Dughi, Hewit & Domalewski, P.C. is proud to announce that Brandon D. Minde has received the New Jersey State Bar Association’s 2014 Young Lawyers Division Professional Achievement Award. This award is given annually to recognize outstanding professional achievement by a young attorney. Mr. Minde received the award for his leadership as Executive Director of the State of New Jersey’s Government Records Council.
Mr. Minde’s practice areas include complex litigation, business litigation, and white-collar criminal defense/corporate internal investigations.
Dughi, Hewit & Domalewski, P.C., is pleased to announce that Brandon D. Minde, former Executive Director of the State of New Jersey Government Records Council, has joined the firm as Of Counsel.
Minde has had a distinguished career in government service. As Executive Director of the Government Records Council, Minde was responsible for leading the state agency that adjudicates complaints filed under the Open Public Records Act concerning disputes over access to government records.
Prior to serving as Executive Director of the Government Records Council, Minde served as Assistant Counsel to Governor Christie. In that role, Minde provided advice and counsel to Governor Christie and the Chief Counsel to the Governor on a range of legislative, legal, regulatory, and policy initiatives. Minde also served as Assistant Counsel in the Governor’s Authorities Unit, where he provided counsel on the policy and legal matters of the state’s largest independent agencies, including the NJ Economic Development Authority, the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority, the NJ Turnpike Authority, the NJ Sports and Exposition Authority, the NJ Meadowlands Commission, the Health Care Facilities Financing Authority and the Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency.
While Assistant Counsel, Mr. Minde was appointed by Governor Christie to serve as an executive branch representative on the NJ Sales and Use Tax Review Commission, and was also designated to serve as the Governor’s representative on the board of the Fort Monmouth Economic Revitalization Authority.
Prior to serving in the Christie Administration, Minde was an Assistant Prosecutor in the Corruption Unit of the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office, where he managed investigations and conducted prosecutions of corruption, fraud and government misconduct. During this time, Minde was also appointed as a Special Deputy NJ Attorney General to lead a joint investigation into wide-spread election fraud through absentee voter ballots which culminated in several convictions, including a high-level government official. Minde has prosecuted a wide variety of criminal offenses and conducted over a dozen jury trials.
Prior to his time in public service, Minde worked as an associate at McCarter & English in the Securities Litigation, Government Relations and White-Collar Defense Group.
Minde’s practice areas will include litigation, regulatory matters, white-collar criminal defense, and corporate internal investigations.
Gov. Chris Christie’s appointment of Attorney General Jeff Chiesa to be New Jersey’s next U.S. senator is putting the law firm where the pair got their starts back in the spotlight.
Christie and Chiesa were each hired by the firm Dughi & Hewit following their clerkships after law school.
Now known as Dughi, Hewit & Domalewski, the relatively small Cranford law firm now boasts a number of big-name alumni, including Superior Court Judge Daniel Lindemann and Christie’s former senior counsel, Craig Domalewski, who rejoined the firm after leaving the Christie administration in December 2011.
Founding partner John Dughi Jr. said it’s “a lot of fun” to see the young lawyers he hired grow to become top leaders in the state.
“The whole firm is just so proud,” he said. “We feel so blessed to have had these guys.”
Chiesa joined the firm in 1991 after a clerkship for a Somerset County Superior Court judge. Dughi said he was an easy hire.
“You know right away he’s going to work hard,” Dughi said. “He looks you in the eye and you know right away he’s a solid citizen.”
Chiesa primarily defended malpractice cases at Dughi & Hewit.
“He’s a very, very good litigator,” Dughi said. “An excellent trial attorney.”
Chiesa worked at the firm until 2002, when he left to join Christie in the U.S. attorney’s office, in Newark. After a stint at the firm Wolff & Samson, Chiesa served as Christie’s chief counsel. He was sworn in as attorney general in January 2012.
In that role, Chiesa has worked to combat gun violence and crack down on human trafficking. He’s also focused on public corruption, filing some 40 new public corruption cases last year, according to the governor’s office.
In announcing his decision to appoint Chiesa, Christie today said the attorney general is an affable guy who is liked across party lines.
Dughi echoed that sentiment, and said it should serve Chiesa well in Washington, D.C.
“If anybody can work both sides of the aisle, it’s Jeff Chiesa,” he said. “He’s a practical guy. He’s a smart guy and he knows how to make friends.”
Chiesa was clear in saying he has no intention to run for the seat in October’s special election, so his tenure in the Senate will likely be short. Chiesa described himself as a conservative Republican, and said his top initial priority will be border security. He said he wants to do more research into the issues facing the Senate before defining his other goals.
Dughi said Chiesa’s lame-duck status may work to Chiesa’s advantage, since he won’t be worried about re-election and will therefore be somewhat insulated from politics.
