LAWDRAGON NAMES LISA S. TSAI ONE OF ITS INDUSTRY “LEGENDS”
Legal periodical Lawdragon has named Managing Partner and Co-Founder Lisa S. Tsai to its exclusive list of industry “Legends.”
Lawdragon is known for profiling the work of the top lawyers and law firms across the country. Its 2025 class of “Legends” includes an elite group of the nation’s finest lawyers, featuring accomplishments on both sides of the aisle and from coast to coast.
In honoring Tsai, one of the nation’s top commercial trial lawyers, Lawdragon cited her and the other “vibrant, diverse, insightful, tough and brilliant” Legends who have “created excellence in their law practice and sustained it on behalf of their clients and the profession for a significant length of time.”
Click here to view Lawdragon’s 2025 class of Legends.
REID COLLINS, ERIC D. MADDEN AND WILLIAM T. REID, IV SHORTLISTED AS NATIONAL FINALISTS FOR BENCHMARK AWARDS
Reid Collins & Tsai LLP and two of its senior partners, Eric D. Madden and William T. Reid, IV, have been shortlisted for the 2025 Benchmark Litigation Awards.
The firm has been named a Finalist for U.S. Plaintiff Firm of The Year (for the seventh consecutive year), as well as a Finalist for U.S. Bankruptcy Firm of the Year (for the second consecutive year – Reid Collins won last year).
Reid (the 2020 and 2023 winner) has again been selected as a Finalist for U.S. Plaintiff Litigator of Year (for the seventh consecutive year) and Madden has been selected a Finalist for U.S. Bankruptcy Litigator of the Year.
The Benchmark awards celebrate the leading litigators and most impactful disputes across the United States. The shortlists are the culmination of months of research, surveying thousands of referees, and interviewing hundreds of lawyers. The winners will be announced at the Benchmark awards dinner on March 6, 2025, in New York City.
Click here to view the Benchmark awards finalists.
REID COLLINS OBTAINS ELEVENTH CIRCUIT REVERSAL AND KEY PRECEDENT IN CLOSELY WATCHED HELMS-BURTON ACT CASE
On January 2, 2025, a panel of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously reversed a decision by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida that had dismissed claims brought by Reid Collins’ client North American Sugar Industries, Inc. (“NAS”) under the Helms-Burton Act.
Prior to the Communist Revolution, NAS owned and operated a port in Cuba that the Castro regime confiscated. Under the Helms-Burton Act’s private right of action, NAS is asserting trafficking claims against a Chinese wind-energy company and a group of shipping and logistics companies that engaged in a scheme to traffic in NAS’s confiscated port, including by shipping wind turbines through the Port of Miami en route to Cuba. Before Reid Collins took over the case on appeal, the District Court dismissed all claims for lack of personal jurisdiction based on its holding that the only relevant conduct occurred in Cuba. In a published and precedential opinion, the Eleventh Circuit rejected this narrow view of what constitutes trafficking under the Act and instead endorsed the broad interpretation that NAS advanced on appeal, including that unlawful trafficking can encompass activities outside of Cuba. In remanding the action for further proceedings, the Eleventh Circuit additionally found that the District Court misapplied the legal and factual standards that apply to a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction.
Congratulations to the Reid Collins trial team – Craig Boneau, Ryan Goldstein, Scott Saldana, Rob LaCroix, and Aaron Brown.
The Eleventh Circuit case is captioned North American Sugar Industries, Inc. v. Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology Co., Ltd., et al., No. 23-10126 (11th Cir.).
A copy of the decision can be downloaded by clicking here.
