Leslie E. Fourton graduated with honors from Columbia University in New York City with a B.A. in Humanities. He then went on to earn a Juris Doctorate and Master Studies of Environmental Law and Public Policy degree(s) (MELP) at the Vermont Law School, in South Royalton, Vermont. He is a member of the State Bar of New York, District of Columbia, United States District Court, Southern and Eastern Districts of the State of New York, United States District Court in the District of Columbia, United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and Supreme Court of the United States. He also belongs to the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, the New York State Trial Lawyers Association, the New York County Bar, the New York State and the American Bar Associations.
Mr. Fourton is an accomplished litigator who has worked at major international law firms, and is focusing on Business, Bankruptcy, Employment, Intellectual Property, Securities, Family and Matrimonial law. He has counseled onshore and offshore hedge funds, private equity funds, real estate funds, venture capital funds and funds-of-funds on formation, structure, compliance, marketing and reorganizations. In addition, he has worked with unregistered and registered investment advisers of open- and closed-end registered investment companies, managed accounts, and various private funds regarding formation, taxation, registration, advertising, broker-dealer distribution, AIMR-PPS/GIPS Standards and SEC/SRO/CFTC compliance.
As a litigator from 2000 to 2010, Mr. Fourton has represented both corporate and non-corporate clients in appellate, commercial, and regulatory matters involving federal and state constitutional questions, complex commercial and procedural issues, antitrust, securities, and bankruptcy-related disputes, contract, and products claims, and employment related matters in state and federal courts. Mr. Fourton has represented clients before the New York State Supreme Court, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York, U. S. District Court, Southern and Eastern Districts of the State of New York, U. S. District Court in the District of Columbia, and U. S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. He has also provided General Counsel services to Mr. Gary Null and Gary Null & Associates, Inc., focusing on Commercial, Defamation, Product Liability (e.g. manufacturing defects regarding dietary supplements), and many other civil matters. Mr. Fourton is an attorney who has worked as a consultant with Pomerantz, Haudek, Grossman & Gross LLP focusing on Securities Litigation, Securities Fraud, Options Backdating and Class Action matters. Prior to Pomerantz, Mr. Fourton worked as a consultant with Patton Boggs LLC in New York City focusing on product liability, mass tort and environmental impact litigation regarding the In Re World Trade Center Disaster litigation. His prior legal experience includes legal consulting at the pharmaceutical company Pfizer Inc. and practicing law at such prestigious law firms as Clifford Chance, Patterson Belknap and the financial firm J.P. Morgan Asset Management. At J.P. Morgan, Mr. Fourton worked within Financial Compliance, Project Finance, and Securities Litigation. In addition, he has worked at the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the United States Department of Justice in Civil Litigation in the Environmental Enforcement Section. Furthermore, he has litigated such matters as Federal Bankruptcy, Capital Murder, Immigration and Narcotic cases, and he has appeared on television with criminal defense attorneys Alan Dershowitz of the Harvard Law School and Ira London in order to debate the O.J. Simpson case, thereof.
Mr. Fourton also has significant accomplishments in Financial Market Analysis. He is a Chartered Market Technician (CMT), member of the Chartered Market Technician Association, and the American Association of Professional Technical Analysts, and he is a Commodities Trading Advisor (CTA). In addition, he is a member of the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the New York Board of Trade and of the COMEX, a division of the (CME) Chicago Mercantile Exchange where he is a broker/trader/hedger/strategist. Currently, one of the market trading strategies he is recommending is to purchase the April 2011 Put Options on SPX Futures as he believes they will skyrocket in value if the S&P 500 trends lower than 1270 , thereof. He is currently enrolled in the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Institute Program and a member of the New York Society of Security Analysts. He has studied Technical Analysis with Michael S. Jenkins, Alan Shaw, Joe Dinapoli, Mike Quanbeck, Tom Joseph, Steven Poser and Connie Brown, where he learned to analyze financial markets both technically and fundamentally utilizing Elliott Wave, Fibonacci, and W. D. Gann market analysis, which prepared him to analyze the Bond, Equity, Commodity and Currency markets regarding where a given market has been historically, where it is going in terms of both price and when it will arrive there in terms of time.
In addition, to being an accomplished litigator Mr. Fourton is also a professional musician. Specifically, Mr. Fourton is a multi-instrumentalist, composer and music director who plays drumset, percussion, and piano. Here, Mr. Fourton has has been a member of several world class bands and ensembles, and has spent a significant amount of his career backing famous musicians as a sideman as well as a session player in recording studios. He has performed internationally with Lionel Hampton and his Orchestra, organist “Wild” Bill Davis, Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Symphony Orchestra for Channel Thirteen; in addition, with composer Aaron Copeland, pianists Michel Camilo, Albert Daily, Roland Hanna, Steve Kuhn, Marty Napoleon, Derrick Smith, and Richard Tee formerly of the Paul Simon and Eric Clapton bands. In addition, he has also performed with the Stan Getz Quartet, Esther Phillips Blues Band, and with guitarists Luther Allison, Eric Clapton, Cornell Dupree, Eric Gale, John Scofield and Mike Stern. Mr. Fourton has also performed on Broadway within the Broadway production of Bob Fosse’s Dancin’ with dancers/choreographers Ann Reinking, Gwen Verdon, Hinton Battle and Bob Fosse. Further, he has also performed on the NBC Television Network productions of Tonight and Today shows and on countless professional jingle and recording sessions in New York City. Mr. Fourton has also studied musically with Steve Jordan, Tony Williams, Elvin Jones, Joe Morello, Sonny Igoe, Daniel Ricigliano, David Friedman, Freddie Waits, Joe LaBarbara, Terry Silverlight and Alexander Lepak at the Hartt School of Music.
