Lucas Kowalczyk is an associate in the Litigation Department and a member of the firm’s nationally recognized Appellate Practice Group, which has been named to the National Law Journal’s Appellate Hot List. Lucas has authored dozens of briefs in federal and state appellate and trial courts, and at the certiorari and merits stages in the Supreme Court of the United States, and has argued cases in state and federal appellate courts. He litigates cases in a wide range of subject areas, including antitrust, bankruptcy, healthcare, labor, employment, and constitutional law. He also co-authored chapters of the treatise Principles of Appellate Litigation: A Guide to Modern Practice, published in 2021 by PLI and revised annually.
Among his notable appellate representations, Lucas helped obtain a critical victory at the U.S. Supreme Court for the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico in an appeal concerning the Board’s sovereign immunity. Lucas also prevailed at the First Circuit for the Board in four related appeals seeking to overturn the $18-billion plan of adjustment for the Sales Tax Financing Corporation, a critical component of Puerto Rico’s historic fiscal recovery.
Lucas is also a member of the firm’s White Collar Defense and Investigations Group, focusing on government and internal investigations, and criminal and regulatory matters. Among other representations, Lucas helped secure a full release of nearly $20 million worth of interest in assets seized from the firm’s client by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Finally, Lucas is a member of the firm’s Commercial Litigation Practice, and has successfully represented clients in high-stakes contractual disputes involving financial services, life sciences, consumer goods, telecommunications, and other industries in trial courts and arbitrations in a number of jurisdictions.
Lucas also maintains a diverse pro bono practice and has represented indigent clients in immigration, family, and appellate courts, and in death-penalty proceedings. Among his notable representations, Lucas prevailed in a Second Circuit appeal addressing the showing the government must make to justify the continued detention of a noncitizen in removal proceedings. In 2019, Lucas received the Legal Aid Society's Pro Bono Publico Award and Proskauer’s Golden Gavel Award for obtaining a critical victory for his client—an indigent grandmother acting as guardian for her two learning-disabled grandchildren—in an appeal, argued by Lucas, to the New York State Appellate Division, First Department. The court held that an amendment to New York’s Subsidized Kinship Guardian Program applied retroactively and required an award of benefits to the client’s grandchildren.
Lucas is a graduate of the National Trial Advocacy College.
Education
- University of Virginia School of Law, J.D.
- Cornell University, B.S.
Admissions & Qualifications
- Illinois
- New York
Clerkships
- U.S. Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit - Hon. Helene N. White
- U.S. District Court, Pennsylvania, Middle District - Hon. A. Richard Caputo
Court Admissions
- Supreme Court of the United States
- U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
- U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit
- U.S. Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
- U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
- U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit
- U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit
- U.S. Court of Appeals, First Circuit
- U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia
- U.S. Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit
- U.S. District Court, Illinois, Northern District
- U.S. District Court, New York, Southern District
Memberships
New York State Bar Association
Awards & Recognition
New York Super Lawyers "Rising Stars" 2020-2022
Proskauer’s Golden Gavel Award 2020, 2024
The Legal Aid Society’s Pro Bono Publico Award 2019
Languages
- Polish