James W. Kraus
JAMES W. KRAUS is a partner with Pietragallo Gordon Alfano Bosick & Raspanti, LLP. He serves as Co-chair of the Financial Services Practice Group. Mr. Kraus concentrates his practice in the areas of commercial and financial services litigation, complex risk management, white collar criminal defense and professional liability litigation.Mr. Kraus previously served as a JAG criminal prosecutor with the U.S. Army’s 4th Infantry Division. He later served as that Unit’s Operational and International Law Officer. After leaving active duty, he continued service in the Army Reserve until 2000, reaching the rank of Major.
He has extensive trial experience in a broad range of substantive legal areas. Over the past five years alone, Mr. Kraus has gone to trial nearly 25 times in a wide variety of complex matters, including professional liability litigation, securities matters, preliminary injunction proceedings and criminal trials in both state and federal court. During this same period of time, Mr. Kraus has handled numerous appeals in both state and federal court, including the United States Supreme Court.
In the past year, Mr. Kraus obtained acquittals in two Federal criminal trials, defense verdicts in two professional liability trials and a reversal of a criminal conviction in the DC Court of Appeals (vacating a ten year prison sentence). Mr. Kraus also teamed with his Partner, Mark Gordon, to reach a successful resolution of a complex commercial arbitration that involved allegations of errors and omissions in the disposition of more than 1,600 workers’ compensation claims. As court-appointed pro bono counsel, Mr. Kraus represented an indigent client in a civil rights jury trial in the U. S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Mr. Kraus is a member of the Defense Research Institute (DRI) where he serves on the Corporate Integrity and White Collar Crime Committee. He is a member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL), the Pennsylvania Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (PACDL) and the American Health Lawyers Association (AHLA). Mr. Kraus also serves on the American Bar Association’s (ABA) Criminal Justice Section, as well as on the Criminal Law Sections for the Pennsylvania and Allegheny County Bar Associations, and is a member of the Civil Litigation and Individual Rights Sections of the District of Columbia Bar Association.
Mr. Kraus is also active in the community. He previously served as an elected city council member for the City of Butler where he was the Director of Public Safety. In 2008, Mr. Kraus was appointed by Governor Edward G. Rendell to serve as Butler’s Emergency Management Coordinator. He also represents the City of Butler on the Butler Area Multi-Municipal Plan Steering Committee and serves as President of the Board of Directors of the Alliance for Non-Profit Resources.
Mr. Kraus received his law degree from the Dickinson School of Law and his B.A. from Washington and Jefferson College.
He is admitted to practice law in Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, Ohio and West Virginia, as well as all of the federal courts in those respective jurisdictions. He is also admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court.