Michelle A. Rice has represented individuals, corporations, financial institutions and law firms in a broad array of complex civil, regulatory and white-collar criminal cases and investigations. At the trial level, Ms. Rice has served as lead counsel in securities, insurance, contract, accounting, taxation, fraud and other business tort matters. At the appellate level, she has argued before numerous state and federal appellate courts and administrative tribunals, including the Court of Appeals in New York and en banc proceedings in the Ninth Circuit. Ms. Rice also has considerable experience in alternative dispute resolution, having represented parties in arbitration proceedings conducted under the auspices of the American Arbitration Association, FINRA and the International Chamber of Commerce, and having mediated a number of business disputes on behalf of clients.

Notable representations include:

• Defending an AmLaw200 law firm against malpractice, fraud and breach
  of fiduciary duty claims, obtaining a dismissal of the claims on summary
  judgment;
• Defending a hedge fund portfolio company and its directors in a multi-
  million dollar breach of contract action, which resulted in a settlement of
  approximately 1% of the damages sought;
• Defending a chief executive officer in a federal SEC enforcement trial,
  parallel criminal investigation, multiple civil class action lawsuits and
  private arbitrations;
• Representing a member of an LLC in a books and records trial in
  Delaware Chancery Court, resulting in a ruling that the LLC had been
  used as a vehicle to perpetrate various frauds upon its members and that
  managing member had engaged in criminal conduct;
• Representing a Kuwaiti company in a AAA arbitration involving a
  contract dispute over franchise rights, which resulted in an award of $58
  million in damages;
• Obtaining an unprecedented preliminary injunction restraining a leading
  investment bank from providing investment advisory services to a
  commercial bank seeking to acquire the client in a hostile tender offer; and
• Representing a private placement agent in a breach of contract and fraud
  action, successfully obtaining the recovery of finder's fees.

In 1992, Ms. Rice served as Associate Counsel to the Temporary Special
Independent Counsel in a United States Senate investigation of unauthorized disclosures of non-public information in connection with the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court and the Senate Ethics Committee investigation of the "Keating Five."

Ms. Rice was born in Chicago, Illinois.