Ian Dumain helps clients navigate consequential decisions.
For more than two decades, he has advised and represented companies, investment funds, nonprofit organizations, entrepreneurs, executives, directors, and individuals facing challenges inside and outside the courtroom. Whether the issue is a high-stakes commercial dispute, a governance crisis, an internal investigation, a business divorce, a defamation claim, or a sensitive appeal, Ian's role is the same: helping clients identify the right course, execute it effectively, and remain focused on their long-term objectives.
As a founding partner of Kohn Dumain LLP, Ian represents organizations and individuals in complex commercial litigation, arbitrations, appeals, investigations, and business disputes throughout the United States. Clients frequently turn to Ian when legal, business, governance, and reputational considerations intersect and no single discipline provides the complete answer. In those situations, legal strategy is only one component of a broader response. Ian works closely with clients to navigate immediate challenges while preserving the relationships, institutions, and credibility that often determine long-term success.
Before co-founding Kohn Dumain, Ian spent much of his career at Boies Schiller Flexner, first as an associate and later as a partner. During those years, Ian developed an approach to advocacy grounded in meticulous preparation, finding clarity in complex factual records, and presenting them through compelling narratives. Early in his career at Boies Schiller, Ian was entrusted with the cross-examination of the individual defendant in a federal jury trial in Nevada. The jury returned a verdict for his client that included what was then the largest reported punitive damages award against an individual defendant in Nevada history. That experience continues to shape his approach to advocacy today.
Long before he entered private practice, Ian's professional outlook was shaped by his work with Professor Barry Scheck and the Innocence Project. While attending the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Ian served as a research assistant to Professor Scheck and worked with the Innocence Project. That experience taught him to challenge assumptions, think ambitiously about what the law could accomplish, and ground every argument in empirical facts and defensible methods. Those lessons remain central to his practice, whether representing a public company in complex commercial litigation or an individual seeking justice.
Ian has maintained an active commitment to public service throughout his career. In 2015, the Innocence Project presented him with its Advocate for Justice Award in recognition of his work on behalf of the wrongfully convicted. In one notable matter, Ian successfully represented a client before the New Hampshire Supreme Court, establishing that the remedial provisions of New Hampshire's post-conviction DNA testing statute apply even when DNA testing was not obtained pursuant to the statute's testing provisions, expanding the statute's protections for wrongfully convicted individuals.
His commitment to serving vulnerable clients extends beyond wrongful-conviction work. As a junior associate, Ian led a pro bono civil action on behalf of two child victims of sexual abuse, securing a $1 million recovery from one of the perpetrators. The proceeds were placed in trusts for the children's health, education, and welfare. More than twenty years later, Ian continues to serve as a trustee of those trusts.
Ian believes that the best legal outcomes are measured not only by victories, but by whether they solve the client's problem. One of his favorite matters involved an arbitration over the proposed removal of a significant work of public art from an airport terminal. Serving as first-chair counsel, Ian delivered the opening statement, after which the parties reached a settlement preserving the sculpture by relocating it to another location within the terminal rather than destroying it. The settlement protected his client's interests while producing a practical solution that neither side had initially envisioned—a reminder that the best advocacy sometimes creates opportunities rather than simply declaring winners and losers.
The judgment Ian brings to his clients' most important decisions has also led others to entrust him with significant leadership responsibilities. He currently serves as President, Trustee, Chair of the Audit Committee, and a member of the Child Safety Committee of Camp Ramah in the Berkshires. He previously served as Secretary, Governance Vice President, Trustee, and Chair of the Audit Committee of The Leffell School, and as Vice President and Trustee of Temple Israel Center of White Plains, where he served as Vice Chair of the committee charged with selecting the congregation's senior rabbi. Across those institutions, Ian has helped guide decisions involving governance, fiduciary responsibility, financial oversight, executive leadership, child safety, and organizational risk. Those experiences have deepened the perspective he brings to clients who themselves are entrusted with leading organizations through consequential moments.
The confidence others have placed in Ian throughout his career reflects qualities that were recognized from the very beginning. Upon graduating from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, he received the Felix Frankfurter Award, presented annually to the graduate who best exemplifies "outstanding academic achievement, maturity, responsibility, diligence, and judgment."
Ian believes that clients hire lawyers for their legal knowledge, but return to lawyers whose judgment they trust. That conviction has guided his career and continues to define his practice today.
Prior Associations
Cyrulnik Fattaruso LLP
Partner
Boies Schiller Flexner LLP
Partner
Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP
Associate
Education
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, J.D., summa cum laude
• Cardozo Law Review, Executive Editor
• Felix Frankfurter Award
• Benjamin N. Cardozo Writing Award
Hamilton College, B.A.
Admissions
New York
U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
