Steve Poss is a senior partner in the Litigation Department of Goodwin Procter LLP. He is co-chair of the firm’s Securities Litigation & SEC Enforcement Practice, and is also a member of the firm’s Financial Services, Private Equity and Patent Litigation Practices.
Mr. Poss has a national business litigation and corporate counseling practice, particularly in the areas of securities class action defense, SEC investigations and enforcement actions, SEC disclosure issues, corporate governance, internal investigations, complex business litigation and arbitration, mergers and acquisitions, private equity and venture capital disputes, post-closing disputes, contests for corporate control and intellectual property disputes.
PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES
Mr. Poss served the maximum number of terms as the Vice-Chair and then the Co-Chair of the Securities Litigation Subcommittee of the American Bar Association Section of Business Law from 2000-2007. He is a member of the National Advisory Board of The SEC Institute, Inc. Mr. Poss is a former Vice Chairperson of the Massachusetts Bar Association Business Litigation Committee and a former member of the Civil Litigation Curriculum Committee of Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education. Mr. Poss has been approved as Panel Counsel for Securities Litigation by AIG/National Union, a worldwide leader in Directors and Officers liability insurance.
PUBLICATIONS AND PRESENTATIONS
Mr. Poss is an active lecturer. He has spoken across the country and in Europe and written on topics such as “Practical Tips for Adopting Sarbanes-Oxley,” “Boardroom Dangers for Private Equity Partners,” “Corporate Governance in the Post-Enron Era,” “Internal Investigations – Dealing with the Aftermath,” “Defusing Website Time Bombs,” “Internal Control Over Financial Reporting,” “Shareholder Disputes,” “The Ultimate Trial Notebook,” “Mergers and Acquisitions – How to Avoid Litigation,” “What the New Securities Litigation Reform Act Means for Institutional Investors,” and “Going Public – the Morning After.” The AICPA has invited him to speak on its quarterly live national continuing professional education webcasts on SEC issues for CFOs and CPAs. NASDAQ has asked him to speak to senior executives of NASDAQ-listed companies on disclosure, corporate governance and securities litigation issues at NASDAQ educational forums across the country. He served for many years on the faculty of the annual Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education seminar on Civil Motion Practice. He has been quoted widely in leading publications such a The Wall Street Journal, The National Law Journal, and CFO Magazine.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Mr. Poss was trained as an associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York before joining Goodwin Procter in 1987.
BAR AND COURT ADMISSIONS
Mr. Poss is a member of the Massachusetts and New York bars, as well as the bars of the U.S. Supreme Court; the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the First, Second, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Federal Circuits; and the U.S. District Courts for the District of Massachusetts and the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York. He has appeared pro hac vice in numerous state and federal jurisdictions across the country.
RECOGNITION
Mr. Poss has been selected by a peer-review survey to appear since 2001 in each edition of The Best Lawyers in America as one of the best business litigators in the country, and has been selected by Chambers & Partners to appear in its researched-based guide, Chambers USA: America’s Leading Business Lawyers each year since the guide began publication. Chambers USA ranks Mr. Poss as a leading business lawyer in both Securities Litigation and General Commercial Litigation. He has been named each year by Boston Magazine as one of Massachusetts’ “Super Lawyers,” based on a peer-review survey.