A jury swiftly returned a defendants' verdict on May 9, 2001 for the firm's clients, the venture capital firm Meyer Duffy & Associates and its principals, in a breach of contract action in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. After a five-day trial, the seven-member jury unanimously found for the defendants after deliberating for just over an hour (including lunch).

The case involved an alleged oral contract to transfer stock options in Predictive Systems, Inc., a network consulting company whose shares are traded on the Nasdaq. The defendants, Predictive's financial advisers, received the options for successfully arranging the company's initial private financing in 1995.

The plaintiff, Rowland W. Day, II, a California attorney who had represented Predictive in its formation and 1995 financing, alleged that the defendants had orally agreed to give him one-third of those options in exchange for certain legal and other services that he was to provide to Predictive. The defendants denied that any such agreement ever was reached, and the jury agreed that Day had failed to prove the existence of the alleged contract.

The case was tried before United States District Judge Harold Baer, Jr. by FKSA litigation partner Paul J. Fishman, who was assisted by associates Michael A. Berg and Joshua A. Polak.