Philip H. Schaeffer is a senior partner in the firm’s litigation department and is general counsel to White & Case.  He has acted as chief counsel in a number of significant New York and federal cases involving real estate, trusts and estates and constitutional law as well as intellectual property and commercial matters.  He has argued in New York’s highest appellate court, the Court of Appeals, on over a dozen occasions and in its appellate divisions scores of times.  He has also argued appeals in the Supreme Courts of Connecticut and Delaware.  Mr. Schaeffer is experienced in federal and New York trial practice, having presented cases to juries and judges on numerous occasions.

In one of the most significant cases ever decided in a state court in the United States interpreting the “takings clause” under the 14th Amendment, Seawall Associates v. City of New York, Mr. Schaeffer’s clients successfully challenged the provisions of New York City’s Single Room Occupancy Law.

Among Mr. Schaeffer’s subspecialties is litigation in disputes involving real property such as mortgage financing, construction, taxes, land development, zoning and land use.  A representation of a group of the clients on whose behalf he appears are ITT-Sheraton Corporation, Swiss Bank Corporation, Gotham Partners, L.P., The Tokai Bank, Ltd. and The Durst Organization. He has also been trial counsel in several actions on behalf of real estate owners and developers in matters involving the Civil Rights Acts.  One of his areas of concentration is litigation involving appraisals of real property, particularly for the purpose of fixing rentals under lengthy ground leases.

Mr. Schaeffer also has significant experience in intellectual property litigation.  He has represented Educational Testing Service in cases involving its testing programs, publishers such as John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Oxford University Press, New American Library, Ken Follett and others in prosecuting and defending claims of literary and textbook plagiarism and unfair competition.  He appears on behalf of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) and has been trial counsel in significant cases involving claims of wrongful use of trade names.

Mr. Schaeffer also has considerable experience in family and matrimonial law.  He is a former chair of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York Committee on Matrimonial Law and was chief counsel to the New York State Joint Legislative Committee on Matrimonial and Family Law, which was responsible for broadening the grounds for divorce in New York. Mr. Schaeffer acted as counsel to the Family Court Judges Association in the last New York State Constitutional Convention.  He was counsel in the noted case of Ivana Trump v. Donald Trump and has appeared in a number of celebrated New York matrimonial actions.  He is also active in estates and trust litigation, including the trial of will contests and construction proceedings.

Mr. Schaeffer is a past chair of the Special Committee on Tort Litigation of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, a former member of its Committee on Professional and Judicial Ethics and a current member of its Committee on Professional Responsibility. He is a member of the Professional Ethics Committee of the New York County Lawyers’ Association and has lectured frequently to groups of lawyers on the subject of professional ethics.