Michele R. Di Franco

/My focus

My practice focuses on representing clients in high-stakes business disputes, business torts, constitutional, appellate, administrative, insurance, class action, white-collar regulatory matters, and False Claims Act litigation. I have represented businesses and individuals in disputes in state and federal courts across the country on a wide range of issues.

I have experience conducting internal investigations for special committees to corporate and nonprofit clients, including interviewing witnesses, preparing final reports, and drafting presentations to regulators and government investigators.

Before joining Nixon Peabody, I worked in the litigation department at another law firm, and previously served as a law clerk for the Civil Recoveries Bureau at the New York State Office of the Attorney General. During law school, I was a research assistant to Professor Patrick M. Connors, a leading expert in New York civil procedure, and assisted with researching and editing the McKinney’s Practice Commentaries, many articles published in the New York Law Journal, and the semi-annual supplements to the treatise New York Practice, which has been cited by thousands of reported cases and has been called “The Bible” of litigation in New York State courts.

/Representative experience

*The below representative experience includes representations from a prior firm.

• Killmer, Lane & Newman, LLP v. BKP, Inc., 535 P.3d 91 (Colo. 2023)*—extending the litigation privilege to class action attorneys announcing their case and protecting them from retaliatory litigation
• Avon Nursing Home v. Beccerra, 119 F.4th 286 (2d Cir. 2024)*— represented group of nursing homes in challenge to HHS survey rule in the first case at the Second Circuit to apply the framework from Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 603 US 369 (2024)

/Looking ahead

AI use is becoming more common, but also introduces new risks from data privacy to ethical concerns and potential malfunctions. As a result, I expect we will see more disputes related to AI, especially between AI vendors and their users.

/Insights

• Presenter, “Trust Accounts and Unclaimed Funds,” Western & Central New York Chapter of the Association of Legal Administrators Conference, June 6, 2023