William T. Dzurilla, formerly William T. D'Zurilla, is an American attorney, a counsel in the Freedman Normand Friedland law firm's

Miami, Florida Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...

office. He was a law clerk for Justice

Byron White Byron "Whizzer" Raymond White (June 8, 1917 April 15, 2002) was an American professional football player and jurist who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1962 until his retirement in 1993. Born and raised in Colo ...

of the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

from 1982 to 1983. He played a key role in the

privatization Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...

of major state-owned businesses in

Slovakia Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the s ...

Biography

Born on December 19, 1953, the grandson of Slovak immigrants, Dzurilla grew up in

Carteret, New Jersey Carteret is a borough in Middlesex County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2020 United States Census, the borough's population was 25,326. History Carteret was originally created as the borough of Roosevelt on April 11, 1906, from portion ...

. His family moved to

Holly Hill, Florida Holly Hill is a city in Volusia County, Florida, United States. The population was 11,659 at the 2010 census. Holly Hill's city limits lie entirely on the Florida mainland, unlike the larger cities on either side of it, Daytona Beach and Ormond ...

, and he graduated from

Mainland High School Mainland High School is a public high school located in Daytona Beach, Florida, United States. It is attended by 1,979 students of grades nine through twelve. The mascot is a Buccaneer and strongly resembles the old logo of the Tampa Bay Buccaneer ...

in Daytona Beach. He received his B.A. degree from the

University of Louisiana at Lafayette The University of Louisiana at Lafayette (UL Lafayette, University of Louisiana, ULL, or UL) is a public research university in Lafayette, Louisiana. It has the largest enrollment within the nine-campus University of Louisiana System and the s ...

in 1978, and his J.D. from

Tulane Law School Tulane University Law School is the law school of Tulane University. It is located on Tulane's Uptown campus in New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,Albert Tate of the

United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (in case citations, 5th Cir.) is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following federal judicial districts: * Eastern District of Louisiana * M ...

from 1981 to 1982 and then for Justice

of the

U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

from 1982 to 1983. After completing his clerkship, Dzurilla joined the

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

firm of Gordon Arata McCollam & Duplantis, where he stayed for 15 years. He worked with his former co-clerk Patricia A. Dean on the defense of a

First Amendment First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and reco ...

challenge to the constitutionality of seven federal, state, and local school aid programs, which culminated in ''Mitchell v. Helms'', a U.S. Supreme Court decision overruling previous authority. Dzurilla also helped obtain a unanimous Louisiana Supreme Court decision finding Louisiana's forum non conveniens statute contrary to the

Supremacy Clause The Supremacy Clause of the Constitution of the United States ( Article VI, Clause 2) establishes that the Constitution, federal laws made pursuant to it, and treaties made under its authority, constitute the "supreme Law of the Land", and thu ...

of the U.S. Constitution, an appellate decision striking down Louisiana's Any Willing Provider statute as preempted by

ERISA The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) (, codified in part at ) is a U.S. federal tax and labor law that establishes minimum standards for pension plans in private industry. It contains rules on the federal income tax eff ...

, and a U.S. Fifth Circuit opinion overturning a criminal

mail fraud Mail fraud and wire fraud are terms used in the United States to describe the use of a physical or electronic mail system to defraud another, and are federal crimes there. Jurisdiction is claimed by the federal government if the illegal activity ...

conviction on

double jeopardy In jurisprudence, double jeopardy is a procedural defence (primarily in common law jurisdictions) that prevents an accused person from being tried again on the same (or similar) charges following an acquittal or conviction and in rare case ...

grounds. In 1990, on behalf of the Federal Bar Association's Democracy Development Initiative, Dzurilla spent two months in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

as an advisor to the Russian Constitutional Commission, which was preparing the first non-socialist

constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When these princ ...

of the

Russian Federation Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

. The commission was chaired by Russian president

Boris Yeltsin Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin ( rus, Борис Николаевич Ельцин, p=bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈla(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈjelʲtsɨn, a=Ru-Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin.ogg; 1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician wh ...

, and Dzurilla worked closely with Oleg Rumyantsev, the chairman of the commission's working group. The commission's work led to the enactment of the 1993

Constitution of Russia The Constitution of the Russian Federation () was adopted by national referendum on 12 December 1993. Russia's constitution came into force on 25 December 1993, at the moment of its official publication, and abolished the Soviet system of gov ...

