Laura Taylor Swain
How Judge Swain rules, drawn from 35 signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
About Judge Swain
Laura Taylor Swain is a judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Appointed by President William J. Clinton, Judge Swain received a commission on July 11, 2000.
Judge Swain's practices and standing orders
Rules for cases before Judge Swain, as published on the court's website (checked October 8, 2026). Judges revise these often, so confirm the current version on the court's site before you file.
- General Rules for Trial Counsel ↗
- Individual Practices ↗
- Instructions to Counsel Concerning Jury Selection ↗
Key rules
Filing
Email chambers a courtesy copy of every letter, motion, pleading, and other filing.
“f. Courtesy Copies Required. A courtesy copy of all letters, motions, pleadings, and other filings must be promptly emailed to Chambers at [email protected]. The courtesy copy of any submission”
Motions
Non-discovery civil motions do not require a pre-motion conference.
“a. Pre-motion conferences in civil matters. For discovery motions, follow Local Civil Rule 37.2. For motions other than discovery motions, pre-motion conferences are not required. Compliance with the certification requirement of subdivision b. below is, however, required for all civil case motions, whether discovery-related or not.”
Motions
Before any civil motion or discovery conference request, the parties must try to resolve the dispute informally through letters and a conversation.
“(1) In civil matters, prior to making a motion of any type, and prior to requesting a conference on any discovery issues, the parties must use their best efforts to resolve informally the matters in controversy. Such efforts must include, but need not be limited to, an exchange of letters outlining their respective legal and factual positions on the matters and at least one telephonic or in-person discussion of the matters.”
Standing orders for every case in this court
Orders the court applies to all of its cases, whichever judge has them, as published on the court's website (checked October 8, 2026).
- Amended Standing Order on Highly Sensitive Documents ↗
- Second Amended Standing Order on Civil Case Opening ↗
- Amended Standing Order on Miscellaneous Civil Case Opening ↗
- Standing Order on Applications to File a Civil Case Under Seal ↗
- Standing Order on Emergency Relief and Section 2255 Filing Procedures ↗
- Notice on Immigration Custody Habeas Petitions and Emergency Relief ↗
How Judge Swain decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
In Sheldon Abend Revocable Trust v. Spielberg, Judge Swain applied the 'more discerning' ordinary-observer test to filter unprotectible elements, found no substantial similarity in protectible expression, and granted partial summary judgment on the copyright claims.
“where [courts] compare products that contain both protectible and unprotectible elements, [their] inspection must be 'more discerning'; [courts] must attempt to extract the unprotectible elements from our consideration and ask whether the protectible elements, standing alone, are substantially similar.”
In In re Focus Media Holding Ltd. Litigation, Judge Swain dismissed the securities complaint in full under the applicable pleading standards and denied further leave to amend as futile.
“Defendants’ motion to dismiss the Complaint is granted in its entirety and Plaintiffs request for leave further to amend the Complaint is denied as futile.”
In the reviewed Qatar Airways screening order, she treated a state-owned airline as covered by the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act and required pleaded domestic commercial activity before applying that exception.
“The commercial activity exception to FSIA therefore does not apply.”
In Cheswick v. Mitra-9 Brands, she found that specific allegations about kratom content, product formulation, user reports, and the seller’s access to studies plausibly supported knowledge of addiction risk at the pleading stage.
“Taken together, these allegations plausibly give rise to an inference that Defendant knew its Products were addictive as formulated.”
In Richmond Global Compass Fund Management v. Novartis, she let an unfair competition claim proceed alongside a federal trade secret claim because the pleaded confidential information might remain actionable under state law even if it ultimately failed to qualify as a trade secret.
“Even if the information is not a trade secret, Plaintiffs’ unfair competition claim may remain viable.”
Procedural preferences
In Basinski v. City of New York, Judge Swain referred general pretrial matters to Magistrate Judge Debra C. Freeman.
“ORDER OF REFERENCE TO A MAGISTRATE JUDGE ... Referred to Magistrate Judge Debra C. Freeman. (Signed by Judge Laura Taylor Swain on 4/8/2015)”
In Basinski v. City of New York, Judge Swain approved a requested extension of the summary judgment briefing schedule.
“ORDER granting 31 Letter Motion for Extension of Time to File. The proposed scheduled is approved. ... SO ORDERED. (Signed by Judge Laura Taylor Swain on 9/11/2015)”
In Molchatsky v. United States, Judge Swain granted the government's Rule 12(b)(1) motion because the FTCA discretionary-function exception deprived the court of subject matter jurisdiction.
“Defendant’s motion to dismiss Plaintiffs’ Complaint pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) for lack of subject matter jurisdiction ... is granted.”
In the reviewed late appeal-extension request, she applied the jurisdictional Rule 4(a)(5) deadline and separately examined whether the facts alleged could reopen the time to appeal under Rule 4(a)(6).
“The motion is therefore untimely, and the Court cannot, under Rule 4(a)(5)(A), extend the time to appeal.”
Cautions
In Plew v. Limited Brands, Inc., she denied both patent invalidity and noninfringement summary judgment motions because conflicting expert evidence left material factual disputes about the prior art and structural equivalence.
