually says, whether it must be proven as fact, and whether any judgment will be worth enforcing once it is finally obtained.
What we handle
A notable matter
A husband had refused for nineteen years to grant his wife a get — a Jewish bill of divorce — leaving her an agunah, unable to remarry, while he had married again himself. Both were American citizens; the marriage had already been through the New York courts.
The firm petitioned the Israeli High Court of Justice to deny burial in an Israeli religious cemetery to the refuser’s relatives, as a means of pressure. The Court declined to decide the question itself and directed the Council of the Chief Rabbinate to take a position on it.
In August 2022 the Council did so, accepting the recommendation of the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi: in cases of particularly severe get refusal, family members of the refusing party may be denied halachic burial, subject in each case to the approval of a rabbinical court in Israel or a recognized rabbinical court abroad. The decision had no precedent.
Daniel B. Schwartz and Avraham S. Ben-Tzvi acted for the wife. Yad L’Isha, the legal aid center for agunot of Ohr Torah Stone, and the Rabbinical Council of California each filed an amicus curiae brief with the Court. The matter ran simultaneously through a New York divorce, a rabbinical court in California and the Supreme Court in Jerusalem, and was reported in the Israeli and international press (Israel National News, September 2022).
Described here without identifying the client. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
How we work
- An honest assessment of the case at the outset, including its weaknesses.
- A view on settlement taken early, and revisited as the matter develops.
- Coordination with counsel abroad where the dispute has a foreign leg.
- A second lawyer in the firm across the strategy before it is committed to.
Related practices
This practice runs regularly alongside the firm’s work in Contracts, Mediation and Arbitration, Cross-Border Opinions and Foreign Law, Inheritance, Estates and Personal Status.