Malcolm Seymour is a trusted counselor, negotiator and litigator with a dual practice focused on political and election law, and project-centered commercial disputes.

Political and Election Law
Bernie Sanders Presidential Campaign

Malcolm is a member of the team representing Bernie 2020, the presidential campaign vehicle of Senator Bernie Sanders. Malcolm was also a key member of the litigation team for Bernie 2016. Malcolm was a core strategist, drafter and negotiator in Bernie 2016’s lawsuit against the Democratic National Committee, challenging suspension of the campaign’s access to a party voter database. He advised the campaign on parliamentary procedure and drafted resolutions for the 2016 Democratic National Convention.

Voting Rights Act and Campaign Finance Laws

He has helped spearhead lawsuits against election laws in Ohio and Arizona under the Voting Rights Act and Fourteenth Amendment. He has represented campaigns in connection with challenges to political communications and advertisements, mass communications to prospective voters, enforcement of limits on individual contributions, and receipt of in-kind contributions, including volunteer labor. In addition to representing political committees, Malcolm provides outside general counsel services to grassroots organizing groups, including Our Revolution, a § 501(c)(4) entity formed to continue the progressive movement catalyzed by Senator Sanders’ 2016 presidential bid.

Malcolm has worked on impact litigation aimed at rehabilitating federal campaign finance laws and improving electoral transparency, including: litigation seeking to overturn a D.C. Circuit decision, issued in the shadow of Citizens United, that removed limits on individual contributions to SuperPACs; and defense of anticipated challenges to an electoral ordinance enacted by the City of St. Petersburg, limiting individual contributions to independent expenditure committees and preventing interference by foreign-influenced PACs in city elections.

Commercial Litigation and Project-Based Disputes
As a commercial litigator, Malcolm combines technical knowledge with an understanding of project methodologies and their pitfalls, helping engineers, contractors, project owners and developers diagnose the causes of project delays, overruns and failures. By disentangling these technical problems, he is able to bring timely and cost-effective closure to challenging cases. With specific expertise in the renewable energy sector, he assists lenders, contractors, engineers and owners through the problems that commonly arise on bespoke engineering and construction projects: change orders; equitable adjustments; liquidated damages; loan workouts; and last-resort litigation. Malcolm harnesses his legal background in the financial services sector to guide these clients through disputes that arise out of project financing agreements.

Financial Services
Malcolm continues to work closely with his financial services clients. He has contributed key strategies to shareholder disputes involving prominent global investment banks. He regularly represents broker-dealers and bankers in intra-industry disputes, including claims for compensation, and licensure or delicensure proceedings. Malcolm has helped broker-dealer clients mount successful challenges to investigations, enforcement actions and suspension proceedings brought by state agencies.

In a hub of global commerce, Malcolm often works with overseas clients involved in United States lawsuits, and is well versed in the mechanics of international litigation and arbitration – from serving process and taking discovery abroad, to the application of foreign law in U.S. courts, to the domestic enforcement of foreign money judgments and arbitral awards. He is a frequent appellate litigator across several federal circuits, and has represented amicus curiae before the United States Supreme Court.

Pro Bono
Malcolm is an active member of the firm’s Public Service Committee, which incubates and sponsors pro bono and community service projects for staff and attorneys. Malcolm serves as the outside legal advisor to Global Minimum, Inc., a 501(c)(3) organization that helps high school students in Sierra Leone, Kenya and South Africa develop leadership, critical thinking and problem-solving skills to tackle challenges facing their local communities. At the Yale Law School, Malcolm was Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal and Director of the Lowenstein Human Rights Project. As a student, he participated in several newsworthy cases involving extraordinary rendition and indigenous land rights.

Experience

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