. However, as a result of the

1993 Russian constitutional crisis The 1993 Russian constitutional crisis, also known as the 1993 October Coup, Black October, the Shooting of the White House or Ukaz 1400, was a political stand-off and a constitutional crisis between the Russian president Boris Yeltsin and t ...

, the final version differed from the commission's draft by substantially increasing the powers of the president. In 1998, Dzurilla accepted a Fulbright Scholarship to teach law at the

Comenius University Comenius University in Bratislava ( sk, Univerzita Komenského v Bratislave) is the largest university in Slovakia, with most of its faculties located in Bratislava. It was founded in 1919, shortly after the creation of Czechoslovakia. It is name ...

in Bratislava,

. While in Slovakia, he joine
White & Case
and stayed with that firm for four years, handling several important deals in the Slovak Republic's transition from a

Soviet satellite A satellite state or dependent state is a country that is formally independent in the world, but under heavy political, economic, and military influence or control from another country. The term was coined by analogy to planetary objects orbitin ...

to a full member of the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...

. Mr. Dzurilla worked with Slovak Minister of Finance

Brigita Schmögnerová Brigita Schmögnerová (born 17 November 1947) is a Slovak economist and politician. She was the Minister of Finance of Slovakia from 1998 to 2002 under Prime Minister Mikuláš Dzurinda. She was appointed Executive Secretary of the United Nat ...

on the privatization of the Slovak Savings Bank (Slovenská sporiteľňa) and the General Credit Bank (VÚB), the two largest Slovak banks. He represented Electricite de France in its acquisition of the Central Slovak Electric Company, and Allianz in its purchase of the Slovak Insurance Company. He advised the Slovak government in the sale of 49% of the shares of the Transpetrol AS oil pipeline company to the Russian company

Yukos OJSC "Yukos Oil Company" (russian: ОАО Нефтяна́я Компа́ния Ю́КОС, links=no, ) was an oil and gas company based in Moscow, Russia. Yukos was acquired from the Russian government by Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkov ...

, then headed by Mikhail Khodorkovsky.* M. Chren, ''Privatization in the Slovak Republic'', pp. 11-13 (Feb. 2005)

* F. Haddock, Slovakia Cleans Up (Sept. 1999)* PMÚ už prešetruje aj akvizície SSE a VSE

/ref> In 2004, Dzurilla rejoined his former co-clerk Stuart H. Singer, who offered him a position with Boies Schiller & Flexner in

Fort Lauderdale A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...

. Since returning to the United States, Dzurilla has focused on complex litigation and arbitration. He has represented clients such as

NASCAR The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. The privately owned company was founded by Bill France Sr. in 1948, and ...

and

Florida Power & Light Florida Power & Light Company (FPL), the principal subsidiary of NextEra Energy Inc. (formerly FPL Group, Inc.), is the largest power utility in Florida. It is a Juno Beach, Florida-based power utility company serving roughly 5 million customers ...

, and he is involved in class-action litigation against

Quixtar Amway North America (formerly known as Quixtar North America) is an American worldwide multi-level marketing (MLM) company, founded 1959 in Ada, Michigan, United States. It is privately owned by the families of Richard DeVos and Jay Van Andel ...

. Dzurilla married Daria Mariani in 2000 in Slovakia. They have two children, William (Billy) and Pavel (Paul).

Works

* ''Reflections of a Dalkon Shield Arbitrator'', 53 Dispute Resolution Journal 13 (1998) * ''Farewell to Lenin: The Story of Russia's New, Non-Communist Constitution'', 38 Federal Bar News & Journal 410 (1991) * ''Federal Health Care Bills Include ADR'', 41 La. B.J. 560 (1994) * ''Individual Responsibility for Torture Under International Law'', 56 Tulane L.Rev. 186 (1981) * ''Cuba's 1976 Socialist Constitution and the Fidelista Interpretation of Cuban Constitutional History'', 55 Tulane L.Rev. 1223 (1981)

Notes

External links

profile on Freedman Normand Friedland website

interview of Dzurilla on Radio Prague (January 11, 2000)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dzurilla, William T. 1953 births Tulane University alumni Tulane University Law School alumni University of Louisiana at Lafayette alumni Law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States Living people American lawyers American people of Slovak descent People from Carteret, New Jersey People from Holly Hill, Florida Mainland High School alumni Boies Schiller Flexner people

Biography

Works

See also

Notes

External links