Lauren Zimmerman is an experienced litigator who has worked on many trial teams, and whose practice includes white-collar criminal defense, complex civil litigation, and class actions.
Formerly a trial lawyer with Brooklyn Defender Services, Lauren has successfully represented clients at arraignments and in a wide range of criminal trials and administrative hearings. She has also conducted successful pretrial suppression hearings challenging searches, witness identifications, and other types of evidence.
Representative Matters
- American Federation of Teachers union: Represented members in a settlement of a nationwide class action lawsuit with Navient, one of the nation’s largest student loan servicers, challenging Navient’s practices with respect to advising federal student loan borrowers on Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF). The team secured a novel class settlement under which Navient agreed, among other things, to enhance its practices for public service workers (teachers, nurses, Legal Aid workers, firemen and policemen, for example) and, in addition, to contribute millions to a nonprofit organization that provides education and student loan counseling to public service workers. Selendy Gay Elsberg successfully secured a unanimous affirmance of the approval on appeal in front of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
- Fairfield Sentry Limited (in liquidation) et al.: Represented foreign representatives of funds in Chapter 15 proceedings in Bankruptcy Court seeking to recover approximately $6 billion dollars in redemption payments from hundreds of entities arising out of the Madoff scheme.
- A major academic institution: Conducted an internal investigation of an apparent hate crime on a university campus and analyzed the school’s overall security systems and safety compliance policies to recommend changes to those systems and protocols.
- Vote Solar: Represented a clean energy nonprofit organization, in a precedent-setting case against Rocky Mountain Power (RMP) before the Utah Public Service Commission (PSC) to demonstrate the costs and benefits of solar energy in the state’s net metering program. RMP, Utah’s electricity utility, conducted a study of how customers with rooftop solar panels impact the grid and the utilities overall demand for power. In partnership with Vote Solar, Selendy Gay Elsberg prepared our own rigorously developed proposal to be evaluated in parallel with RMP’s. The PSC, which traditionally sides with RMP, found in our favor that many of the values of customer generated solar do exist and included them in their export rate, including avoided generation capacity costs and avoided distribution capacity costs.
- McKinsey & Co.: Represented McKinsey in a bench trial in bankruptcy court in Houston, Texas, in which Jay Alix, through Mar-Bow Value Partners, objected to the debtors’ application to retain McKinsey on the basis that McKinsey’s Bankruptcy Rule 2014 disclosures were noncompliant and that McKinsey was not disinterested. The case, In re Westmoreland Coal Co., Inc., was dismissed after 8 days of trial testimony after McKinsey reached a comprehensive settlement regarding future bankruptcy disclosures with the U.S. Trustee.
- Organizations that advocate for victims of family violence: Filed an amicus brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review a Texas state court death sentence, arguing that the Texas court’s ruling conflicts with Supreme Court precedent and ignores well-established developmental psychology. The brief was filed on behalf of the National Family Violence Law Center, the California Protective Parents Association, and the Domestic Violence Legal Empowerment & Appeals Project.
- Healthcare Economics Scholars: Drafted Ninth Circuit amicus brief on behalf of 13 economics scholars advocating for economically sound applications of antitrust law to complex facts in the healthcare industry.
- A high net worth client: Represented client in a matrimonial action involving cutting edge legal issues regarding contractual interpretation of and statutory application to the client’s prenuptial agreement, spendthrift trusts, income, cash flow, and “lifestyle” analyses for purpose of alimony.
Affiliations & Community Involvement
Lauren earned her J.D., magna cum laude, from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, where she served as Notes Editor for the Cardozo Law Review, in which her legal note, Exile Without Process: The New York City Housing Authority’s Unconstitutional Trespass Notice Policy, was published.
Lauren served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Ursula Ungaro in the Southern District of Florida. She is an active member of the National LGBTQ+ Bar Association.
