Nick Werle represents clients in state and federal courts at both the trial and appellate levels and before state attorneys general and federal prosecutors. He regularly represents companies, individuals, and government entities in complex litigation matters involving criminal, trade secret, antitrust, administrative law and deceptive trade practices issues. Mr. Werle has been a member of multiple WilmerHale trial teams, where he has served as an appellate advisor and a principal drafter of proposed jury instructions, pre- and post-trial briefs, and JMOL motions. He has also presented oral argument in state and federal courts. For instance, Mr. Werle recently presented oral argument on a motion to dismiss claims for misappropriation of trade secrets and various business torts, leading the court to rule from the bench and dismiss the case with prejudice.

Mr. Werle also has an active litigation and counseling practice assisting clients navigate the intersections of criminal law and free speech law with emerging technologies, including cryptocurrencies and generative AI.

Mr. Werle has substantial experience litigating election law and voting rights issues. For instance, he has authored briefing in the US Supreme Court on the “independent state legislature” theory. He also successfully represented the Democratic National Committee in defending Pennsylvania’s vote-by-mail and military voting laws at all levels of the state and federal courts and was a core member of the team that litigated the certification of the 2020 presidential election in Pennsylvania. 

He also maintains an active pro bono practice focused on law of democracy, immigration, and criminal justice matters. For instance, he represented the United Farm Workers in a successful challenge to a federal regulation that would have substantially reduced the compensation owed to US farmworkers. As part of that case, he twice presented oral argument on a successful motion to obtain backpay for thousands of migrant farmworkers who were harmed by the government’s failed attempt to depress farm wages nationwide.

Mr. Werle rejoined the firm in 2021 after clerking for the Honorable Jed S. Rakoff of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, who also sat frequently by designation on the US Courts of Appeals for the Second and Ninth Circuits.

Mr. Werle joined the firm in 2017 as a summer associate. Prior to law school, he was a graduate student in London as a UK Marshall Scholar, studying corporate and white collar crime, financial risk management, and antitrust economics. Before graduate school, Mr. Werle worked as an investigative analyst for the Major Economic Crimes Bureau of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, where he helped launch the Office’s Financial Intelligence Unit for analyzing FinCEN filings and performed forensic examination of digital evidence seized in search warrants. He has also interned in the Investor Protection Bureau of the Office of the New York Attorney General and in the Special Victims Bureau of the Queens County District Attorney’s Office.

While attending law school, Mr. Werle co-founded the Law and Political Economy Project, volunteered with the International Refugee Assistance Project and the Asylum Seekers Advocacy Project, and did clinical work with the Appellate Litigation Project. He was also a fellow focused on harm reduction at the Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy and a research associate at the London School of Economics International Drug Policy Unit.