Michael J. Boni
Partner
Michael J. Boni has practiced complex commercial litigation for 30 years. In 2007, he founded Boni & Zack after working at two leading plaintiffs’ class action firms. He specializes in antitrust, copyright, consumer, shareholder and class action litigation. Mr. Boni has been involved in all aspects of class action and other complex litigation, including trial work, evidentiary hearings, appellate advocacy, oral argument on motions concerning final and preliminary settlement approval, summary judgment, class certification, discovery and other motions, expert and merits discovery, and settlement negotiations. Mr. Boni’s antitrust practice has focused on industries including roofing, residential doors, drywall and other building products, Lasik technology, natural gas, pharmaceuticals and banking. His consumer class action practice includes cases against defendants such as IBM, Apple, Yahoo, Toshiba, Verizon and Philips Electronics. He has also handled numerous securities class actions and shareholder derivative suits.
Mr. Boni has considerable experience litigating in other areas of complex litigation as well. In 1991, Mr. Boni represented a class of workers at the Budd Company, alleging that the employer violated its pension plan obligations under ERISA. In 1995, he was co-lead counsel in a class action against the manufacturer of a dangerous hair naturalizer, which advertised the product as chemical-free and harmless. Users of the product, however, experienced loss of hair and burnt scalps. In its opinion granting final settlement approval, the court stated that “the work of [lead counsel] and the manner in which they conducted themselves exhibited the very highest level of professionalism and competence in our legal system.” In re Rio Hair Naturalizer Products Liability Litigation, 1996 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 20440, *57 (E.D. Mich. December 20, 1996).
In 1999, Mr. Boni was retained by the Authors Guild, the nation’s leading authors’ rights trade organization, to represent a class of freelance authors in a copyright infringement action against electronic databases. That case was the first of many in which Mr. Boni was involved and which advanced the state of copyright and book publishing law in the digital age. In 2000, Mr. Boni was interviewed by Lawcast to discuss the freelance authors case. In 2001, he was the subject of a Law.com and an IP Worldwide article on his work in the area of copyright law in the digital age. Mr. Boni was also the subject of the cover story in the Fall 2010 issue of the Penn Law Journal, entitled, “The New Digital Divide."
Mr. Boni also handles cases on behalf of victims of child sexual abuse. He has represented a dozen victims of Jerry Sandusky, a young man who as an altar boy was sexually abused by two priests and a teacher in the Philadelphia Archdiocese, and a victim of abuse by a Boy Scouts of America troop leader.
Mr. Boni was retained by Clinton County and the City of Lock Haven, PA to bring a lawsuit against the manufacturers and distributors of opioids, and has been involved in the coordinated opioid litigation in Pennsylvania.
Mr. Boni has been awarded a rating of AV® PreeminentTM by Martindale-Hubbell®, and has been named by his peers as a Pennsylvania “Super Lawyer” every year from 2005 to the present.
Mr. Boni sits on the Eastern Pennsylvania Board of the Jewish National Fund, and has served for many years on the Board’s Executive Committee. He served as Chair of the JNF EPA Board from 2013-2015. He has also sat on the Philadelphia Regional Board of the Anti-Defamation League, and served as Chair of that Board from 2005-2007. Mr. Boni also served for many years on the Leadership Council of Philadelphia Community Legal Services, and in 2010 he was honored with CLS’s Equal Justice Award.