Anti-Terrorism Litigators Are Optimistic About Their Field

Lawyers leaving the federal government have flooded the market with resumes over the past few weeks, causing the supply of those with government expertise to outstrip demand. And with Attorney General Pam Bondi de-emphasizing white-collar enforcement, which will presumably reduce work for firms in this space, federal prosecutors with this background could have especially challenging job searches.

Government lawyers seeking new opportunities would benefit from expanding their horizons beyond Big Law white-collar practice. They should consider litigation boutiques, which are handling some of the most interesting cases in the country. And if they have national-security expertise, they should look into anti-terrorism litigation—a field poised for growth over the next few years.

Next week, Raj Parekh, former Acting US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, will join Sparacino PLLC, a D.C.-based boutique that represents more than 5,000 Americans in civil litigation arising out of terrorist attacks. It’s a natural fit for Parekh, who worked on national-security and terrorism issues in the US Attorney’s Office, the Counterterrorism Section of the Department of Justice, and the Central Intelligence Agency.

Parekh’s docket at the firm will be different from his past work as a prosecutor. Anti-terrorism litigation on the civil side takes the form of lawsuits for money damages brought by victims of terrorism or their survivors, who are represented by firms typically on a contingency-fee basis.

The vast majority of cases are brought under the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act. Passed in 2016, JASTA amended the Anti-Terrorism Act to allow victims of terrorist attacks or their families to sue not just terrorist groups—often impossible to locate, judgment-proof, or both—but anyone who “aids and abets” terrorists.

In passing JASTA, “Congress expressly stated that civil lawsuits brought by terrorism victims serve national security by deterring support of terrorism,” Parekh explained. “I’m very much of the view that we are advancing national security by bringing these cases,” said Joshua Branson, a partner at Kellogg Hansen and prominent anti-terrorism litigator. “Congress made the judgment that there need to be civil remedies against companies that go into conflict zones and pay money to terrorists.”

So even though Parekh will now be pursuing multinational corporations rather than ISIS leaders, he sees what he’ll be doing at Sparacino as a continuation of his work as a prosecutor.

“I’ve spent my prosecutorial career pursuing justice for victims and seeking to hold accountable those who threaten our national security,” he said. “It’s a rare opportunity to be at a law firm pursuing these goals in the private sector.”

Managing partner Ryan Sparacino launched the firm eight years ago this month, after seeing the market opportunity presented by JASTA’s creation of “secondary liability” for terrorism. He believes Parekh is joining at an exciting time for anti-terrorism litigation.

“The pace of ATA litigation is set to dramatically accelerate in the next 12 to 18 months, and 2025 will be our busiest year ever,” Sparacino told me. “We’ll be filing at least half a dozen major new terrorism lawsuits in the next six months.” And a number of these cases will be filed in the Eastern District of Virginia, making Parekh’s expertise as a senior federal prosecutor in that district especially valuable.

What’s driving increased activity in the space? Sparacino cited three developments.

First, there has been a significant amount of terrorist activity in the past few years. Most prominent was Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023—and Sparacino’s firm represents a number of clients affected by what happened on that tragic day.

Second, the US Supreme Court’s decision in Twitter v. Taamneh is making itself felt in the lower courts. Although the defendant social-media companies won that case, defeating claims they aided and abetted ISIS, Sparacino described Twitter as “easily amongst the most Pyrrhic victories any defense bar has ‘won’ in my lifetime: they defeated the case against Twitter, but sacrificed some of their most-cherished arguments.”

Justice Clarence Thomas’ unanimous opinion in Twitter is the court’s most detailed analysis of JASTA to date. As Branson explained to me, “It closes the door on imposing liability on a social-media or communications company simply because the company failed to prevent all terrorists from using its services.” (Both Branson and Sparacino told me they’re fine with this, claiming they don’t bring cases unless there’s evidence suggesting the defendants acted “consciously, voluntarily, and culpably,” to use Justice Thomas’ words.)

But Twitter’s discussion of aiding-and-abetting liability also contains language that rejects two main legal theories of the ATA defense bar, according to Branson. It forecloses what he calls the “receipts” or “dollars to bombs” argument, in which a defendant claims it can’t be held liable unless the plaintiff can show that the specific money the defendant paid to the terrorist group was used to fund the specific terrorist attack at issue.

Per Branson, Twitter also rejects any notion of “specific intent.” It’s now clear, he said, that a defendant can be held liable even if it wasn’t “one in spirit” with the terrorists—that is, even if the defendant didn’t want Americans to die. (ATA defense lawyers disagree with Branson’s interpretation, and these matters are being litigated in district and circuit courts.)

Third, although Sparacino described anti-terrorism work as nonpartisan, supported by Democrats and Republicans alike, he said President Donald Trump’s administration should benefit the field.

“With the Trump administration de-emphasizing traditional corporate, white-collar matters in favor of national security- and border-facing matters, we expect the pace of terrorism-related enforcement matters to surge,” he said.

Sparacino is particularly optimistic about the new administration’s hard-line approach to Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism: “There’s no question about it. The Trump administration is taking the threat of Iran-backed terrorism more seriously than the Biden administration.”

Sparacino pointed out how the Trump administration has already thrown its weight behind private litigants who are pursuing claims against Iran. In a Feb. 4 executive order, Trump directed the attorney general to “pursue all available legal steps to identify Iranian governmental assets in the United States and overseas, and help American victims of terrorism, including Gold Star Families, collect on Federal judgments against Iran.”

Sparacino’s firm represents more than 1,000 Gold Star families—those who lost an immediate family member as the result of active-duty military service. Since the 9/11 attacks, most US victims of terrorism have been members of the military serving in conflict zones, where they are subject to attacks from groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, ISIS, and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

“We feel we have the best clients in the world,” Sparacino told me. “Our clients are heroes. And our cases are often the last chance for them to hold people accountable for what happened to them or their loved ones.”

“I love my corporate clients, but there’s something different about representing soldiers and Gold Star families,” Branson said. “They have all sacrificed immensely for our country, and very few have gotten what they are due. So it’s very humbling to work on these cases and to try and do the best that we can for them.”

David Lat, a lawyer turned writer, publishes Original Jurisdiction. He founded Above the Law and Underneath Their Robes, and is author of the novel “Supreme Ambitions.”

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