• Hon. Yvette Kane
  US Dist Ct MDPA

Peter Isajiw concentrates his practice on complex securities and commercial litigation, as well as criminal and regulatory investigations.  Peter represents clients in a variety of state and federal court matters and has played a prominent role in the representation of:

• Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. in multiple lawsuits against leading prime brokers alleging, among other claims, unlawful securities market manipulation, state RICO and federal antitrust law violations in connection with purportedly illegal "naked short selling" practices.
• The United States Treasury Department Presidential Auto Task Force, in connection with the Chrysler bankruptcy proceedings.
• A major international financial institution and two individuals in a joint investigation by the FBI and SEC concerning the alleged improper use of "stock loan finders" in securities lending transactions.
• American Home Mortgage Investment Corporation in a SEC investigation related to the subprime mortgage crisis.
• Omnicare, Inc., the nation's leading pharmaceutical care provider to the elderly, in the enforcement of a multimillion dollar contractual guarantee.
• Charming Shoppes Inc., a leading multichannel specialty women's apparel retailer, in an action seeking to enjoin several hedge funds from violating Sections 13(d) and 14(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Section 8 of the Clayton Act in connection with a proxy contest launched by a group of hedge funds.
• A former Director of Investor Relations of Abercrombie & Fitch in a federal securities law class action alleging, among other things, selective disclosure of same-store-sales results to favored analysts.
• Bank of America in multiple Enron-related law suits.
• Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, UBS Securities, CS First Boston (now Credit Suisse), Bank of America Securities, CIBC World Markets, Goldman Sachs, and Salomon Smith Barney (now Citigroup) in a federal securities law class action asserting claims under Sections 11 and 12(a)(2) of the Securities Act of 1933 against the underwriters of three securities offerings, aggregating in excess of $3 billion, issued by The Williams Companies.

Peter is also actively involved in pro bono work: 

• In 2006 he was lead counsel in a case resulting in one of the first applications of the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark decision, Lawrence v. Texas, in North Carolina. Peter, in cooperation with the ACLU of North Carolina Legal Foundation, represented an unmarried woman who lost her job as a 911 dispatcher with North Carolina's Pender County Sheriff's Office because she chose to live with her boyfriend in violation of the law. Peter successfully argued against the State of North Carolina, the North Carolina Attorney General, and the Pender County Sheriff, that a state statute criminalizing unmarried cohabitation was unconstitutional because it violated plaintiff's right to liberty under the U.S. Supreme Court decision. The Court declared the statute unconstitutional and issued a permanent injunction barring all state actors from enforcing the law in any manner. The case was the subject of a feature story on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" and received coverage from the Associated Press, the New York Times, the BBC, ABC News, CNN News, the Colbert Report, Playboy, and international news outlets including newspapers in Sydney, Toronto, Paris, London and Shanghai.
• Peter currently leads a team of Cadwalader attorneys serving as pro bono counsel to a federal death row inmate in a post-conviction proceeding to set aside the conviction and death sentence, and grant a new trial. Post-conviction relief is sought on the grounds that the client is innocent of the crime for which he was sentenced to death and on several grounds of constitutional error.

Peter has substantial experience with sophisticated electronic discovery (e-discovery).  He has counseled clients on developing cost-effective and defensible e-discovery strategies in multiple complex litigations involving millions of pages of documents and terabytes of data from multiple sources of electronically stored information.   Peter is a frequent speaker on the subject of e-discovery, serving as a panelist at several continuing legal education events, including:

• "Building Effective Cross-Functional Teams to Manage Large Scale Securities Suits" at  IQPC's 7th Securities Litigation & Enforcement Summit.
• "Want To Be My Friend?  Social Networking's Impact on Discovery."  A Kroll Ontrack continuing legal education event.
• "Best Practices for Complex E-Discovery Matters" a Lexis Nexis, Applied Discovery continuing legal education event.
• "Next Decade of Document Review: Cheaper, Better, Smarter" a Kroll Ontrack Thought Leadership continuing legal education event.
• "Electronic Discovery in Practice" a Legal Aid Society continuing legal education event.

Peter is a contributing author to the treatise Public Companies, which provides a comprehensive treatment of the responsibilities and functions of publicly traded corporations and their directors, officers, and general counsel.  He also authored an article entitled "Workplace Email Privacy Concerns: Balancing the Personal Dignity of Employees with the Proprietary Interests of Employers" which was published in the Temple Environmental Law and Technology Journal (Fall 2001).   

Prior to joining Cadwalader, Peter was a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Yvette Kane, Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.

Peter received his J.D. from the Temple University Beasley School of Law in 2002 where he was a member of the Temple Law Review.  He received his undergraduate degree from Villanova University in 1997. 

Peter is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York as well as New York State Courts.