Charles Palella has more than 30 years of experience concentrating his practice in the areas of appellate litigation, commercial litigation and tort litigation.

Cases that he has handled have had a significant impact on the development of New York law in the areas of insurance coverage, civil procedure and tort liability. He has experience advising engineering and architectural firms, manufacturers, real estate developers on a wide range of issues.

Recent matters which he has handled include: obtaining a favorable ruling on behalf of an owner of a historic restaurant franchise from the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit which dismissed all service mark infringement and related claims against the  client and granted the client’s counterclaim for cancellation of the opponent’s service mark registration; successfully defending one of the country’s leading hospitals in breach of contract claims; overseeing the defense of over 8,000 individual claims brought against a major structural engineering firm stemming from its work on the cleanup of the World Trade Center site after Sept. 11, 2001, and navigating the complex insurance coverage issues raised by those claims; successfully defending a large plastics manufacturer in a toxic tort claim; and representing a leading university in an estate litigation involving a bequest to its endowment.

Charles also has significant experience with alternative methods of dispute resolution and has resolved a number of matters through the use of organizations such as the American Arbitration Association (AAA) and JAMS.