John O. Farley

A founding member of Rottenstreich Farley Bronstein Fisher Potter Hodas LLP, John Farley is a trial lawyer with 25 years’ experience resolving a notably wide range of high-stakes disputes. He now focuses his practice on matrimonial and commercial actions presenting complex valuation, jurisdictional, accounting, corporations law, and fraud issues.

He is presently lead counsel for clients in New York City, Westchester County, and Silicon Valley, in complex matters with amounts in controversy up to $7 billion.

John prides himself on an approach that is at once humane, personal and financially and legally sophisticated.  He uses his years of training and experience as a commercial and securities lawyer to provide incomparable client service.

"He is extremely collegial and a pleasure to work with. He is highly sophisticated but writes well and simplifies brilliantly."

"He is great, I really like working with him. He is also commercial and very responsive. He listens and understands more complex matters with respect to valuing assets versus other firms and lawyers."

                -- Chambers & Partners: Family Law/High Net Worth (2024)

John represents hedge fund, private equity, venture capital and other financial services executives, technology company founders and entrepreneurs, lawyers, and other professionals—and their spouses and children—in family law and commercial disputes.

Before co-founding RFB+Fisher Potter Hodas, John and partners Dan Rottenstreich, Peter Bronstein, and Meredith Strauss prevailed at trial in the largest contested divorce in New York history.  He was also a senior member of the team that settled on a highly favorable basis one of, if not the, largest hedge fund cases ever to proceed to trial.

John has a proven track record on the appellate level as well, with landmark New York appellate victories on critical issues in matrimonial law, including the provision of counsel fees to less-monied spouses in contested divorces and the categorization of assets for distribution in high net worth divorce actions.

John started his career at Cravath, Swaine & Moore.  After leaving Cravath, he became an associate and eventually an equity partner at Goodwin Procter. There, his practice focused on securities and white-collar litigation, and the representation of private investment funds and their partners in commercial and partnership disputes. He also represented REITs, investment banks, target companies, and acquirers in M&A litigation, spanning industries from electrical power generation to medical devices.

While a partner at Goodwin, John represented Countrywide Financial Corporation in nationwide class-action litigation concerning more than $300 billion of mortgage-backed securities. He defended a hedge fund portfolio manager in connection with an alleged $275 million insider trading scheme. He represented a private equity fund in connection with an alleged accounting fraud arising from the $550 million sale of a specialty pharmaceutical distributor, the board and certain officers of Lyondell-Basell in the wake of its $21 billion bankruptcy, and CreXus Investment Corporation in a landmark decision in the Maryland courts over “insider”-driven, go-private REIT transactions.  He also served as general outside litigation counsel to a healthcare private equity fund, where he acted as lead counsel in a post-closing dispute that ended in a three-week, 21-witness arbitration and a complete victory for his client—including a multi-million-dollar award of legal and expert witness fees.

John received his JD from New York University School of Law and his BA in English literature and philosophy from the University of Virginia. He lives in northern Westchester with his daughter, his girlfriend, her son, and a varied assortment of dogs.