Caroline Harris Crowne - Lawyer in Portland, OR

In her thirteen years at Tonkon Torp, Caroline has taken more than two dozen cases to trial or final hearing and has resolved many more through motions and settlement. Ever since her high school years, when she was tapped to teach calculus to her peers, Caroline has excelled at presenting complex concepts in a way that is easy for people to understand. That skill serves her well today in her litigation practice focused on disputes over business transactions and relationships. She is well versed in commercial contracts and accounting concepts, and she develops presentations that engage the judge, jury, or arbitrator, so they can reach the right decision.

Caroline has a special interest in disputes relating to the ownership or sale of closely-held businesses. She has handled cases involving claims by minority owners against majority owners for breaches of fiduciary duty, claims by former owners for compensation due to them, and claims between business partners who became competitors. She also has litigated disputes over stock purchase agreements, with indemnity and purchase price issues, and disputes over contracts for the sale of substantial assets.

Caroline has developed expertise in arbitration and mediation procedure. She trained in mediation while a college student in Houston and then volunteered as a mediator during law school in New York, resolving dozens of cases in civil court, in small claims court, and at a neighborhood mediation center. She authored a student article for the NYU Law Review about alternative dispute resolution in the federal courts, and she has since published articles and given presentations on topics of arbitration procedure under federal and state law.

Experiences outside of Tonkon Torp gave Caroline an early foundation in practice in both federal and state courts. Following graduation, she clerked for the Honorable Charles S. Haight in the Southern District of New York. After several years as a litigation associate at Tonkon Torp, she served for a month as a special prosecutor in the Multnomah County District Attorney's office, where she handled a heavy misdemeanor trial calendar