“Courts should approach motions for summary judgment for patent invalidity and infringement with great care because of the numerous fact issues involved.”
In Vandelay Industries TM LLC v. Bitwise Hold 10 Private Index Fund, Judge Swain dismissed an amended complaint because its allegations did not establish personal jurisdiction over the defendants.
“Plaintiffs have failed to plead facts from which a reasonable factfinder could conclude that the Court can properly exercise personal jurisdiction over Defendants.”
In Rodriguez v. 605 West 42nd Owner, she dismissed two housing discrimination motions and allowed the plaintiff to seek amendment on some claims within thirty days, but refused amendment of the Administrative Code claims because the plaintiff lacked standing under that provision.
“The Court denies leave to amend as to the Administrative Code claims because Plaintiff lacks standing to sue under that statute and amendment would therefore be futile.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“Defendants' motion is granted in part and denied in part.”
“Two summary judgment motions by Defendants are now before the Court ... both of Defendants' motions are denied.”
“both of Defendants' motions are denied.”
“Defendants' motion for partial summary judgment is granted.”
“Defendant's motion for summary judgment will be granted in its entirety and Plaintiffs' complaint will be dismissed.”
“The Court will not address Plaintiffs' class certification motion in light of the Court's ruling on Defendant's summary judgment motion.”
“Defendants' motion is granted, and Plaintiff's claims are dismissed in their entirety.”
“for the following reasons, Defendants’ motion is granted, and the September Order is vacated.”
“Defendants’ motion to dismiss is granted in part and denied in part.”
“In light of the resolution of the motion to dismiss, Plaintiffs’ motion to strike is moot.”
“Defendant’s motion is granted in part and denied in part.”
“Plaintiffs’ motion is granted in its entirety”
“Defendants’ motion to dismiss the Complaint is granted in its entirety”
“Plaintiffs request for leave further to amend the Complaint is denied as futile.”
“Defendant’s motion to dismiss Plaintiffs’ Complaint pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) ... For the following reasons, Defendant’s motion is granted.”
“for the following reasons, Defendants’ motion to dismiss is granted.”
“for the following reasons, grants Defendants’ motion to dismiss the Complaint.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Earlier sampled 2026 assignments were largely pending and included civil rights, copyright, contract, immigration habeas, and criminal matters. The later checked late-2025 and older 2023-2024 slices include terminated pro se screening matters as well. The case-duration examples below come from the older terminated slice; her Puerto Rico PROMESA designation is outside these samples.
Pending matters in the official report
Reported by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts under the Civil Justice Reform Act, as of March 31, 2026.
| Motions pending more than six months | 27 |
| Bench trials submitted more than six months | 0 |
| Bankruptcy appeals pending more than six months | 0 |
| Social Security appeals pending more than six months | 0 |
| Civil cases pending more than three years | 39 |
| Report | Motions over six months | Cases over three years |
|---|---|---|
| Mar 2026 | 27 | 39 |
| Sep 2025 | 22 | 29 |
| Mar 2025 | 17 | 20 |
| Sep 2024 | 11 | 21 |
| Mar 2024 | 10 | 19 |
| Sep 2023 | 10 | 16 |
| Mar 2023 | 34 | 16 |
| Sep 2022 | 24 | 17 |
| Mar 2022 | 24 | 15 |
| Sep 2021 | 29 | 14 |
| Mar 2021 | 23 | 19 |
| Sep 2020 | 23 | 22 |
A snapshot on that date: matters listed may since have been decided or reassigned. A motion referred to a magistrate judge is counted for both judges. Motions in multidistrict litigation, section 2255 cases and Social Security appeals are not counted, and a very large three-year count is generally a multidistrict docket. Source: Appendix A of the report (PDF); about the report.
How long civil cases take in this court
For the whole of United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, not for Judge Swain: median time from filing to disposition of the civil cases the court closed in the 12 months ending September 30, 2025, as reported by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.
| Cases | Median time | |
|---|---|---|
| All civil cases closed | 9,565 | 5.6 months |
| Closed with no court action | 1,749 | 3.5 months |
| Closed before pretrial | 6,416 | 5.1 months |
| Closed during or after pretrial | 1,313 | 14.1 months |
| Closed during trial | 87 | 51.7 months |
| 12 months ending | Cases closed | Median time |
|---|---|---|
| Sep 2025 | 9,565 | 5.6 months |
| Sep 2024 | 10,695 | 6.4 months |
| Sep 2023 | 10,316 | 5.6 months |
| Sep 2022 | 11,818 | 6.1 months |
| Sep 2021 | 10,662 | 5.7 months |
| Sep 2020 | 10,118 | 6.6 months |
| Sep 2019 | 11,357 | 6.6 months |
The table leaves out prisoner petitions, land condemnations, deportation reviews, recovery of overpayments and enforcement of judgments, and reports no median for fewer than 10 cases. A district that closed a large multidistrict litigation in the period shows very large counts and long medians for that year. Source: Table C-5, U.S. District Courts (spreadsheet).
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