Michael L. Banks

Partner

Michael L. Banks is a partner in Morgan Lewis's Labor and Employment and Litigation Practices. Mr. Banks has litigated a wide range of employment, benefits, trade secret, commercial, professional liability, and personal injury issues in state and federal courts. He has tried more than 30 cases and has handled several dozen class action and multi-plaintiff cases around the country for some of the firm's largest and most sophisticated clients.

Mr. Banks has taught trial techniques to practicing attorneys pursuing their masters of law degrees in trial advocacy at the Temple University School of Law, and has served on the faculty of the Academy of Advocacy, which conducts trial training programs for attorneys. Active in civic organizations, Mr. Banks is a past president of the board of directors of the Support Center for Child Advocates, which provides pro bono advocacy on behalf of abused and neglected children, and a past member of the board of directors of Need-in-Deed, a service learning organization.

Beginning in 1988, Mr. Banks and Morgan Lewis partner Gordon Cooney represented John Thompson, who was wrongly convicted in 1985 of both the murder of a New Orleans hotel executive and an unrelated armed carjacking which was used by the prosecutors in the murder case. As a result of the convictions, Mr. Thompson was sentenced to death by electrocution in the murder case and to 50 years in prison without parole in the carjacking case. Over the course of 15 years of post-conviction proceedings, Mr. Banks, Mr. Cooney, and the Morgan Lewis team uncovered concealed blood evidence in the carjacking case, which proved that Mr. Thompson was not the carjacker, as well as witnesses, documents, and critical information that had not been provided to the defense in the murder case. Ultimately, after the carjacking conviction was vacated based on the blood evidence, a Louisiana appellate court ordered a new trial in the murder case. In May 2003, Mr. Banks, Mr. Cooney, and New Orleans lawyer Robert Glass retried the murder case. The jury deliberated just 35 minutes before finding Mr. Thompson not guilty of the murder. Mr. Thompson was released from custody after 18 years of imprisonment, and has been totally exonerated of any involvement in those crimes. Mr. Banks and Mr. Cooney later obtained a $14 million jury verdict on behalf of Mr. Thompson in a civil rights claim for the wrongful prosecution; the civil case is currently pending in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Chambers USA called Mr. Banks an "accomplished, knowledgeable, and sophisticated lawyer who is amazing on his feet in court." He was named “Litigator of the Week” by The American Lawyer in 2009, and he is listed in The Best Lawyers in America and as one of the “Top 100 Lawyers” in Pennsylvania by Super Lawyers. His cases have been featured on the front pages of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and in numerous other publications and media. In 2004, Mr. Banks was awarded the American Bar Association’s Frances Perkins Award for Pro Bono Service.

Mr. Banks is admitted to practice in Pennsylvania and before the U.S. Supreme Court, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern and Middle Districts of Pennsylvania and the District of Connecticut, and the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits.