Profile

MM~LAW was founded in 1987 in Chicago, Illinois USA as a law firm specializing in international and US federal taxation, and international commercial and securities laws. Today MM-LAW is dedicated exclusively to representation of victims of international terrorism, genocide, crimes against humanity, torture, human trafficking and slavery. The firm also maintains offices in the Middle East and in East Africa.

In 2001, MM~LAW formed its human rights and counterterrorism research group, a unique research division dedicated to legal and operational research primarily in Arabic and Farsi, but also in English, French, German, Hebrew, Kurdish, Portuguese and Spanish, tracing assets and international money laundering activities and documenting the financing of international terrorism, crimes against humanity, genocide, war crimes, torture, human trafficking and slavery. MM~LAW currently represents over 12,000 victims of such heinous crimes in complex civil suits against international financial and commercial institutions and rogue state sponsors of terrorism who are complicit with, participate in, enable, assist, aid, abet, finance or profit from such crimes.

“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty. ”  John F. Kennedy

Mission

Micro Commitment: Continue to seek just compensation for the victims of terrorism, genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, torture, human trafficking and slavery from the financiers, profiteers and enablers.

Macro Commitment: Raise the price of financing genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, torture, slavery, human trafficking, global jihad and terrorism by holding enablers, profiteers and financiers accountable. Discredit global jihad supporters through a series of victories in courts in democratic countries. Help disrupt the money pipeline that fuels these widespread and systematic crimes.

Litigation Catalyst: Continue and expand our human rights and counterterrorism research task force. Expand the network of co-counsel across civilized countries. Foster creation of private-remedy counterterrorism lawsuits to empower victims and broaden forces able to confront the growing jihadist culture.

Legislative Initiatives: Continue to initiate and lobby for legislation aimed at providing victims of international terrorism and other international crimes with effective access to justice and provide them with the tools to fight for their fundamental rights to life in safety and protected from intimidation, coercion, extortion or threats from terrorists and to hold accountable the financiers, enablers and profiteers of such crimes.

Targets: Develop evidentiary basis to bring law-suits against financiers and financial infrastructure of perpetrators of serious violations of international human rights and international humanitarian law, proliferators of illegal chemical, biological and nuclear weapons as well as the networks of international terrorism, human trafficking and slavery and crimes against humanity including money launderers, financiers and front-companies acting for or with rogue state and non-state actors such as Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, PFLP-GC, Al Qaeda and its affiliates, Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jabhat al-Nusra, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), Hizb-ut-Tahrir, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Boko Haram, Al Shabab, Iran and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Al Quds Force, Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Jaysh al-Mahdi (Mehdi Army), Kat’aib Hezbollah, the Syrian Al Assad regime, and other radical salafi and jihadi networks.

Victims: Develop satellite client-support teams in India, Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan, France, United Kingdom, Italy, Holland, Spain, Somalia and Sudan to support and represent victims.

 

“No man is above the law and no man is below it: nor do we ask any man’s permission when we ask him to obey it.”  Theodore Roosevelt

Attorneys

Gavriel Mairone is the founder of MM~LAW LLC, a law firm dedicated to advancing private human rights law by representation of victims of terrorism, crimes against humanity and genocide in private lawsuits to force accountability upon the financiers and aiders and abettors of the perpetrators of such crimes. Mairone has created a counterterrorism research group to support such litigation that conducts legal operational research on international money laundering and finance of jihadi terrorist organizations in Arabic, Farsi, English, French, German, Kurdish, Spanish, Portuguese and Hebrew. He has over 35 years legal experience specializing in international taxation and business planning and specializing over the last two decades in international human rights and humanitarian law, counterterrorism, transnational and tort law. Mairone volunteers as an ECOSOC delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Council as well as serving on the International Human Rights Committee of the American Bar Association and the Subcommittees on Humanitarian Law and Human Rights and Corporate Responsibility. He is also a member the American Association for Justice, the American Society of International Law and the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists. Mairone also serves as member of the International and Legal Team of the Kurdish Regional Government Group for the Recognition of the Kurdish Genocide in London. Education: LL.M. Taxation, New York University Graduate School of Law; Juris Doctor Summa Cum Laude, Illinois Institute of Technology Chicago Kent College of Law, B.A. Philosophy, Hebrew University and Spertus College of Judaica. Mairone is an expert in international money laundering and terrorist financing and a pioneer in the development of legal remedies available to victims of violations of international human rights law.

Awards and Publications:

Trail Lawyer of the Year – 2016 – by Public Justice
Top 100 Trial Lawyers – The National Trail Lawyers
Universal Jurisdiction in Civil Cases: The Netherlands Joins the United States in Granting Victims a Forum, Justice, No. 51, Fall 2012
A Grotian Moment: Corporations Are Required to Respect Human Rights, Justice, No. 54, Summer 2014

Bena N. Ochs, attorney, specializes in human rights and counterterrorism litigation. Prior to joining MM~LAW Ochs served as an in-house attorney at AIG; Countrywide Insurance and Empire/Allcity Insurance as well practicing litigation at other general liability law firms. Admitted to practice: New Jersey and New York, New York’s Southern and Eastern Districts. Education: J.D. Brooklyn Law School; B.A. Queens College of the City of New York. Languages: English, Hebrew.

Dr. Jason McCue, Special UK Counsel, specializes in human rights, victims’ rights, transitional justice, conflict resolution and litigation. McCue was awarded U.K. Law Society’s Solicitor of the Year Award 2009-2010 for, among other things, his ground-breaking work in civil litigation against terrorist organizations and the successful litigation against leaders of the Real IRA on behalf of victims of the Omagh bombing. Jason also: heads the Libyan United Kingdom Reconciliation Group (supported by HMG Foreign & Commonwealth Office); Ambassador for Femmes Africa Solidarité and founder and Director of the GREAT Foundation (NGO fostering gender equality globally); and chief advisor to Crisis Action (NGO which aims to help avert conflicts, prevent human rights abuses and ensure governments fulfill their obligations to protect civilians). Education: Queen Mary’s College, London University (LL.B.); College of Law, Chancery Lane (LS.F.). Admitted to practice: Solicitor, England and Wales, Northern Ireland and Ireland.

Yekutiel Hadar, Special Counsel, has extensive field experience in counterterrorism and jihadi terrorist organizations. Prior to joining MM~LAW, Hadar served for 26 years with the Israel Security Agency. His experience with the ISA includes Field Operations and Investigations, Manager of Intelligence Operations, Legal Counsel, and Chief Legal Counsel for the Northern District of Israel. Admitted to practice in Israel. Education: B.S.C., Biology Hebrew University of Jerusalem; LL.B. College of Management; M.A., Political Science National Security, Public Administration University of Haifa. Languages: Arabic, English, Hebrew.

Deborah R. Srour, Special Counsel, specializes in representation of major international banks compliance and implementation of fraud/money laundering/terror financing prevention programs. Her areas of expertise include money laundering prevention, terror financing and bank fraud, international commercial agreements, cross-border transactions and commercial law. Srour is a visiting professor at the University of Sao Paulo Law School-International Law Graduate Course in comparative law and litigation in the US. She also teaches courses in Foreign Corrupt Practices Act at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and is a speaker on Corporate and Banking Compliance at the Practicing Law Institute in New York. Srour has written extensively about money laundering, bank fraud, the Patriot Act, and the Sarbanes-Oxely Act. She is a frequent legal commentator on Brazilian, French and Spanish Bloomberg television. Admitted to practice in Brazil, New York. Education: Master’s Degree (lato sensu) from the University of Sao Paulo in International Law and a LL.B from the University of Sao Paulo Law School. Languages: English, French, Hebrew, Portuguese, Spanish.

“As our enemies have found we can reason like men, so now let us show them we can fight like men also.”  Thomas Jefferson

Legal Service

In November 2000, MM~LAW established the first legal counterterrorism defense law practice to assist victims of terrorism. The primary goal is to force the financiers of terrorism to compensate their victims.

Our approach is based upon the following multi-pronged strategy:

1. Legal representation of clients on a strict, contingent success-fee basis without upfront charge to clients;
2. Follow the money trail and map the terrorist organizations;
3. Develop admissible evidence linking the financiers to the terrorists;
4. Enter into strategic partnerships with top-tier litigation law firms in target jurisdictions;
5. Initiate litigation against the terrorist financiers and financial networks.

In order to implement this strategy we created the following team:

1. Terror-finance research task force;
2. Client support team;
3. Legal research and liaison group.

We have expanded our practice to include representation, exclusively on a contingency basis, of victims of genocide, crimes against humanity, torture, human trafficking and slavery and are dedicated to obtaining some measure of individual justice for the victims of heinous crimes. The research task force is dedicated to researching the finance networks enabling and supporting international jihadist terrorist organizations as well as perpetrators, state and non-state actors, of these grave violations of international human rights and international humanitarian law. Our research is conducted primarily in Arabic and Farsi, but also in English, French, German, Hebrew, Kurdish, Portuguese and Spanish. We have built a database of over one half million documents from various sources of information. The research is “operational research” meaning it is supervised by attorneys specifically for the purpose of discovering and developing evidence admissible in courts of law, our “theater of operations,” in order to bring lawsuits against the terrorist financial and support networks.

Our sources of information include:

• Discovery obtained in various lawsuits and judicial proceedings.
• Evidence introduced in criminal and civil terrorism trials in US, Israel, Iraq, Kenya, UK, Spain, Germany, Argentina, France and other countries.
• Newspapers and media reports in Arabic, Farsi and other languages
• Websites sponsored by terrorist organizations
• Documents seized by the US Army in Iraq and Afghanistan.
• Documents seized by the Israel Defense Forces in Palestinian Authority.
• Official publications of US Department of Justice, Defense, State, Congress, CIA.
• Official publications of Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
• Official publication of European and South American governments.
• Documents obtained from Iraqi government.
• Documents obtained from various other governments.
• Documents obtained from UN archives.
• Radical Islamic websites and chat rooms.
• Materials obtained in cooperation with investigative reporters and think tanks.
• Other sources.

MM~LAW currently represents over 12,000 victims from over 26 countries.

The Client Support Team establishes personal contact with each client and coordinates the collection of all relevant documentation to establish the identity of the client, his/her injury/murder, connection of all family relatives to client decedents, pathology reports, medical records, payroll and earnings reports, and relevant person and family records. In short all documentation necessary to submit as evidence in court. The team also maintains regular communication with each client, submitting progress reports as well as maintaining personal communication. The Client Support Team works closely with various NGOs in a number of countries.