Clifford Chance trial attorney Christopher Morvillo made his first LinkedIn post in June to celebrate the acquittal of his client Mike Lynch after a 12-year legal battle.
“I am so glad to be home,” Morvillo wrote, concluding, “And they all lived happily ever after…”
That was one of his last posts before a holiday celebrating the overwhelming courtroom triumph turned to tragedy. In the early hours of Monday, the Lynch family’s luxury yacht Bayesian sank in heavy weather off Sicily. The bodies of Lynch, Morvillo and his wife Neda were among those recovered from the wreck of the Bayesian, authorities confirmed Thursday.
Morvillo, 59, a member of a renowned dynasty of New York trial lawyers, and his colleague Ayla Ronald, also of Clifford Chance and rescued with her partner, were gathered on the yacht to toast Lynch’s acquittal. For Morvillo, the trip was the culmination of more than a decade of work as lead defense counsel in one of Silicon Valley’s biggest fraud cases.
Morvillo’s role in the case began in 2012, when the former CEO of Autonomy was accused of falsely inflating the British software company’s revenues ahead of its $11 billion sale to Hewlett-Packard in 2011. The long legal battle that followed ended with Lynch’s extradition to the United States, where she was placed under house arrest and 24-hour surveillance ahead of the criminal trial.
In a legal podcast released last week, Morvillo said he flew to London to meet Lynch over Thanksgiving weekend in 2012, assuming Lynch would be away for a week, and then “spent a significant portion of the rest of his life commuting between London and New York.”
The case “affected a third of my career,” he told For the defense Podcast. “It’s been a constant presence in my life for the past 12 years.”
Steptoe’s lead attorney Reid Weingarten, who worked with Morvillo for years as part of the entrepreneur’s legal team, told the Financial Times on Tuesday that he was “devastated and shocked” by the tragedy. He described Morvillo as a “wonderful lawyer” who had been “over the moon” before the trip.
“When I was asked to represent Mike Lynch, Clifford Chance was representing (Lynch) in England and I had to decide whether to use Clifford Chance on the American side for the criminal investigation,” he added. “I sat down with Chris and immediately fell in love. The rest is history.”
“Chris was like my brother, he was a wonderful lawyer, and ‘wonderful lawyer’ was the least interesting thing about him,” added Weingarten, who credited him with the smooth transatlantic cooperation in the case. “I am stunned and devastated. How can you interpret this, is there a cruel God out there?” On Thursday, he added that Morvillo was “almost a Renaissance man – a great writer, artist, citizen, sports fanatic, family man and so much more.”
Morvillo gained his first experience as a federal prosecutor, working on cases related to the September 11 attacks and securing the conviction of attorney Lynne Stewart for aiding and abetting terrorism during his time as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 1999 to 2005.
He joined Clifford Chance after leaving the New York law firm where he worked with his father, white collar criminal lawyer Robert Morvillo. Morvillo is known for defending Manhattan clients including Martha Stewart in her insider trading trial and Hank Greenberg, the former AIG chief.
Chris and his brothers Greg, Scott and Robert worked together at Morvillo, Abramowitz, Grand, Iason, Anello & Bohrer until his death. Weingarten said the brothers were a “New York Italian family and so much fun to be around.”
In addition to his work on the Lynch trial, Morvillo has earned recognition in recent years for his landmark defense of British businessman Lawrence Hoskins, securing his acquittal on U.S. bribery charges after an eight-and-a-half-year case that ended in 2022.
Another Magic Circle lawyer who worked with Morvillo said, “Not only was he brilliant at what he did – as evidenced not only by Autonomy but also by the Hoskins case – but he was also the friendliest and most cooperative colleague and partner you could imagine.”
“He was funny too. Everyone who worked with him and for him, we all loved him.”
The families of Chris and Neda Morvillo said Thursday: “We are deeply saddened by the deaths of Chris and Neda and our shared condolences go out to all the families also affected by this senseless tragedy.”
On Tuesday, Clifford Chance expressed his “deep sadness over this tragic incident,” adding: “Our highest priority is to support (Morvillo’s) family as well as our colleague Ayla Ronald, who fortunately survived the incident along with her partner.”
Ronald, who grew up in New Zealand, was part of the Clifford Chance team that advised Lynch. She was rescued from the Bayesian system along with her partner Matthew Fletcher.
Speaking to the Telegraph newspaper on Monday, her father, Lin Ronald, said his daughter – whose username on social media site X is @aylathesailor – was a keen sailor. “She grew up on a yacht. I was a cruising sailor and she was almost born on a yacht in Cooktown in Australia. We just managed to get her mum to hospital just before she gave birth.”
On Thursday, her X-profile still read: “Sitting, waiting, wishing.”
