Bio

Michael Collyard is highly skilled in all aspects of litigation. He has successfully first chaired jury and bench trials, argued numerous dispositive motions, and taken and defended hundreds of depositions. As one example, after Mr. Collyard defended his client in a federal jury trial on a complex fraud claim, the judge’s court reporter told his trial team that Mr. Collyard’s opening statement and examinations were some of the best she had seen in more than 20 years of handling trials in federal court. Mr. Collyard has been lead counsel on multi-billion dollar and high profile cases on both sides of the “v.” Most recently, Mr. Collyard served as lead trial counsel for Douglas A. Kelley in Kelley v. BMO Harris Bank, N.A., in which he secured a $563 million jury verdict – the largest jury verdict in Minnesota history. The case arose out of one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in U.S. history involving former Wayzata fraudster Tom Petters. Petters was convicted and sentenced to 50 years in prison for fraud using accounts held at M&I Bank, which was acquired in 2011 by BMO Harris Bank. The jury found that BMO aided and abetted breaches of fiduciary duty by Petters and his cohorts in using an M&I checking account to launder nearly $74 billion in Ponzi scheme proceeds between 2002 and 2008. The jury awarded $484 million in compensatory damages and $80 million in punitive damages. The trustee also plans to pursue prejudgment interest, which would bring the bank’s total liability to nearly $1 billion. Earlier Mr. Collyard won an evidentiary hearing in the case where the judge found, based on Mr. Collyard’s cross examination of BMO’s witnesses, that BMO engaged in willful discovery abuses. The order granting the adverse inference at trial, the order denying summary judgment, and BMO’s interlocutory appeal can be viewed here. Mr. Collyard is co-lead counsel representing the Receiver for the Receivership Estate of Education Corporation of America in a case against former officers and directors for alleged breaches of fiduciary duties that resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. The Court in that case recently denied the Defendants’ motion to dismiss. The Court’s Order can be found here. Mr. Collyard is also co-lead counsel representing the bankruptcy trustee for ITT Educational Services in a case against its former CEO for alleged breaches of fiduciary duties which caused ITT to incur hundreds of millions of dollars in closed school loan discharges. Mr. Collyard served as lead counsel for U.S. Bank in a multi-billion dollar case brought by the People of the State of California for alleged unfair competition related to foreclosed properties. The case settled on the eve of a several-month trial, after Mr. Collyard sued a dozen of the largest banks who serviced the properties at issue. The plaintiff in that case sought billions of dollars in alleged fines and a permanent injunction that would change the way trustees and servicers do business together. The case settled after the plaintiff agreed to drop its request for an injunction and agreed that U.S. Bank as trustee should pay $0. (In a previous case against another major financial institution, the plaintiff was able to secure an injunction against that institution.) Mr. Collyard also served as lead counsel for U.S. Bank as a securitization trustee in a mortgage backed securities case against UBS. That case was being handled by Quinn Emanuel and Mr. Collyard was brought in to first chair a $2 billion dollar evidentiary hearing in New York federal court where Mr. Collyard’s client was accused of intentionally destroying critical evidence. The judge found that Mr. Collyard proved U.S. Bank acted in good faith and denied UBS’s request for terminating sanctions in its entirety. Mr. Collyard’s client subsequently received nearly a billion dollars in a settlement on behalf of the trusts at issue. Mr. Collyard also served as lead counsel for U.S. Bank in a financial litigation case in the Eastern District of Virginia. That case settled on the eve of trial in U.S. Bank’s favor for the same seven-figure number Mr. Collyard was going to request from the jury. Mr. Collyard is also lead counsel on behalf of a securitization trustee in several financial litigation matters involving damages in the billions of dollars.