Jonathan M. Freiman focuses his litigation practice on appellate matters and complex cases, including transnational disputes, class actions and disputes over art. He serves as Chair of Wiggin and Dana's Appellate and Complex Legal Issues practice group, and is a founder of the firm's Art and Museum Law practice group.
His clients have ranged from Fortune 100 companies to individuals, prominent non-profit foundations and universities, and a sovereign nation. Recent cases include the successful defense of a university of a Second Circuit appeal involving a Nobel Prize winner's claim to ownership of a patent, the successful defense for a Fortune 500 company of a Connecticut Supreme Court appeal involving a rival company's multi-million dollar claim to pre-judgment interest, and the successful overturning of a trial court decision in a multinational reinsurance dispute.
Jonathan has been selected for inclusion in the last five editions of The Best Lawyers in America (2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010) for his work as an appellate lawyer (for more about the standards for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America, please see http://www.bestlawyers.com/news/default.aspx). He has received Yale Law School's Albom Award for excellence in appellate advocacy and awards from the Florida Supreme Court and Cuban-American Bar Association. In Connecticut, he has received the Advocacy of the Law Award from the Connecticut Law Tribune, and in October 2007 he became the second lawyer ever to receive the McQuillan Public Service Award from the Connecticut Criminal Defense Lawyers' Association.
Jonathan has published "Expert Commentary" on constitutional cases for Lexis-Nexis and has written on treaty-based arbitration in the National Law Journal, on state Supreme Court case law for the Connecticut Law Tribune, and on federal jurisdiction and other subjects for several law reviews. He has also appeared widely in print and broadcast media, including NPR, PBS, BBC, and the New York Times, and has lectured widely, speaking on legal issues in Europe, Canada and the United States, at venues including the Federalist Society and a United Nations Expert Roundtable.
Jonathan founded the National Litigation Project (NLP) of the Allard K. Lowenstein Clinic at Yale Law School in 2002 with Dean Harold Hongju Koh. He directed the NLP's litigation work for several years, and continues to work on NLP cases while serving at Yale as a Lecturer in Law and Research Scholar in Law, as well as a Senior Fellow in the Orville Schell Center.
Jonathan received his J.D. in 1998 from Yale Law School, where he was Senior Editor of the Yale Law Journal. He clerked afterwards for Judge Louis H. Pollak, a former Dean of Yale Law School, and then returned to New Haven, where he served as a Bernstein Fellow and Schell Fellow at Yale before working with Wiggin and Dana.
Education
- J.D., Yale Law School 1998
- B.A., Oberlin College 1987, Phi Beta Kappa
Admissions
Memberships
Courts
- U.S. Supreme Court
- U.S. Courts of Appeals (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 9th and D.C. Circuits)
- U.S. District Court (District of Connecticut)