Recalling his lengthy working relationship with Chiesa, Christie said he knows the soon-to-be-senator almost like a family member. Still, Christie said he expects Chiesa to make his own decisions, and not simply be a parrot the governor’s views.
Dughi said that won’t be an issue.
“He’s his own man, and that’s that,” Dughi said.
Chiesa’s appointment takes effect June 10.
Dughi, Hewit & Domalewski, P.C. congratulates our former partner, New Jersey Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa, on his selection by Governor Christie to fill the vacancy in the New Jersey Senate delegation caused by the death of Senator Frank Lautenberg. Mr. Chiesa started as an associate with the firm and rapidly established himself as a firm leader, becoming a firm partner only a few years later.
In 2002, Governor Christie left the firm after 15 years of practice to serve as the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey. Mr. Chiesa joined Mr. Christie in the United States Attorney’s office where he again demonstrated his legal acumen and leadership by successfully handling multiple, high-profile public corruption cases. Following Governor Christie’s election as Governor in 2009, Mr. Chiesa served as the Governor’s Chief Counsel and then as Attorney General.
The firm is proud of the outstanding accomplishments and dedicated public service of both of our former partners.
We congratulate Jeff and his family on this well-earned and deserved accomplishment.
Dughi, Hewit & Domalewski, P.C. is proud to announce that Senior Partner of the firm Craig A. Domalewski has been recognized by NJBIZ on its “Power 100” list of 100 most powerful people in New Jersey business. This is the second year in a row in which Mr. Domalewski has been recognized on the list, moving up in rank up from number 86 to number 67.
In its ranking, NJBIZ recognized the firm’s expanding areas of practice and reputation as “one of the go-to firms in the Christie administration.”
NJBIZ is the leading publication covering New Jersey’s business community and compiles the list based on involvement with current events, industry standing, influence on their peers and access to top New Jersey business and government leaders.
Mr. Domalewski’s practice areas include complex litigation, commercial transactions, and governmental and regulatory affairs.
Lori C. Duffy joined Dughi, Hewit & Domalewski in September 2012 as a senior associate. Her practice focuses on corporate and commercial transactions and government affairs.
Prior to joining the firm, Ms. Duffy was counsel to MarkLaw LLC, where her principal area of practice was general commercial transactions with particular emphasis on distribution, vendor, servicing and licensing agreements.
Previously, Ms. Duffy was a corporate counsel for ATT Capital Corporation. While there, her practice concentrated on the leasing and financing of large telecommunications and point of sale hardware and software to public and private entities through the United States.
Ms. Duffy began her legal career as an associate at Riker, Danzig, Scherer, Hyland & Perretti. Her primary area of practice was in public finance. Ms. Duffy represented state agencies and financing authorities, local agencies and municipalities and quasi-public entities in the public and private offerings of tax-exempt and taxable debt.
Ms. Duffy has served on both the Planning Board and Zoning Board of Adjustment for the Town of Westfield.
Ms. Duffy received her juris doctor, cum laude, from Washington & Lee University School of Law where she was a member of Order of the Coif and a member and editor of the Law Review. Ms. Duffy received her bachelor of science degree in finance from Susquehanna University.
Ms. Duffy is a member of the New Jersey State Bar Association
Craig A. Domalewski, a Senior Partner in the Firm, will be participating in a panel discussion on Client Crisis Management and Expedited Litigation in Chancery Courts at the New Jersey State Bar Association Annual Meeting and Convention in Atlantic City on May 17, 2012.
The panel will examine the life of a case requiring emergent relief from initial client contact through the issuance of preliminary relief from the perspective of the practitioner and the court.
For more information or to register please click here: NJSBA Annual Meeting and Convention
Craig A. Domalewski, a Senior Partner in the Firm, will be participating in a panel discussion on Bad Faith Law at the New Jersey State Bar Association Annual Meeting and Convention in Atlantic City on May 17, 2012.
The panel will discuss the current state of bad faith law in New Jersey with a comparative analysis of the laws of New York, Pennsylvania and Connecticut and how proposed legislative amendments are likely to impact both the prosecution and defense of bad faith claims in New Jersey in the future.
For more information or to register please click here: NJSBA Annual Meeting and Convention
Senior Partners Chuck Radler and Craig Domalewski recently won a $2,438,000 arbitration award in private arbitration before The Honorable C. Judson Hamlin, J.S.C. (Ret.) in a complex commercial dispute involving claims for breach of contract and the commercial misappropriation of our client’s name and likeness. The arbitrator rejected all of the defendant’s defenses and granted our client full damages. The arbitrator found that the defendants’ accounting of its wrongful profits was not credible based on numerous contradictions that Mr. Radler developed between the defendants’ accounting, tax returns and internal business records. The arbitrator required the defendants to disgorge $1,171,000 in wrongful profits, plus $17,000 in contract damages, $900,000 for emotional distress and damages to our client’s brand, and $350,000 in punitive damages, plus interest.
