Harter Secrest & Emery LLP, a full-service business law firm with offices throughout New York, is pleased to announce that Craig S. Wittlin and John G. Horn have both been named to The Daily Record’s inaugural “Power 50 in Law” list, and Wittlin was named to the Rochester Business Journal’s inaugural “Power 30 in Law” list.
The Power in Law lists showcase power players in the Western New York legal community who are running law firms or regional offices and others who are in industry leadership positions such as judges, civil legal service leaders, law school deans, bar association directors, and more. The honorees are admired and respected for their business knowledge, leadership, and influence that they provide to their communities.
Wittlin, who joined Harter Secrest & Emery in 1992, was elected managing partner in 2016. As managing partner, he oversees the operation of Harter Secrest & Emery’s five offices and provides strategic leadership and direction to the firm’s approximately 130 lawyers and a total staff of 250. Wittlin also maintains an active corporate law practice. He advises clients on a wide range of matters including mergers, acquisitions, securities, and capital markets transactions. Over the last decade, Wittlin has led teams on transactions with an aggregate value of more than $10 billion. He also has substantial experience advising executives and board members of Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 companies on matters related to corporate governance, risk assessment, and disclosure obligations under federal securities laws.
Wittlin is the recipient of several awards/recognitions, including for the past four years being the only attorney in Upstate New York to be recognized as an Eminent Practitioner by Chambers USA, earning the recognition in the Mergers & Acquisitions field. Additionally, The Best Lawyers in America® has recognized Wittlin in the fields of Corporate Law and Mergers & Acquisition Law and recognized him as the Rochester area’s “Lawyer of the Year” for Mergers & Acquisition Law for 2016 and for Corporate Law in 2013, among others.
A graduate of Syracuse University and Albany Law School, Wittlin has served in leadership positions with many community organizations, including the Louis S. Wolk Jewish Community Center of Greater Rochester, Town of Inlet Historical Society, Geva Theatre Center, YMCA’s Camp Gorham, and CP Rochester.
Horn, a Litigation partner and partner in charge of the firm’s Buffalo office, has litigated complex business, construction, Native American law, and environmental disputes in state, federal, appellate, and tribal courts, as well as in mediation and arbitration. Horn was the recipient of the 2020 Community Leader Legal Award from the National Federation for Just Communities of Western New York.
He was recognized as the 2020 Buffalo “Lawyer of the Year” in the area of Professional Malpractice Law – Defendants by The Best Lawyers in America© and he has been recognized in Chambers USA for Litigation every year since 2015. Horn has been selected as a fellow of the Litigation Counsel of America-Trial Lawyer Honorary Society and named to the Buffalo Business First Legal Elite list in 2019.
A graduate of Loyola University Chicago School of Law, J.D., Northwestern University, M.A., and University of Rochester, B.A., he is active in several professional and community organizations, including serving as chairman of the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute board of directors, director of the Minority Bar Foundation, a member of the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus board of directors, the chair emeritus of the National Federation for Just Communities of Western New York, and more.