Randy M. Mastro is Co-Chair of the Firm’s Litigation Practice Group, which The American Lawyer just named “The 2010 Litigation Department of the Year.” He also Co-Chairs the Firm’s Crisis Management Group, and serves on the Firm’s Management and Executive Committees. He is routinely ranked among New York’s leading litigators and trial lawyers in surveys of corporate counsel and other practitioners. For example, in Chambers USA, he was named one of New York’s top commercial litigators, praised for his “exceptional public reputation,” and described as a “tough, smart, outstanding” litigator who “delivers fantastically well in court,” has “tremendous presence in the courtroom,” is “extremely savvy and experienced,” “creates cogent and powerful arguments,” and is “unafraid” of challenging cases. Moreover, in The Legal 500 – US Edition, he was featured among the top ten “leading trial lawyers” in the country, with corporate counsel saying he is “immensely impressive,” “simply excellent,” “flawless,” “captivating,” and in “a league of his own” in the courtroom, and “deserves an Academy Award” for “bringing a sense of drama and theater to his courtroom appearances.” Recently, Mr. Mastro was named among the nation’s leading commercial litigators in the 2011 edition of The Best Lawyers in America®, The International Who’s Who of Commercial Litigation, New York Magazine’s Best Lawyers in New York, and as a “national litigation star” in the 2010 edition of Benchmark Litigation, the Guide to America’s Leading Litigation Firms and Attorney, Super Lawyers, and as one of Lawdragon’s “500 Leading Lawyers in America.” Among many high-profile matters, Mr. Mastro led the successful effort to defeat the City’s controversial West Side Stadium project. He has tried many cases in private practice and as a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, and he has also argued more than 60 appeals in federal and state appellate courts throughout the country.
Mr. Mastro has represented such clients as Amazon.com, Bank of New York Mellon, Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield/Well Point, Bear Stearns, AIG, Daimler, Wynn, Park Place/Caesar’s/Harrah’s, Madison Square Garden, Cablevision, Dow Jones, Verizon, Home Depot, Chevron, Quest Diagnostics, IAC/Home Shopping Network, Empire Merchants, Edison Schools, Edison Properties, Forest City Ratner, Georgetown, Peter Kalikow, Saks, Ziff Davis, UBS Financial Services, Hewlett Packard, Prudential Securities, Lehman Brothers, Xerox, Octagon, Martina Hingis, Anna Kournikova, and Steffi Graf.
Before returning to the Firm in 1998, Mr. Mastro served as New York City’s Deputy Mayor for Operations. In that capacity, he was responsible for overseeing all of the City’s operating agencies and budget and served as the Mayor’s chief liaison with elected officials. In the Mayor’s absence, he was authorized to act on the Mayor’s behalf. During his years in the Giuliani administration from 1994 to 1998, Mr. Mastro spearheaded the City’s initiatives to remove organized crime from the Fulton Fish Market, the private carting industry, and the San Gennaro Festival. He also oversaw the successful turnaround of New York City’s Off-Track Betting Corporation. For two consecutive years, NY 1-TV named Mr. Mastro one of City government’s “Winners of the Year,” and Manhattan File magazine featured him as one of the “45 Most Powerful New Yorkers 45 and Under.”
In the early 1990’s, Mr. Mastro was a litigation partner in Gibson Dunn’s New York office. In 1990, he served as Associate Counsel on the Independent Counsel investigation of HUD Secretary Samuel Pierce. In 1991, he was appointed Special Master and Monitor of the assets of a Saudi tycoon implicated in the BCCI scandal.
From 1985 to 1989, Mr. Mastro served as Assistant United States Attorney and Deputy Chief of the Civil Division in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, where he specialized in organized crime cases and spearheaded the federal government’s landmark racketeering suit that compelled the International Brotherhood of Teamsters to hold democratic elections and to undergo court supervision. He received the Attorney General’s Distinguished Service Award, and Seven Days magazine cited him as one of “the 25 prosecutors and defenders other lawyers most admire, fear and talk about.”
After graduating cum laude from Yale College and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he was the school’s moot court champion, Mr. Mastro served as law clerk to Justice Alan B. Handler of the New Jersey Supreme Court. Then, from 1982 to 1985, Mr. Mastro was a litigation associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, where he was part of the successful libel defense trial team in Westmoreland v. CBS.
From 1989 to 1993, Mr. Mastro was also an adjunct associate professor at Fordham Law School, where he taught complex civil litigation. He has authored articles in the Federal Communications Law Journal, Fordham Law Review, University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, and Seton Hall Law Review. His op-ed pieces have appeared in the New York Times, Daily News, and New York Post, and he has also written for the Washington Post and Time.
Mr. Mastro is a member of the bars of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and many federal courts. He served on the Federal Courts Committee of the New York County Lawyers Association and chaired two New York City Charter Revision Commissions.
In addition, Mr. Mastro serves as Vice Chair of the Board of the Legal Aid Society of New York City, as well as on the Boards of the Hamptons International Film Festival, the YMCA of Greater New York, the Jewish Children’s Museum, and the University of Pennsylvania Law School Board of Overseers. He also serves on the Advisory Board of the Center for New York City Law.