Joshua Rosenkranz heads the firm’s Supreme Court and Appellate Litigation practice.
A former law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr. and then-Judge Antonin Scalia on the D.C. Circuit, Mr. Rosenkranz has personally argued more than 170 appeals in state and federal appellate courts across the nation and has served as attorney of record in some 1,500 other appeals.
The American Lawyer named Mr. Rosenkranz “Litigator of the Year” in its January 2012 edition, dubbing him “the Defibrillator” based on his streak of appellate wins for companies that “appeared to be at death’s door.” In naming him an “Appellate MVP” for 2011, Law360 notes: “Rosenkranz is heralded by his colleagues as a brilliant strategic mind with a knack for swaying judges and crafting written arguments that sing off the page.” Benchmark Litigation and Benchmark Appellate 2012 list Mr. Rosenkranz as a “Litigation Star,” quoting the CEO of a client: “I think Joshua Rosenkranz is one of the finest lawyers I’ve ever seen.” Chambers USA named him one of two lawyers in the top tier of appellate lawyers in New York in 2009. The 2011 version of Chambers USA reported, “He wins accolades for his ‘brilliant analysis and judgment.’ Clients appreciate how he ‘rethinks every case from the ground up,’ and add: ‘He can take the most complicated legal or technological issue and present it in a way that seems like common sense.’” And the 2012 version added: “‘His briefs are quite simply beautiful,’ sources report, whilst clients describe his courtroom presence as ‘both commanding and accessible at the same time.’ He has the ‘perfect combination of persuasiveness, intelligence, wit, and deference.’” Legal 500 describes him as “a Superman” and “an excellent orator, strong strategist, and overall outstanding advocate.”
Mr. Rosenkranz’s practice covers a wide range of subjects, including securities, intellectual property, antitrust, federal preemption, insurance law, corporate governance, criminal law and constitutional litigation. Among his recent clients are Apple, DIRECTV, DISH Network, Facebook, First Republic Bank, Intel, Merck KGaA, Morgan Stanley, Nintendo, PG&E and UBS.
Clients turn to Mr. Rosenkranz to win the highest stakes appeals, including appeals in cases that threaten the very survival of a business. He represented DISH Network in one of the most high-profile patent appeals in the country, successfully overturning an infringement finding that yielded US$400 million in damages and an injunction that ordered the satellite TV company to turn off the recording capabilities of millions of customers. He represented Facebook in the high-profile battle waged by the founder's Harvard classmates who have laid claim to the idea for Facebook, recently winning a ruling from the Ninth Circuit ending the lawsuit. He also represented MGA Entertainment in the most high-profile copyright/trademark appeal in the country, which successfully overturned a court's life-threatening order to turn over the entire worldwide Bratz trademark portfolio to competitor Mattel. He currently represents Apple in the Smartphone wars in an appeal about the validity of the patent on Apple's revolutionary touchscreen. He also represents Oracle in its high-profile copyright appeal against Google over whether Android impermissibly copies the Java platform.
Mr. Rosenkranz has played a leading role in more than a dozen Supreme Court cases, having argued eight in the past six years. In 2005, he successfully represented Merck KGaA in a Supreme Court case that the National Law Journal described as “the most significant patent infringement case to confront the biotech and pharmaceutical industries in a generation.” He represented 36 law schools in a high-profile Supreme Court case against the Department of Defense. He also argued and won a case that many consider to be the most important employee benefits case of the decade. And in March 2013, Josh won a landmark victory in a Supreme Court case that rescued the estimated $60 billion U.S. market of copyrighted goods manufactured abroad in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley Publishing.
Mr. Rosenkranz was the founding president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, one of the country’s foremost public interest firms. Over the course of eight years, he was the Brennan Center’s chief strategist on litigation and public policy advocacy. Under his direction, the center represented parties in connection with more than 50 cases (including three at the U.S. Supreme Court) and filed almost 40 amicus briefs (including 20 at the U.S. Supreme Court). Before creating the Brennan Center, Mr. Rosenkranz founded the Office of the Appellate Defender, a public defender office specializing in criminal appeals in New York state courts.
