Jonathan N. Halpern
Partner
Lily Yee
212.508.6572
Mr. Halpern comes to the firm after two years as a partner in New York at a major law firm and 15 years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, where he served as chief of its Major Crimes Unit. In that capacity, he supervised 25 prosecutors responsible for investigating and prosecuting large-scale and complex white collar criminal matters, including corporate and accounting crimes; various forms of investment fraud; financial institution, insurance, and bankruptcy fraud; foreign corrupt practices; illegal banking practices; health care fraud; money laundering; tax crimes; environmental crimes; art fraud; and computer and intellectual property crimes. Mr. Halpern also served as the chair of the Southern District of New York Bankruptcy Fraud Task Force.
As an Assistant U.S. Attorney, Mr. Halpern prosecuted a wide variety of federal criminal cases, including corruption, extortion, tax, financial institution, and health care fraud matters. He has handled all phases of grand jury, trial, and appellate work and served as lead prosecutor in several high-profile investigations and prosecutions, including the Marc Rich pardon investigation. Mr. Halpern is the recipient of the Department of Justice Director's Award for Superior Performance.
Mr. Halpern focuses on white-collar criminal defense, corporate internal investigations, trials, appeals, and insurance and other complex litigation. A significant component of his practice consists of the representation of individuals, corporations and other business entities in investigations and prosecutions by the U.S. Department of Justice, various U.S. Attorney's offices, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and other law enforcement and regulatory agencies.
Mr. Halpern has been representing a pro bono client in an appeal before the 7th Circuit, and now in a cert. petition before the Supreme Court, seeking habeas relief from the petitioner's state murder conviction based on a due process violation stemming from judicial bias.
He has been featured as a legal analyst on television news programs in New York and Canada, and his legal commentary has been widely reported in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The San Francisco Chronicle and many other news publications.
Publications and Speeches
Mr. Halpern regularly is called upon to speak about matters involving criminal and civil litigation. Among the presentations he recently delivered are the following:
Moderator, "Government Investigations and Enforcement Actions involving Pharmaceutical Companies," October 2006.
"Money Laundering and Bank Fraud," International Association of Insurance Fraud Agencies, Annual Meeting, May 2005.
"Overcoming the Initial Issues; Conflicts of Interest and Other Critical Considerations," New York, April 2005.
"What to Do When the Government Comes Knocking: Handling Government Investigations," ACI Conference on Strategies for Responding to Insurance Industry Investigations, February 2005.
"Evolving Standards of Financial Services' Criminal Liability," Association of Life Insurance Counsel, Amelia Island, Florida, May 2004.
Education
J.D., Boston University School of Law, 1984
A.B., cum laude, Cornell University, 1980
Bar Admissions
District of Columbia
New York
Court Admissions
U.S. Supreme Court
U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd, 4th and 7th Circuits
U.S. District Court for the Southern, Eastern and Western Districts of New York
Affiliations
American Bar Association
New York State Bar Association
Federal Bar Council
New York City Bar Association
National Council of Defense Lawyers
Noteworthy
Department of Justice Director's Award for Superior Performance