A chambers built on candour & the quiet confidence of precedent.
For more than three decades, Kanun has stood beside corporations, boards and private clients — turning complex disputes into measured victories, and ambition into binding agreements.
What began as two advocates in one office is today a chambers of more than forty lawyers.
Kanun was founded on a single conviction: that the finest legal advice is delivered early, plainly and without drama. That conviction has not wavered in the thirty-seven years since.
The chambers opened its first door in a single borrowed office on Court Square in 1988, with two advocates, a shared desk and a ledger that fitted in a briefcase. The founding partner, A. Behzad Kamrani, had a simple thesis — that commercial clients were being over-served by complexity and under-served by clarity. He resolved to build a practice that told its clients the truth, early and often.
Three decades on, that thesis has carried the firm through five practice groups, eighteen jurisdictions and more than four thousand eight hundred matters. The office is larger, the ledger is digital, and the briefcase has given way to a library — but the method remains unchanged: listen until the problem is understood, then state plainly what the law permits, what it costs, and what we would do if it were our own matter.
The client's interest is the north star of every opinion, every pleading and every negotiation we conduct. Everything else is procedure.
Milestones of the chambers
Selected chapters from four decades of practice, marked by the matters we were trusted with and the standards we set.
Founding of the chambers
Two advocates open a practice on Court Square, Manhattan, committed to partner-led representation on every matter without exception.
The first practice groups
The firm formalises its work into two groups — corporate and commercial litigation — and takes its first instructions across state lines.
Expansion into arbitration
Kanun establishes a dedicated dispute resolution group, and its partners begin sitting as counsel in international arbitrations.
Eighteen jurisdictions
A correspondent network of independent counsel extends the chambers' reach to eighteen jurisdictions worldwide.
Forty lawyers, five groups
The chambers passes forty lawyers across five practice groups, each led by a senior partner accountable for every engagement.
The same standard, kept daily
Every pleading, opinion and agreement is still reviewed by a second partner before it leaves the chambers — as it has been since 1988.
Four principles, kept since 1988
Integrity
Advice is given to serve the client's interest — even when it means advising against a costly course of action.
Rigour
Every pleading, opinion and agreement is reviewed by a second partner before it leaves the chambers.
Discretion
What is entrusted to us stays with us. Our offices, archives and counsel are bound by the same code.
Advocacy
When a matter reaches the courtroom, it is prepared as though the outcome will be examined for decades.
Accreditation that stands to scrutiny
Our members are admitted to the bars that matter for our practice, and the chambers is recognised by the directories that benchmark it.
- Licensed & admitted to the New York State BarSince 1988
- Recognised in commercial litigationChambers & Partners
- Leading firm for dispute resolutionLegal 500
- Ranked senior statesmen of the barBest Lawyers
- ISO 27001 certified information governanceAudited Annually
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