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1-212-239-4999~Law Practice Richard F.X. Guay is a Member of Meyer, Suozzi, English & Klein, P.C.'s Litigation & Dispute Resolution department. Mr. Guay is a highly experienced trial and appellate attorney whose dual criminal defense and civil litigation practice, before the federal and state courts, is concentrated in the areas of white-collar criminal defense, RICO liability and remedies, complex commercial civil litigation, professional liability, insurance defense, antitrust, products liability, and public interest law.Over his more than 25 years of practice, Mr. Guay has chiefly appeared for the defense, representing corporations, labor unions, partnerships, business executives, union officials, licensed professionals, and other clients accused, regardless whether by criminal indictment or civil pleadings, in racketeering, fraud (securities, insurance, tax, Medicaid, and commercial,) and antitrust cases, especially federal RICO, ‘mail fraud,’ money laundering, Hobbs Act (extortion,) and Sherman Act (antitrust) prosecutions and/or claims; and state ‘enterprise corruption,’ deceptive trade practices, environmental endangerment, and Donnelly Act ‘restraint-of-trade’ felony charges and/or damage suits. He has also defended insurance companies and their policyholders in civil actions ranging across the spectrum from coverage disputes, ‘bad faith’ claims, breach of contract, directors’ and officers’ liability, declaratory judgment, construction law liability, toxic torts, and grave personal injury, as well as medical malpractice and wrongful death claims. He has successfully defended hospitals, health-care practice groups, and individual physicians and providers.Professional Profile During law school, following his clerkship for the Chief of Appeals of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, Mr. Guay clerked for the Honorable Jack B. Weinstein, United States District Judge. Mr. Guay also holds a Master’s degree from Fordham University, where he was granted by the federal government a National Teacher Corps Fellowship for his education advocacy work in New York City’s juvenile justice system. As a postgraduate, he was retained by the Deputy Commissioner of the New York City Department of Correction for a research consultancy on prisoners’ rights issues and penal reform. At the undergraduate level, Mr. Guay received his Bachelor’s degree in History and Classical Languages from the Lincoln Center College of Fordham University. He is a graduate of Regis High School in Manhattan.Before joining Meyer, Suozzi, English & Klein, P.C., Mr. Guay was a senior, founding partner in the Manhattan litigation firm of Montclare & Guay, and an adjunct member of the law faculty of Brooklyn Law School. Earlier, he was a litigation associate in the Wall Street law firm of Mudge Rose Guthrie & Alexander, handling nuclear power plant lawsuits, as plaintiff’s counsel, against the nuclear energy industry. Most notably on the defense side, he handled the international extradition proceedings and criminal charges filed against a prominent fugitive financier following the billion-dollar collapse of his global banking empire, as chronicled in N. Tosches’ book Power on Earth (Arbor House, 1986.) A former federal prosecutor, Mr. Guay served as an Assistant United States Attorney, Criminal Division, in the Eastern District of New York, where he was in charge of several salient organized crime and political corruption cases. A racketeering investigation he handled involving a major FBI undercover operation was later made into the film Donnie Brasco (TriStar Pictures, 1997.) The same case, and Mr. Guay’s participation in it, was the subject of the cover story on criminal justice in the March 1994 issue of the American Bar Association’s ABA Journal. Another of his prosecutions, exposing extortion by a New York City Taxi Commissioner, was featured in the book City for Sale (Harper & Row, 1988,) by the investigative journalists Jack Newfield and Wayne Barrett. Mr. Guay received a United States Justice Department commendation for his successful prosecution in a national security probe.Professional Affiliations Mr. Guay is a member of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. Additionally, he has been a member of the New York State Bar throughout his legal career. Under the sponsorship of the New York State Bar Association, Mr. Guay has participated as a faculty panel lecturer in its continuing legal education (CLE) seminars for trial lawyers on Practical Evidence and, most recently, Basic Federal Civil Practice (including co-authorship of the monograph it published on deposition technique.) Each year since 1987, Mr. Guay has been rated AV in the Martindale-Hubbell professional directory, its highest ranking for demonstrated legal ability and ethical conduct.Community Involvement Long active in civic affairs and professional groups in New York City, Mr. Guay has served as an executive officer or member of the board of directors of numerous community, educational, and cultural institutions, including the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music and the Park Slope Civic Council. As a public service, he regularly undertakes pro bono representation of needy, nonprofit associations dedicated to civic betterment and the arts. In addition, Mr. Guay has accepted several appointments by the federal judiciary to defend indigent clients in both civil and criminal cases. Most cited in that context was his due process challenge to prosecutorial misconduct during a ten-week criminal trial before a jury in the Eastern District of New York. United States v. Pinto, 850 F.2d 927, 931-35 (2d Cir. 1988.) In state court, the dismissals he gained pro bono for two immigrant greengrocers wrongly charged with assault, in People v. Ahn, Crim. Ct. Kings County 1985, were the focus of articles by legal columnist David Margolick, With a Little Help, 2 From Korea Find Legal System Works, The New York Times, Sept. 21, 1985, at B1, and by Peter Megargee Brown, reviewing models of public interest law, in ABA Litigation, Vol. 13, No. 2, Winter 1987, at 17-19. Admissions Mr. Guay is admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court and the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, together with the United States District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York. He has represented clients, either at trial or on appeal, in all of those forums. |
