Paul B. Maslo has significant experience litigating complex disputes of all types in courts throughout the country and advising on important non-litigation matters.
Paul is currently working on many high-profile lawsuits. He is part of the teams representing a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in a variety of disputes, involving topics ranging from the attempted sale of an NFT of a well-known rap album to alleged antitrust violations; a world-famous rapper in a contractual dispute against her music label; an award-winning rapper who has been active for the past three decades in a dispute against his accounting firm; a prominent sports agency in a dispute related to the commissions owed on a star NBA player’s contract; an actor in several disputes related to an accidental shooting that took place on a movie set; and an entertainment agency in a copyright dispute related to a Grammy-winning song.
Previously, Paul was lead counsel on a matter that Reuters ranked as “one of the top five wage-and-hour cases.” He was also a member of the teams that represented the CEO of an international media conglomerate in one of the biggest securities-fraud class-action trials in history, the president of one of the world’s most famous art galleries in a series of cases that were widely hailed in the press as resulting from the greatest art fraud in modern memory, and the co-owner of a multi-billion-dollar beverage company in New York’s largest-ever corporate-dissolution proceeding. He has been interviewed about his cases by reporters at several well-known publications, including, for example, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, USA Today, The Dallas Morning News, and Bloomberg.
In addition to litigating and advising on his clients’ most critical matters, Paul has published in several of the top law reviews and legal journals: University of Pennsylvania Law Review, University of Michigan Law Review, New York University Journal of Law & Business, University of Michigan Journal of Private Equity & Venture Capital Law, University of Virginia Journal of International Law, Washington University Law Review, and Berkeley Journal of International Law. He also authored a chapter in a treatise published by Oxford University Press.
Paul has been named to the New York and Texas Super Lawyers “Rising Stars” lists in business litigation. He attended the University of Pennsylvania Law School and studied finance at the Wharton School of Business. He wrote his law school graduation paper under the guidance of the Honorable Kent A. Jordan, U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.
Before law school, Paul earned a graduate degree in biology at Johns Hopkins University. He also worked at Morgan Stanley and as a Grant-Funded Research Assistant in the Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School. While at Harvard, he contributed to research that was presented at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and the International Conference on Yeast Genetics and Molecular Biology in Prague. He also co-authored a paper: Farley FW, McCully RR, Maslo PB, Yu L, Sheff MA, Sadeghi H, et al., Effects of HSP70 chaperones Ssa1 and Ssa2 on Ste5 scaffold and the mating mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, PLoS ONE 18(10): e0289339.
As an undergraduate biology major in the College of Arts & Sciences at Cornell University, he was the recipient of research fellowships from Princeton University (awarded to less than 10% of the applicants) and Rockefeller University (awarded to less than 3% of the applicants). He was offered similarly competitive research fellowships at the California Institute of Technology, University of Chicago, Stanford University, University of Pennsylvania, Yale School of Medicine, and University of California San Francisco School of Medicine.
Paul works with clients from a variety of industries and he handles matters involving virtually every area of the law. The following are examples of his litigation and advisory representations:
- An accomplished actor as a defendant in a series of cases related to an accidental shooting that took place on a movie set;
- A prominent, well-decorated rapper as a plaintiff in a contractual dispute against her record label;
- A world-famous entertainment agency as a defendant in a case alleging copyright infringement related to a Grammy-winning song, obtaining dismissal, with prejudice;
- A member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a plaintiff in a case to prevent the sale of an NFT of one of the best rap albums in history, obtaining an injunction;
- A sports bar owned by a world-famous rapper and entrepreneur as a defendant in a case alleging violations of the anti-piracy laws related to the allegedly unauthorized broadcast of a fight, obtaining a complete defense victory at summary judgment based on an innovative standing argument;
- The most accomplished rapper of all time as a defendant in a case alleging various antitrust violations, obtaining dismissal, with prejudice;
- An award-winning, world-renowned rapper as a plaintiff in a case alleging various claims against his accounting firm;
- A sports agency as a respondent in a dispute related to the commissions owed on a star NBA player’s contract, obtaining a favorable settlement;
- One of the largest producers of packaged bakery foods in the country as a defendant in numerous cases brought under the Fair Labor Standards Act and various state labor codes alleging that its distributors are misclassified as independent contractors;
- A multi-billion-dollar hedge fund as a plaintiff in a $100-million contractual dispute related to the valuation of its seed investment in another multi-billion-dollar hedge fund, obtaining a favorable settlement;
