C. Claudio Simpkins

Associate

C. Claudio Simpkins - Associate Headshot

Claudio is a strategic and versatile business and securities litigator with an uncanny ability to gain fluency in novel and sophisticated areas of law and is particularly seasoned in novel intellectual property and internet disputes.  He is known by clients and colleagues for his fierce intelligence, his thoughtfulness, and his ability to stay calm and dig in. 

An astute and tireless advocate, Claudio has extensive experience representing both plaintiffs and defendants in arbitration before the Commercial Division of the New York Supreme Court, the First and Second Departments; federal courts in New York, New Jersey, and California; and internationally before the World Intellectual Property Organization. 

Claudio’s numerous academic achievements include being an early student selected for one of public higher education’s most innovative and rigorous programs for elite scholars, now known as the Macaulay Honors College, which supplemented the lessons of his unique life experience with the rewards of his voracious appetite for knowledge.  After law school, he joined a large New York City law firm where he focused on prominent pharmaceutical patent and RMBS cases and honed a skillset particularly advantageous to advocating for clients in potentially volatile times. 

Named a Harry S Truman Scholar in 2005 for his commitment to public service, Claudio has a long history of contributing to his community, having worked with at-risk New York City youth prior to practicing law.  He currently volunteers his time helping to launch a data-driven civil rights organization. 

 

Experience

Some of Claudio’s representative engagements include the following:

  • Investors in class actions against a major crypto-asset exchanges and their owners and operators for novel violations of securities laws 

  • High-net worth family preyed upon by major financial institution in breach of duty 

  • Policy holders against insurance companies abusing allowance for assertion of obscured policy exclusions 

  • ERISA Plan beneficiary against administrators for violations of ERISA and breach of contract 

  • Investors in convertible notes in connection with a start-up taxi business in South America and obtaining a multi-million arbitration award

  • Visual artists seeking to register and vigorously police their intellectual property rights 

  • Fashion and film production companies seeking investment and building out human and capital resources 

  • Individual victims of cyberhacking, cyberstalking, and extortion in state and federal actions 

  • Industry-leading internet communications and technology company in global patent licensing dispute over cellular, Internet of Things, wearable, and electric and autonomous vehicle technologies 

  • Small business targets of cross-border copyright infringement seeking injunctions and damages 

  • Individual broker-dealers subject to FINRA discipline and proceedings 

  • Warrant holders in arbitration and court disputes over dilution, breach, fraudulent inducement and misrepresentation. 

Education

  • J.D., Harvard Law School, 2009 

  • BA, magna cum laude, in Philosophy and Political Science, Macaulay Honors College at the City College of New York, 2006 

Admitted to Practice

  • New York 

  • U.S. District Courts for the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York