Mr. Donat applies his experience and ability to identify and achieve practical solutions to the complex and technical issues that arise in sophisticated commercial and criminal litigation. His commercial practice focuses primarily on motion practice and appeals in connection with securities and ERISA law, antitrust litigation, and business disputes. In his criminal practice, he represents individual clients through investigations, including those conducted by governmental agencies and offices in New York and New Jersey. His commercial and criminal litigation experience includes trials in various state and federal courts and before alternative dispute resolution tribunals. Mr. Donat also litigates a range of employment and labor law matters, with an emphasis on defending private companies in state and federal court actions involving alleged discrimination, harassment, and retaliation claims. In addition, Mr. Donat’s intellectual property practice concentrates on patent litigation in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, where he serves as co-counsel and local counsel to national law firms litigating patent issues in the District of New Jersey under the Hatch-Waxman Act.
Mr. Donat also maintains an active pro bono practice. In partnership with Volunteer Lawyers for Justice, he ensures that veterans and reserve-duty personnel of all branches of the United States Armed Forces receive the benefits to which they are entitled. In addition, and as court-appointed counsel, he assists pro bono clients through parole revocation hearings, tenancy disputes, debt relief, and criminal record expungements.
While in law school, Mr. Donat served as editor of the Seton Hall Law Review and worked with the Impact Litigation Clinic at the Seton Hall Center for Social Justice, where he represented indigent clients in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Prior to joining Gibbons, he served as a law clerk to the Honorable Katharine S. Hayden of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey and Justice Lee A. Solomon of the Supreme Court of New Jersey.
Credentials
Education
Seton Hall University School of Law (J.D., cum laude)
- Seton Hall Law Review, Member
Manhattan College (B.A.)
Professional Admissions
State of New Jersey
State of New York
United States District Court for the District of New Jersey
United States District Court for the Southern District of New York
United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York
Professional Activities
Federal Bar Council
Association of the Federal Bar of New Jersey
Essex County Bar Association
John C. Lifland American Inn of Court
National Institute for Trial Advocacy
Volunteer Lawyers for Justice
Judicial Clerkship(s)
Law clerk to the Honorable Katharine S. Hayden, U.S.D.J., United States District Court for the District of New Jersey
Law clerk to the Honorable Lee A. Solomon, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of New Jersey
Civic/Charitable Activities
Mentor, Boys & Girls Clubs of Hudson County
Mentor, NJ LEEP
Legal Employment
Clinical student, Seton Hall Center for Social Justice, Seton Hall University School of Law
Judicial intern, Office of the Federal Public Defender for the District of New Jersey
Judicial extern to the Honorable James B. Clark, III, U.S.M.J., United States District Court for the District of New Jersey