A partner in the Litigation Department, Walter Rieman focuses his practice on civil litigation arising from commercial disputes and disputes concerning government regulation. His practice has recently included a range of matters related to securities, corporate governance, commercial contracts, and federal and state regulatory issues. He has argued appeals before the Second, Seventh, and Ninth Circuits, before New York’s Appellate Division, and before the New York Court of Appeals.

Mr. Rieman has litigated a number of individual and class actions raising securities-related claims under federal and state law, including derivative claims; RICO claims; product liability claims; and other tort claims. He has frequently participated in litigating challenges to class certification, including constitutionally based challenges. He argued an appeal before the Seventh Circuit raising significant issues concerning application of the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act of 1998 to state-law class actions.

Mr. Rieman’s practice has encompassed a number of challenges to the regulation of businesses and consumers based on the United States Constitution, the New York Constitution, principles of federalism, or statutory authorization. He is currently defending, on behalf of a state agency, a challenge under the dormant Commerce Clause to tolls levied by the state. He has advised officers in the executive branch of another state on potential issues under the Contract Clause of the United States Constitution raised by proposed executive action. He has litigated challenges to the imposition of statutory damages under the Due Process Clause. Representing a state public utilities commission, he argued issues before a federal bankruptcy court, a federal district court, and the Ninth Circuit concerning whether a state-regulated public utility could use federal bankruptcy proceedings to take actions that would otherwise have been prohibited or restricted by state regulatory law. Mr. Rieman’s client prevailed on those issues.

Mr. Rieman has extensive experience counseling creditors who hold distressed sovereign debt and has represented creditors as plaintiffs in a number of actions against defaulting sovereign debtors.

Mr. Rieman served as an articles editor of the New York University Law Review and was elected to the Order of the Coif.