First up this week, Barry Berke, Dani James and Darren LaVerne of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher helped former New York Lt. Governor Brian Benjamin beat back bribery and fraud charges brought by federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York. In a motion filed last week, prosecutors indicated to U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken in Manhattan that the death of a key witness, real estate magnate Gerald Migdol, meant that they could “no longer prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, the charges in the indictment.”

Litigators at Kasowitz Benson Torres and Weil, Gotshal & Manges this week reached high-profile settlements with Harvard University in two lawsuits claiming Jewish and Israeli students faced discrimination and a hostile educational environment on campus and were subject to retaliation for raising claims of antisemitism. As part of the settlements, the school agreed to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition of antisemitism, which includes “claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.” The settlements also require the school to hire a designated individual to consult on all antisemitism complaints and supervise the preparation of annual reports cataloging the school’s response. The team representing Students Against Antisemitism included Kazowitz’s Marc Kasowitz, Daniel Benson, Mark Ressler, Andrew Schwartz, Joshua Roberts and Andrew Bernstein, as well as Tim Madden of Donnelly, Conroy & Gelhaar. The Weil team representing The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and Jewish Americans for Fairness in Education was led by partners Jonathan Polkes and Jared Friedmann. The team included associates Shai Berman, Milana Bretgoltz, Alli Katzen, Daniel Lifton and Nina Beth Shapiro, as well as Kenneth Marcus and L. Rachel Lerman of the Brandeis Center.