Noah Yavitz is a partner in Ropes & Gray’s global litigation & enforcement practice group. His practice focuses on merger litigation, complex commercial disputes, federal securities class actions, and derivative actions involving allegations of breach of fiduciary duty. Noah has worked on many of the most prominent corporate disputes of the past decade, particularly those litigated in the Delaware Court of Chancery. He has been recognized annually since 2022 by Lawdragon as one of the 500 Leading Litigators in America and 500 Leading Global Litigators.
In addition to his professional practice, Noah serves as a lecturer in law at Columbia Law School, where he teaches a course on complex, multijurisdictional litigation. He also has co-authored and maintained a chapter on mergers litigation for Commercial Litigation in New York State Courts, a practitioner treatise published by Thomson West, and a chapter on U.S. securities litigation published by Lexology.
Noah regularly contributes posts on artificial intelligence, securities litigation, and Delaware deal litigation to the CLS Blue Sky Blog, the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, and NYU Law School’s Compliance & Enforcement blog, among other publications.
Prior to joining Ropes & Gray, Noah was a partner at a leading law firm in New York. Earlier in his career, Noah served as a law clerk to the Honorable Frank Easterbrook of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
Experience
- An American social-networking service in its expedited Delaware litigation, culminating in the $44 billion sale of the company on the deal’s original terms.*
- A German multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company in New York state court derivative litigation, leading to a precedent-setting dismissal that clarified the extraterritorial application of New York law and that was ultimately sustained by the New York Court of Appeals.*
- Pilot Corporation in Delaware litigation concerning the $2.6 billion sale of its remaining interest in Pilot Travel Centers to Berkshire Hathaway.*
- Coinbase in a significant enforcement action brought by Oregon’s Attorney General.*
- The leading Ethereum software developer Consensys Software in landmark, multi-forum litigation against the SEC.*
- Chemours in obtaining dismissal of successive securities lawsuits, including claims targeting the company’s environmental liability disclosures and subsequent litigation targeting the company’s earnings disclosures.*
- Chemours in AAA arbitration and Delaware litigation with its former corporate parent DuPont, which was ultimately resolved through a settlement in which DuPont agreed to contribute $2 billion in liability cost-sharing to its subsidiary.*
- SWS Group in a precedent-setting appraisal trial victory before the Delaware Court of Chancery.*
- An American multinational banking institution in obtaining the dismissal of numerous class and derivative actions brought against the company following the collapse of the Madoff Ponzi scheme, litigated before federal trial courts in New Jersey, New York, and Florida, the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Second and Third Circuits, and state trial and appellate courts in Delaware, Florida, and New York.*
*Experience prior to joining Ropes & Gray