Ariela Anhalt is Counsel in Wiggin and Dana’s Litigation Department and focuses her practice on appellate and complex civil litigation.

Ariela has represented clients in federal courts of appeal and state supreme and intermediate appellate courts, securing favorable results in high-stakes insurance, product liability, and commercial disputes. She has been a key member of the team handling nationwide COVID-19 business interruption insurance appeals and has helped obtain favorable coverage decisions in courts across the country, including a significant victory before the Connecticut Supreme Court.

Recent successes include securing a favorable California appellate decision for a construction company facing significant tort liability; obtaining dismissal of complex defamation claims against a publishing company in Connecticut state court; and persuading the U.S. Supreme Court to deny certiorari in a closely watched appeal involving medical marijuana. Ariela has also litigated significant appeals before the California Supreme Court, Ninth Circuit, and Eleventh Circuit involving the learned intermediary doctrine and product liability claims related to prescription medical devices. In a recent Kentucky appeal, she helped overturn a multi-million dollar judgment and obtain an order for a new trial in a complex insurance coverage dispute. She also served as counsel in a California wrongful death action arising from a fatal plane crash, where her work helped secure the exclusion of claims seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in  damages.

Before joining Wiggin and Dana, Ariela clerked for the Honorable John M. Walker Jr. and the Honorable William J. Nardini of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and for the Honorable Paul A. Engelmayer of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

In addition to her practice, Ariela is a member of the Executive Committee of the New Haven County Bar Association and serves as a contributing editor to Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices, Business Torts and Antitrust (Vol. 12, Connecticut Practice Series, Thomson Reuters), a leading treatise on Connecticut unfair trade practices, business torts, and antitrust law.

Ariela received her J.D. from Yale Law School, where she served as an Articles & Essays Editor of The Yale Law Journal, a Senior Editor of The Yale Journal of International Law, and an Editor of The Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal. She received her B.A. in English from Dartmouth College, summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa.