Pomerantz Partner Tamar Weinrib’s expert, innovative lawyering has secured court decisions in favor of investors that will form the bedrock of securities litigation for decades to come.
MONITOR: What led you to a career in law?
Tamar Weinrib: From an early age I gravitated toward subjects that foretold a path to a legal career. One of my favorite high school subjects was Talmud. The Talmud is a compilation of oral Jewish laws that are annotated with intricate Rabbinic commentary and discussion covering wide ranging topics. It is without a doubt the first true education I received on legal argument and its foundation in ethics, logic and creativity. Studying the back and forth between Rabbis who held very divergent views on the same topic, the reasoning that led each of them to their views, and the arguments they crafted to persuade others, intrigued me. Though the Talmud dates back centuries, it very much resembles the way that a contemporary lawyer’s mind works. That early study gave me deep respect for legal thought.
The Talmud exemplifies how Jewish law is a living and breathing entity, open to discussion, interpretation, argument, and refinement depending on the circumstances. It may seem like a strange apples-to-oranges comparison, but the same can be said for securities law. The way one applies the law changes significantly depending on the circumstances and facts of each case. No two cases are alike. Circumstances matter, and the facts matter. There is creativity involved in the way that you consider those elements and the right way to apply the law.
M: You mention creativity. How much does that play a role in your practice?
TW: Though I mentioned an early start in my journey toward the legal profession, in college I majored in advertising and minored in art history. To be a successful lawyer, and particularly a litigator, it’s important to have both strong creative and persuasive writing skills, and also to stand in a courtroom and convince your “audience” to see your point of view. Majoring in advertising was solid training in advocacy and oral presentation. Successful advertising involves convincing a consumer to see your product the way you want them to see your product. To be an effective litigator, you have to be able to convince a judge to see the case the way that you want them to see the case.
M: What about the law continues to motivate you?
TW: I am constantly learning. Not just because the securities laws and relevant case law are continuously evolving, but also because each case requires an education into how each defendant company’s industry works. When I led our seminal case against Barclays regarding its “dark pool,” I had to immediately learn about the intricacies of sophisticated, opaque trading platforms that I had never before encountered. We hired a wonderful expert on dark pools to work on the case with us, but there was a lot of self-education. The litigation process itself – research, investigation, reading documents in discovery, asking questions in depositions – all collectively provide a thorough education. It is critical when bringing cases like this to fully understand the underlying industry. I have brought numerous cases against pharmaceutical companies as well. There’s a very intricate FDA approval and clinical testing process before a drug can come to market. So when the underlying claim concerns what a drug company said about the safety or efficacy of its product and how the product was faring during various phases of clinical testing, or, post approval, how it was faring in the market and whether there were reports of serious adverse events – you need to be deeply knowledgeable not just about how the FDA approval process works, but for each case, how the particular drug at issue works.
M: How much of that education occurs before a case is filed?
TW: At Pomerantz, we very carefully investigate our cases before we bring them. So there is a significant amount of research that occurs before the filing of a complaint. We only pursue cases we believe have merit and can only make that determination through “education.” Then, as the case proceeds and we get into discovery, that unpeels the layers of the onion much further.
M: Are there specific challenges to being a woman in law?
TW: What I viewed as challenges when I first started out, I now view as advantages. Especially earlier in my career, I’d walk into a deposition knowing that, given my age and gender, an older male sitting across the table at first glance would have certain expectations and underestimate me. I thrived in challenging those expectations and proving them wrong, and I think that is to my advantage. People don’t always expect a young female attorney to be assertive, to stand her ground or present her case with strength, and it gives me great pleasure to catch them off guard. There can be challenges specific to being a female attorney. But you have a choice – you can see them as challenges, or you can see them as opportunities to prove people wrong and blaze a path that people do not expect you to blaze.
