Mark A. Berman is Chair of HDRB&B’s Litigation and White-Collar Criminal Defense Groups. He has over 30 years of experience as a trial attorney and appellate litigator. Mark represents individual, corporate, and government clients in a wide range of cases, including complex business litigation, federal criminal defense, shareholder disputes, trusts & estates litigation, employment litigation, commercial lease disputes and real property litigation, professional malpractice defense, and defamation actions. He is admitted to practice in multiple federal district and circuit courts and in the States of New Jersey, New York, and Vermont. Mark routinely works with (and against) other large firms and many of his cases have been national and international in scope.
Every year, for more than a decade, Mark has been selected to the list of “Top 100” Super Lawyers® in New Jersey. He also has been included in Chambers USA Guide to America’s Leading Lawyers and in Best Lawyers in America®. Mark has been selected to serve on the CJA list in the District of Vermont, District of New Jersey, and the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.
Mark has tried cases to verdict in the District of New Jersey, the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, and the District of Massachusetts, and also has handled federal cases in the Western and Northern Districts of New York, the Eastern and Western Districts of Pennsylvania, the Eastern District of Michigan, the Northern and Southern Districts of Illinois, the District of Columbia, the Central District of California, and the District of South Carolina.
Mark has briefed over 50 appeals in the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Third Circuit, Fourth Circuit, Seventh Circuit, and Federal Circuit, the New Jersey Supreme Court, and the New Jersey and New York Appellate Divisions.
After graduating from Columbia University Law School, Mark clerked for the Honorable Leonard I. Garth on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and then joined Weil, Gotshal & Manges, in New York City, as a litigation associate. Prior to joining HDRB&B, Mark was a partner (and hiring partner) at Gibbons, P.C., one of New Jersey’s largest and most-respected law firms.
Mark holds a master’s degree in Public International Law from the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy at Tufts University. He is proficient in Hebrew and represents the State of Israel and several Israeli high-tech and other companies in connection with U.S. legal matters. Previously, he represented the government of Ecuador in connection with the death penalty prosecution of one of its nationals in New Jersey. He also represented a Qatari national, Ali Salah Kalah al-Marri, one of three individuals designated in the United States as an “enemy combatant” in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, who was incarcerated in the Naval Consolidated Brig in North Charleston, South Carolina, in a case that challenged the President’s authority to order the military detention of an individual present in the United States. Mark also represented al-Marri’s brother, Jarallah, who was arrested in Afghanistan and detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (GITMO).
Mark and the firm provide pro bono representation to worthwhile causes. For example, Mark has offered general counsel to Pony Power Therapies, Inc. (a nonprofit organization that uses horses and an accessible farm to enhance the physical, social and emotional well-being of children and adults who need extra support), the Community Alliance for Jewish-Affiliated Cemeteries (which works to restore and sustain Jewish Cemeteries in the New York Tri-State area), and several organic farms and related ventures in New York State.