Susan M. Davies

Senior Counsel

Susan M. Davies has more than 25 years of experience as a commercial litigator in New York, including as an associate in the litigation departments of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP and Sidley Austin LLP, and as a partner at the New York City litigation boutique Gregory P. Joseph Law Offices LLC (now Joseph Hage Aaronson LLC).

Susan is a graduate of Columbia University School of Law, where she received a Master of Laws in 1990, and the Australian National University College of Law, from which she graduated in 1986 with a Bachelor of Laws, with First Class Honors, and a University Medal. While at Columbia, Susan was a Fulbright scholar and a legal writing instructor in the J.D. program.

Susan is actively involved in all the firm’s litigation, including playing significant roles in briefing before the trial and appellate courts in the case of Peterson v. Bank Markazi, in which the firm recovered nearly $1.9 billion from Iran’s central bank on behalf of victims of the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon and other Iranian terrorist attacks. Susan has also played a leading role in connection with several of the firm’s recent arbitrations involving disputes over earn-outs, and in its representation of a private equity firm and its funds in various securities and unfair competition disputes.

Susan is an active member of the New York and ex-patriate Australian legal communities. In 2012, she founded the NY Chapter of the International Law Section of the Law Council of Australia and has since served as its Convener. From 2004 to 2009, she served on the Executive Committee of the New York State Bar Association’s Commercial and Federal Litigation Section, holding the positions of Secretary (2007), Section Treasurer (2008-2009), and co-chairing the Section’s Committee on New York Civil Practice Law and Rules (2004-2006). From 2002 to 2010, Susan served on the Advisory Committee on Civil Practice to the Chief Administrative Judge of the Courts of the State of New York.

Susan is the author of a ground-breaking article on character evidence (Evidence of Character To Prove Conduct: A Reassessment of Relevancy, 27 Criminal Law Bulletin 504 (1991)) which has been cited in more than seventy treatises and law review articles, including The New Wigmore: A Treatise on Evidence at §§ 1.2, 3.1, 3.4. Susan’s article was relied upon by the Supreme Court of New Mexico in deciding, as a matter of first impression, that it was reversible error for a trial court to have excluded evidence of the defendant’s honest character. New Mexico v. Martinez, 195 P.3d 1232, 1236 (2008). It was also described by the Second Circuit as “a valuable addition to the legal literature on the subject of evidence.” 103 F.3d 1085, 1092 (1997).