Attorneys | Alexander Schmidt | Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz LLP

New York
270 Madison Avenue
New York, New York 10016

Phone:	212-545-4723
Fax:	212-545-4794
Email:	schmidt@whafh.com

Alexander H. Schmidt is a partner of the firm. He concentrates on sophisticated commercial litigation and class actions, including matters involving antitrust, banking, commercial factoring, securities fraud, civil RICO, real estate, intra-corporate and partnership disputes, and legal and accounting malpractice. During his 27 years of practice before federal and state trial and appellate courts, Mr. Schmidt has emphasized cost-efficiency, incisive analysis to spot critical legal issues and to anticipate emerging legal trends, and creative problem solving to settle and resolve intractable disputes. Mr. Schmidt's approach has resulted in several groundbreaking litigation achievements. Mr. Schmidt was the lead lawyer who briefed and argued the landmark Roberts v. Tishman Speyer Properties, L.P. (N.Y. Ct. Appeals) case, in which New York's two highest courts ruled in favor of a class of tenants from New York City's largest residential apartment complex, Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village, who had challenged their landlords' right to deregulate rent stabilized apartments while simultaneously receiving certain New York City tax benefits. Those rulings overturned New York City landlords' 13-year old practice of wrongfully deregulating buildings that New York's Legislature had intended to keep rent stabilized. After Mr. Schmidt helped shape a $173 million settlement on the Roberts tenants' behalf, the case was hailed by some national and local politicians as the largest, most significant tenants' victory in United States history. Mr. Schmidt was also the sole plaintiffs' counsel in Dresses For Less, Inc. v. CIT Group/Commercial Services, Inc. (S.D.N.Y.), in which the court sustained Sherman Act claims he brought on behalf of victims of group boycotts by the commercial factoring industry. The case resulted in a very satisfying, confidential settlement for his clients and ended the garment center factors' 80-year old practice of conducting illegal twice-weekly meetings to discuss and make joint credit decisions concerning their common customers. Among other noteworthy matters, Mr. Schmidt also conceived and helped sustain a precedent setting Kodak aftermarket monopolization claim in an antitrust and computer fraud and abuse act class action brought by purchasers of Apple's highly popular iPhone, who are challenging Apple's undisclosed, five-year exclusive service contract with AT&T Mobility. In re Apple & ATTM Antitrust Litigation (N.D. Ca.). In Atkins & O’Brien L.L.P. v. ISS Int’l Serv. Sys. (N.Y. App. Div.), Mr. Schmidt resurrected an archaic estoppel exception to the general rule that a client can fire its lawyer at any time, enabling his law firm clients to recover several years of future fees under a general retainer contract. Recently, without filing a lawsuit, Mr. Schmidt successfully represented the tenants association of a multi-building, 1400 apartment complex in renegotiating a ten-year old settlement agreement. The amended agreement reduced rents and plugged a loophole that had enabled rent-protected units to be converted to fully deregulated market apartments.
Mr. Schmidt is admitted to practice in New York and New Jersey and before the United States Supreme Court, United States Court of Appeals for the Second and Ninth Circuits, and the United States Court of Federal Claims.
Mr. Schmidt was an Assistant Adjunct Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School in 1998 and 1999, where he co-taught a seminar on Federal Discovery Practice. He was also a Small Claims Arbitrator in New York City for 15 years. A graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook (B.A. 1981), he received his J.D. from Brooklyn Law School in 1985, where he served as the Executive Notes & Topics Editor for the Law Review.