Nicholas M. O’Donnell is a litigation partner at Wuersch & Gering LLP in New York. He is an experienced trial lawyer and Supreme Court advocate with more than two decades of experience representing corporations, financial institutions, cultural organizations, and high-net-worth individuals in complex commercial, art law, employment, zoning and land use, intellectual property, defamation, and cross-border disputes. He is also one of the leading art lawyers in the United States, in which he advises museums, galleries, businesses, dealers, auction houses, and collectors.
O’Donnell publishes frequently and lectures regularly. His book A Tragic Fate—Law and Ethics in the Battle Over Nazi-Looted Art (2017) is widely considered the definitive work on the subject, and his recent law review article “Refuge in Exile—The Peculiar Category of Fluchtgut and Art Transferred by Victims in Flight from Nazi Persecution,” KAN. J.L. & PUB. POL’Y., Vol.XXXIII:3(2024) is the first English language article and the first consideration of any kind in over a decade of art sold in non-occupied Europe during WWII.
Prior to joining the firm, O’Donnell was a partner at Sullivan & Worcester LLP. He is a graduate of Boston College Law School and Williams College.
In the fall semester he will teach Art Law.