- The CEO of an international technology, media, and telecommunications company as a defendant in a multi-billion-dollar securities-fraud class action that culminated in a four-month jury trial finding our client not liable;
- A music agent as a plaintiff in a multi-million-dollar breach-of-contract action against a top-selling, award-winning R&B artist, obtaining a favorable settlement including a large upfront payment and royalty;
- The president of one of the most renowned art galleries in New York as a defendant in a series of cases resulting from the sale of $60 million of forged artwork previously believed to be by Abstract Expressionist artists, such as Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock;
- The co-founder and 50% owner of a beverage company as a plaintiff in a buyout proceeding that resulted in the court valuing our client’s interest in the company at over $1 billion when the defendant argued that the entire company was worth only $400 million;
- An art foundation as a plaintiff in an action to recover a priceless painting that was stolen by a deceased artist’s former bodyguard;
- The leading Latin-American-food company as a defendant in a class action alleging various claims related to the purported misclassification of its distributors as independent contractors, including violations of state labor laws and RICO;
- A Fortune-50 global chemicals company as a plaintiff in securities-fraud actions against two investment banks regarding the sale of auction-rate securities, obtaining favorable settlements;
- A large pharmaceutical company as a plaintiff in a $25-million breach-of-contract action against its supplier (with antitrust counterclaims), obtaining a favorable settlement;
- Drivers as plaintiffs in a collective action under the Fair Labor Standards Act against a ride-hailing company alleging that they were misclassified as independent contractors, obtaining a favorable settlement;
- A multi-billion-dollar international investment fund as a plaintiff in a securities-fraud action against a Chinese media and advertising company and that company’s executives and outside auditor, obtaining favorable settlements from all parties;
- The co-managing partner of a national law firm as both a plaintiff and defendant in various disputes related to the dissolution of the firm;
- One of the largest food manufacturers in the world on the formation and utilization of a separate entity to handle the sales, regulatory, and operational aspects of its franchise business;
- The majority shareholder of a private $50-million chemical company on a strategy to regain operational control of the company from the CEO and CFO who were the other shareholders; and
- An art foundation on whether its participation in the commercial publication of a book utilizing reproductions of an artist’s diary and works would threaten its tax-exempt status or require it to pay tax on income derived from the project.
- University of Pennsylvania Law School
(J.D., Business and Finance Concentration, 2008) - Johns Hopkins University
(M.S., Biology, 2005) - Cornell University
(A.B., Biology, 2000)
- The State Bar of Texas
- The State Bar of New York
- United States District Court:
- Western District of Texas
- Southern District of Texas
- Eastern District of New York
- Northern District of New York
- Southern District of New York
- United States Court of Appeals:
- Third Circuit
- Sixth Circuit
- Seventh Circuit
- Ninth Circuit
- Texas Super Lawyers, Rising Stars, Business Litigation (2019)
- New York Super Lawyers, Rising Stars, Business Litigation (2017, 2018)
- Following the Letter of the Law Into Absurdity: Why the Supreme Court’s Severability Rule Does Not Preclude Determining an Arbitration Provision’s Enforceability Under the Law Supplied by an Agreement’s General Choice-of-Law Clause, 166 University of Pennsylvania Law Review Online 273 (2018)
- Immunocompromised: A Call for Courts to Redefine the Boundaries of the Absolute Immunity Doctrine’s Application to National Securities Exchanges, 11 New York University Journal of Law & Business 2 (2015)
- 2015 Amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure: Furthering Rule 1’s Objectives of Expediency and Thrift, News for the Bar, Litigation Section of the State Bar of Texas (2015)
- A Complete View of the Cathedral: Claims of Tortious Interference and the Specific Performance Remedy in Mergers and Acquisitions Litigation, 3 University of Michigan Journal of Private Equity & Venture Capital Law 1 (2014) (Co-author)
- Are the ICSID Rules Losing Their Appeal? Annulment Committee Decisions Make ICSID Rules a Less Attractive Choice for Resolving Treaty-Based Investor-State Disputes, 2 University of Virginia Journal of International Law Digest 54 (2014)
- Trends in International Investment Agreements, 2009/2010: Recent Steps in the Evolution of Bilateral Investment Treaties and the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules, Chapter 2 in Karl P. Sauvant, Yearbook on International Law and Policy 2010/2011, Oxford University Press (2011) (Co-author)
- Amputating the Long Arm of the Law: An Analysis of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Decision in Morrison and Why § 10(b) Still Reaches Issuers of ADRs, 89 Washington University Law Review 477 (2011)
- Definition of Investment: Gatekeeper to Investment Treaty Arbitration, 8 Berkeley Journal of International Law Publicist (2011)
- The Case for Semi-Strong-Form Corporate Scienter in Securities Fraud Actions, 108 University of Michigan Law Review First Impressions 95 (2010)
- Protection of Work Product Shared With Outside Auditors, New York Law Journal (2010) (Co-author)
- Credit Default Swaps in the Crosshairs, Law360 (2009) (Co-author)