William H. Grae joined Harwood Lloyd LLP in 2024 as Counsel with potential responsibility for litigation and trial work in New York and New Jersey. He received his B.A. in Anthropology Crom Cornell in 1991 and a J.D. from Pace Law School in 1994, graduating from both school with academic honors. He has more than thirty (30) years of experience as a creative and innovative litigator, trial attorney, and appellate advocate, whose work in the area of personal-injury defense with a particular emphasis on NY Labor Law/construction accidents, tractor trailer/common carrier claims, general-liability hospitality industry and Dram Shop claims, product liability claims, and litigation of related coverage disputes in NY and NJ. He has both prosecuted and defended professional liability claims involving the medical, dental, podiatric, veterinary, and engineering fields.
With respect to construction-related litigation in NY, Grae has particular experience providing risk-management, emergency site-response coordination, and cost-effective legal counsel to defend large-loss claims asserted against construction project participants including owners, general contractors, and construction managers, along with litigation of related coverage disputes. In addition to the specialty, Grae has also extensive litigation and trial experience involving general-liability claims, catastrophic motor carrier and aviation events, mass torts (pharmaceutical, motor-vehicle product liability, lead, and asbestos exposure) in New York and New Jersey State and federal courts. Grae has served as local trial counsel for multiple nationwide defense programs and has experience trying cases before juries throughout the City and State of New York and several NJ counties as well as federal court.
Outside the field of personal-injury, Grae also has substantial experience representing clients including financial services providers, real-estate developers, and other business entities confronted by commercial, regulatory claims, and employment-discrimination claims. This includes TILA and CFPB compliance work and defense of consumer credit, NY and NJ Consumer Fraud, usury and related liability claims in NY, NJ and federal courts. In NY, he has also assisted property developers and owners negotiate and litigation issues related to large-scale commercial development projects, land use, and access agreements. Grae has also represented clients and helped resolve based on alleged architectural barriers claims under ADA, wage-and-hour claims under FLSA and related NY State and City/local law, and employment-discrimination claims based on federal, NY, and local law.
Grae’s appellate experience includes multiple appearances before each department of the New York State Appellate Division, the New York State Court of Appeals, the NJ Appellate Division, and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. His active practice involving alternate dispute resolution not involves frequent mediations and arbitrations. Grae has also served as a volunteer arbitrator in the City of New York Small Claims Court (Kings and Bronx Counties).
Grae’s prior pro bono work includes representing the survivors of the Golden Venture disaster and Haitian civil war in US Asylum proceedings as well as serving as a (volunteer) Special Assistant District Attorney with the Appeals Bureau of the Office of the Kings County District Attorney (Brooklyn, NY). In 2004, he was certified as a NJ Animal Cruelty Investigation and later was commissioned as a Human Enforcement Officer (volunteer) with the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Animal Cruelty Task Force/Bergen County Chapter of the NJ SPCA (Law Enforcement Division), volunteer work he continued from 2005 to 2010.
Grae has lectured on construction-accident liability arising under New York’s Labor Law, medical malpractice risk management, and other litigation-related subjects.
