Hannah Chanoine is a Senior Associate in Mayer Brown's Supreme Court & Appellate group in New York. Hannah has been the primary author of appellate briefs in state and federal courts nationwide, including the United States Supreme Court. Hannah also plays a leadership role in the group’s innovative legal strategy practice.
Since 2009, Hannah has served as legal strategy counsel for a Fortune 200 consumer products company on half a dozen high-stakes jury trials tried to verdict or mistrial. She supervises teams of attorneys, including during a 5-week mass action jury trial that overlapped with a 7-day individual personal injury jury trial in April and May 2013. She has also served as legal strategy counsel on two bench trials and on more than half a dozen other jury trials where the client was dismissed only days before trial.
The legal strategy team consists of appellate lawyers who work closely with trial lawyers at Mayer Brown and at other firms to craft legal strategies applicable to all phases of litigation: pre-trial, trial, post-trial and appeal. At trial, the team (1) focuses on obtaining legal rulings that maximize the trial lawyers’ ability to obtain a defense verdict, (2) ensures that positions taken at trial are consistent with the client’s national litigation strategy, and (3) frees up the trial lawyers by handling appellate preservation. More broadly, the team surveys the national legal landscape to identify opportunities to take advantage of potential appellate decisions and to make new law.
In 2011 and 2012, Super Lawyers named Hannah to its New York Metro “Rising Stars” list. Hannah currently serves on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals’ Pro Bono Panel, and is a member of the Federal Bar Council’s Second Circuit Courts Committee. In 2012, Hannah Co-Chaired the Federal Bar Council’s eleventh annual Bench & Bar Fall Retreat, a three-day retreat attended by over 200 attorneys and their families and nine federal judges, and for which Hannah coordinated six continuing legal education programs. Hannah has been published on the subject of practicing in the United States Supreme Court and is a member of the Federal Bar Council Inn of Court. At Mayer Brown, Hannah founded and chairs the New York Lateral Associates Committee.
Before joining Mayer Brown, Hannah served for three years as a Trial Attorney in the Department of Justice, Civil Division (Federal Programs Branch) through the Attorney General's Honor's Program. During her tenure there, she had lead responsibility for defending a variety of federal agencies in federal and state courts nationwide, including the Office of Foreign Assets Control and the Foreign Service.
Hannah received her JD from Columbia University School of Law, where she was twice named a James Kent Scholar for outstanding academic achievement. In addition, she won the Columbia Law Review’s annual publishable notes competition. Her resulting publication on the Fourth Amendment has been cited in a leading Fourth Amendment treatise, as well as in a 2010 federal district court opinion that described it as “instructive” and “first-rate.”
From 2004-2005, Hannah clerked for the Hon. Sonia Sotomayor on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.