Jennifer Ancona Semko

Jennifer Ancona Semko focuses her practice on complex commercial litigation, internal investigations, and class and collective actions. She has almost 20 years of experience litigating in state and federal courts across the United States. She counsels on wage and hour issues and discrimination actions, represents clients in international disputes, and is knowledgeable about cross-border judicial processes.

She also has guided clients through investigations by the US Department of Justice, SEC, NYSE, Senate Finance Committee, United Nations and other government agencies.

Jennifer’s practice covers a variety of complex disputes, including employment-related claims, fiduciary duty and shareholder litigation, breach of contract actions, copyright and trade secret protection, business torts and other business litigation matters.

She also has substantial experience advising standardized, high-stakes testing programs regarding legal and strategic issues such as the development of effective test-taker agreements, pursuit of legal actions in response to exam theft, and strategic decision-making regarding the invalidation of test scores.

She has briefed and argued appeals before a number of state and federal appellate courts, and she is a former law clerk to the Honorable Pascal F. Calogero, Jr., Chief Justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court.

Education:

• Tulane University Law School (J.D. magna cum laude, Order of the Coif) (1998)
• Georgetown University (B.S.F.S. cum laude) (1995)

Admissions:

• District of Columbia (2003)
• Maryland (2002)
• Louisiana (1998)

Professional Associations and Memberships:

• American Bar Association (Litigation and Business Law Sections)
• Association of Test Publishers (Exam Security Enforcement Committee)

Representative Legal Matters:

• Defended two large Azerbaijani banks against federal action asserting RICO, anti-spam, and other claims, obtaining full dismissal that was upheld on appeal.
• Successfully briefed and argued appeal before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on an issue of contract interpretation, obtaining reversal of an adverse District Court summary judgment.
• Conducted internal investigations and negotiated resolutions for clients in connection with alleged violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, export sanctions, antitrust, immigration, and other laws.
• Represented investors in an Eastern European beachfront resort in derivative action alleging breach of fiduciary duties, fraud, and violation of state securities laws following majority shareholder’s alleged misappropriation of company assets. Obtained favorable settlement after prevailing on several motions.
• Extensive experience obtaining ex parte seizure orders from federal courts permitting unannounced raids of alleged copyright infringers on behalf of examination programs.