Anthony W. Cummings is a Partner in the Litigation Practice Group at Certilman Balin Adler & Hyman, LLP. He has extensive litigation experience, which he cultivated as a solo practitioner for nine years and as an associate at another Long Island law firm for five years. In addition, Mr. Cummings offers his clients a unique perspective from his experience in business and as a professor.
While in his own practice, Mr. Cummings performed the day-to-day duties of general counsel for entrepreneurs and closely-held concerns. He managed the start-up and other critical transactions for clients including asset sales and purchases as well as lending and investment matters. He has successfully prosecuted and defended business claims including breach of fiduciary duty, fraud and misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of franchise, exclusive distributorship, shareholder and stock purchase agreements, corporate dissolution, insurance coverage, shareholder derivative, trademark infringement, landlord-tenant, product and premise liability matters.
As a businessman, Mr. Cummings has served as Vice President of Hales & Company in Manhattan, where he prepared memorandum for insurance related mergers and acquisitions including agencies and brokerages and also performed financial analysis for merger and acquisition and capital raising transactions. Prior to that position, he was Assistant Vice President of First Union Securities in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he promoted and delivered Capital Markets products and service to insurance industry clients, performed financial analysis of life/health, property/casualty and title insurance companies, as well as complex transactions. In addition, he managed analysts and coordinated the activities of internal and external deal team members including bank group members in syndicated loan facilities and workouts.
Mr. Cummings has taught law, business and forensic examination. He was an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Forensic Examination at Touro College School of Health Sciences. He has also taught as an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Law at Hofstra University Zarb School of Business, as an Adjunct Instructor of Business at Wake Technical Community College, and as an Adjunct Instructor of Law at Suffolk Community College.
Mr. Cummings earned his Bachelor of Science in Applied Economics from Hofstra University, his Juris Doctor from the Hofstra University School of Law and his Master of Business Administration from the University of North Carolina, Kenan-Flagler Business School.
During his academic years, Mr. Cummings was actively involved with campus activities and the recipient of many scholastic and civic honors. As an undergraduate, he participated in the Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps as a Logistics Officer, and he was honored with the Distinguished Military Student Award and the National Defense Preparedness Association Award. At Hofstra University School of Law, where he was awarded the Distinguished Academic Scholarship, he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Hofstra Property Law Journal, as a Legal Research Law Fellow, as Chairperson of the Student Admissions Committee, as President of the Trial Advocacy Club, and was also a winner in the Phi Alpha Delta Writing Competition. While pursuing his M.B.A., Mr. Cummings engaged in more leadership activities including serving as President of the MBA Student Association and Class Representative of the Curriculum Advisory Board. He also participated in the Real Estate Development Project and in the Chesebrough-Ponds Marketing Case Competition.
Currently, Mr. Cummings is a member of the Amistad Long Island Black Bar Association, former Vice President, Programs; he is a member of the Board of Directors of Hope for Youth, Inc., Vice President; a member of the NYS Society of CPA’s, and he is a member of the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School Alumni Council. Mr. Cummings has served as an Associate Editor of the Journal for the Suffolk Academy of Law, as Co-Chair of the Suffolk County Bar Association Appellate Practice Committee, and as an Officer of the Suffolk Academy of Law. In addition, he has achieved the highest professional rating from Martindale Hubbell (AV Preeminent Rated Attorney) and was featured in Long Island Pulse Magazine’s Top 2013 Legal Eagles publication (the Top Rated Attorneys in Nassau and Suffolk Counties). Mr. Cummings has also earned the Martindale Hubbell Client Distinction Award.
Mr. Cummings has been admitted to practice in the U.S. District Court, Eastern and Southern Districts of New York; U.S. Court of Federal Claims; U.S. Tax Court; U.S. Court of Military Appeals; U.S. Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit; U.S. Court of Appeals, 2d Circuit; U.S. Court of Appeals, 11th Circuit; U.S. Supreme Court, the District of Columbia and the states of North Carolina and New York.