Michael L. Banks Partner

Michael L. Banks is a partner in Morgan Lewis's Labor and Employment Practice. Mr. Banks has litigated employment and benefits issues in state and federal courts, and has provided representation and advice on wrongful discharge, employment contracts, sexual harassment, discrimination, severance agreements, noncompetition and trade secret protections, pension and benefit matters, reductions in force, union activity, and a variety of other employment matters. He has tried more than 35 cases involving virtually every conceivable employment-related cause of action, and has handled several dozen class action and multiplaintiff cases around the country for some of the firm's largest and most sophisticated clients. He is listed as a Pennsylvania "Super Lawyer," as one of the "Best Lawyers in America," and in Chambers as one of America's Leading Lawyers for Business (2006–2010).

Mr. Banks has also lectured on trial techniques at Temple University Law School, both to law students and to practicing attorneys pursuing their masters of law degrees in trial advocacy, and he is a faculty member 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 member of the Board of Directors of Need-in-Deed, a service learning organization.

Beginning in 1988, Mr. Banks 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 postconviction proceedings, Mr. Banks 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 been hidden from 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, fellow Morgan Lewis partner Gordon 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.

From 2006 through 2010, Mr. Banks was named one of the leading U.S. lawyers for employment law by Chambers USA, based on the views of clients, peers, and other industry professionals. Chambers called Mr. Banks an "accomplished, knowledgeable, and sophisticated lawyer who is amazing on his feet in court."

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.