Mike is an appellate lawyer with a wide range of experience in both civil and criminal litigation. He has written over a hundred appellate briefs and presented over twenty oral arguments in the federal courts of appeals. Mike is routinely hired not only for traditional appeals, but also to handle legal strategy and appellate preservation at the trial level, including arguing motions, jury instructions, and jury selection issues. Mike has worked on more than thirty trials in that role. In just the last three years, he has attended seven complete trials for four clients: Meta, Philip Morris, Monsanto, and J&J.
Mike’s work spans a number of substantive areas. In data privacy litigation, Mike has won two Ninth Circuit appeals for Meta: a challenge to its use of pixel technology, and a challenge to its use of facial recognition technology. In product liability cases, Mike has briefed appeals for a variety of clients—including Philip Morris, Walmart, Nissan, and Union Carbide—prevailing most recently in an appeal of a $43 million damages award against Philip Morris. Mike has brought appeals raising questions of due process, Article III standing, class certification, contract interpretation, tort law, federal preemption, excessive punitive damages, and many others. He has also defended judgments against appeals brought by his clients’ opponents; in 2024, for example, Mike argued and won a First Circuit appeal where the plaintiffs alleged that Volvo’s nationwide maintenance plans violated Massachusetts law.
Mike devotes a large part of his practice to clients facing threats to their life or liberty. He has represented clients convicted of murder, sexual assault, robbery, drug trafficking, and firearm offenses, as well as immigrants facing deportation for criminal offenses. Mike has had successes in these areas: an opinion by the Second Circuit vacating a client’s conviction for murder for hire; another Second Circuit opinion vacating the sentence of a client convicted of a drug conspiracy; a decision by the South Carolina Court of Appeals vacating a client’s conviction for robbery; and six federal appellate rulings barring the government from deporting immigrants to Mexico, Honduras, Jamaica, and Poland. Mike has also worked with clients seeking executive clemency; in 2024, one of Mike’s clients was granted a commutation of his federal death sentence.
Mike received his J.D. with high honors from The University of Chicago Law School, where he was a comments editor on the Law Review. After law school, Mike was a law clerk to Judge Jay Bybee of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and to Judge Nicholas Garaufis of the Eastern District of New York. Before joining Shook, Mike was a partner at Mayer Brown LLP and an associate at Cravath, Swaine and Moore LLP. Law360 has named Mike a “Rising Star,” explaining that he “has amassed victories for Facebook and other companies over a career that has also been marked by his dedication to pro bono work.”