Trials & Appeals
Trials
We try cases, in court and in arbitrations. And we prepare every case for trial from day one. Trial-ready counsel changes a case long before the trial date. It brings the other side to the table and makes pretrial resolutions possible that otherwise would not be.
Our Experience
Courtney Elgart has tried and won cases in state and federal court and in domestic and international arbitral forums. Her first trial victory was on the team that defended Joe Biden’s 2020 win in Nevada against an election contest alleging widespread fraud. She also tried a profit participation dispute, obtaining a multi-million dollar award for profit participants.
Jean Ralph Fleurmont has extensive trial experience. He started his career trying cases at Williams & Connolly, one of the country’s preeminent trial firms. He has litigated cases in civil and criminal matters for corporations, professional firms, and individuals. His trial work includes what is believed to be the first civil trial in the United States against a former head of state of a foreign nation.
Stephanie Command has tried cases on both the plaintiff and defense side in state and federal courts as well as in domestic and international arbitration. Her trial experience most notably includes voting-rights litigation in multiple states. In one, a nine-day bench trial resulted in a judgment striking down newly enacted voting restrictions, which was later upheld by the Montana Supreme Court.
Courtney Elgart, Stephanie Command, and Jean Ralph Fleurmont have tried and won cases in arbitrations together on both sides of the caption. They obtained a multi-million-dollar award for a hotel owner in a domestic arbitration, and in an international arbitration they defeated every claim brought against a technology company and recovered a multi-million dollar award on its counterclaim.
Appeals
An appeal is a different proceeding from the trial that produced it. The record is closed, the audience is a panel that will spend a few hours with a case you have lived with for years, and the argument that won or lost below is often not the argument that decides the appeal. We handle appeals whether or not we tried the case below.
Our Experience
Everyone at EFC has clerked on a federal court of appeals and in a federal district court. Courtney Elgart clerked for Judge Guido Calabresi of the Second Circuit and Judge Richard Andrews of the District of Delaware; Stephanie Command for Judge Stephanie Thacker of the Fourth Circuit and Chief Judge Frank Geraci of the Western District of New York; and Jean Ralph Fleurmont for Judge Pamela Harris of the Fourth Circuit and Judge Emmet Sullivan of the District Court for the District of Columbia. We have read appellate briefs from the other side of the bench, and we write them accordingly.
Together, Courtney Elgart, Stephanie Command, and Jean Ralph Fleurmont have represented appellants, appellees, and amici in the Supreme Court of the United States; the Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Ninth, Eleventh, and D.C. Circuits; the supreme courts of California, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New York, and Pennsylvania; and the intermediate appellate courts of California, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, and Pennsylvania.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.