Michael Bowe

Practice Areas

For over 35 years, Michael Bowe has litigated high-stakes disputes of every sort for both plaintiffs and defendants at trial and on appeal. A founding partner of Brithem LLP, Mike is a trial lawyer known for turning complex facts into clear, compelling stories. Michael’s ability to develop novel litigation solutions to difficult high-stakes disputes has twice earned him the National Law Journal’s Trailblazer of the Year Award and Forbes inaugural Top Lawyers in America list. Mike’s relentless advocacy and elite courtroom ability has twice earned him inclusion in Law360’s Trial Group of the Year for three separate cases. He also had extensive crisis management experience in matters in matters with the highest of public profiles. Mike has guided companies, high-net-worth individuals, media figures, and regular people through significant civil, criminal, and regulatory risk by utilizing a unique combination litigation, negotiation, and public messaging.

Mike’s status as a go-to litigator is reflected in the wide breadth of significant cases he has handled, including multiple civil RICO cases involving billions of dollars, hotly contested fraud, contract, partnership, real estate, mass tort and employment disputes, and criminal and regulatory matters. His work has drawn significant media attention, including his representation of over 200 victims of child pornography, rape, and trafficking, which was featured in the bombshell New York Times report, “The Children of Pornhub,” and a Netflix documentary, and his landmark short-selling and insider trading case against several major hedge funds that restored billions of dollars in value to his client, and was the subject of a New York Times bestseller, several documentaries, a hit HBO series, and spawned the largest insider trading investigation and conviction in history. Michael’s work includes repeated representations of organizations dedicated to helping others, including his multi-million-dollar jury verdict for Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Foundation and recent case against Toyota on behalf of the Zimbabwe social welfare organization, Mobility for Africa.

Career

Brithem LLP, Founding Partner

Brown Rudnick, Partner & Co-Chair of Litigation & Dispute Resolution Practice

Kasowitz Benson Torres LLP, Litigation Partner and Member of Executive & Business Development Committees

Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, Associate

District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Hon. Lenore C. Nesbitt, Law Clerk

Work Highlights

• In a landmark case against the world’s largest online pornography company, its hedge fund financiers, and Visa, Mike represents over 200 victims whose sexual exploitation appeared in videos uploaded to Pornhub and other websites owned by MindGeek (now Aylo), exposing the industry’s widespread monetization of child porn and rape videos, drawing significant public attention to this largely unknown abuse, and forcing major reforms that established both a model for other victims to pursue and critical legal precedent to help end this horrific abuse.

• Mike waged a decade-long fight to save Canadian insurer Fairfax Financial from a short-selling attack designed to bankrupt the company and secure billions in short-selling gains. Deploying the firm’s organic investigative group to conduct a year-long investigation, Mike used the evidence uncovered to launch an unprecedented RICO and commercial disparagement suit against the funds and their co-conspirators. The suit not only stopped the attacks but, according to market participants and the SEC’s former top economist, quickly discredited the lies and restored billions in market cap within months.

• Mike represents Blueprint Capital Advisors, a Black-owned asset manager, in a landmark civil rights and RICO case exposing bias and corruption in the “old boys’ network” controlling the highest levels of state government and global finance. The suit accuses the New Jersey Division of Investment, BlackRock, Owl Rock, Governor Phil Murphy, and senior officials in his administration of diverting promised advisory contracts and investments away from Blueprint and toward overwhelmingly white competitors. The complaint alleges government insiders shared Blueprint’s confidential strategies with BlackRock, allowing the financial giant to launch a near-identical product, while state officials rewarded participants in the scheme with hundreds of millions in pension assets.

Education

Awards