Nancy Kestenbaum, a partner in Covington's New York office, is Co-Chair of Covington’s White Collar Defense and Investigations Practice Group. She represents companies, boards of directors and individuals in a variety of white collar criminal, SEC and regulatory enforcement matters and internal investigations. Ms. Kestenbaum has extensive experience representing clients in the financial services, life sciences, energy, defense, consumer products and technology industries.
Ms. Kestenbaum is also widely recognized as a leading expert involving claims of sexual misconduct. For example, she is currently conducting an independent investigation for the Board of Directors of CBS Corporation and represents the United States Olympic Committee; Ms. Kestenbaum previously conducted independent investigations for Choate Rosemary Hall, the Brearley School, and other institutions.
Before joining Covington, Ms. Kestenbaum served for nine years as a federal prosecutor in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, where she investigated and prosecuted numerous cases including securities fraud, tax offenses, bank fraud, money laundering, obstruction of justice, civil rights violations, bribery and perjury, and served as Chief of the General Crimes Unit and Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division, where she supervised and trained dozens of other prosecutors.
Richard J. Morvillo, a partner in Orrick’s New York and Washington, D.C. offices, is a nationally-recognized expert in SEC enforcement and other white collar matters. He was named by Best Lawyers in America as the “2013 Lawyer of the Year - Securities Litigation” and Chambers USA has recognized Rich as “one of the deans of the securities enforcement bar." Over the past 35 years, he has been involved in over 200 SEC investigations, including some of the highest profile cases the SEC has handled. He also has extensive experience in FCPA cases, securities related white-collar criminal matters and private securities litigation. A former branch chief with the Securities and Exchange Commission's Division of Enforcement, Rich represents corporations, corporate executives, brokerage firms, investment advisers, accounting firms, auditors, law firms, hedge funds and individual investors in connection with SEC, PCAOB, NYSE, FINRA, congressional, state attorney general and grand jury investigations; SEC litigation; and complex securities cases
Mark D. Pollack is a partner in the Litigation practice of Paul Hastings and is based in the firm’s Chicago office. He serves as chair of the Chicago office’s Litigation practice. Mr. Pollack concentrates his practice in the areas of white-collar criminal defense, complex commercial litigation, internal corporate investigations and compliance counseling. He has extensive experience in counseling and defending corporations, boards of directors, and executive officers in relation to a broad range of issues, including the defense of grand jury investigations, SEC and other regulatory probes, securities class action defense, and qui tam litigation. He regularly provides strategic advice to general counsels and corporate boards on varied litigation and compliance matters.
Before joining Paul Hastings, Mr. Pollack served for eight years as Arthur Andersen’s general counsel, responsible for managing the firm’s multi-faceted wind-down activities. In that capacity, Mr. Pollack served as the principal counsel and strategic advisor to Andersen’s board and executive management team and actively supervised Andersen’s largest litigation challenges, including the appeal giving rise to the Supreme Court’s reversal of the firm’s 2002 conviction for obstruction of justice as well as the successful resolution of numerous multi-billion dollar securities class action lawsuits and professional liability claims.
Prior to Andersen, Mr. Pollack was co-chair of the white collar practice at Jenner & Block, where he developed extensive expertise representing numerous corporations, directors and officers in defense of government investigations and prosecutions. Mr. Pollack regularly represented corporate boards, special litigation committees and board audit committees in connection with DOJ, SEC and other governmental probes and often led internal investigations for a broad array of corporate clients. Mr. Pollack regularly conducted internal investigations and developed corporate compliance plans, with a particular focus on clients in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries.
Mr. Pollack began his litigation practice as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Chicago, where over seven years he became a supervisor in that office and participated in more than 20 federal jury trials and 50 appeals to the 7th Circuit, including the fraud and corruption prosecution of the former governor of Illinois and a multi-year undercover investigation and prosecution of fraudulent trading practices at Chicago’s futures exchanges. Mr. Pollack received several awards from the Department of Justice in recognition of his superior performance as a federal prosecutor.
Mr. Pollack has written and lectured frequently on matters relating to corporate governance, white-collar criminal defense, and internal corporate investigations.
Mr. Pollack graduated with highest distinction from the University of Michigan in 1981 and obtained his J.D. degree, magna cum laude, from the University of Michigan Law School in 1984. From 1984-85, Mr. Pollack served as law clerk to the Honorable Stephen Reinhardt, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He is a member of the bar of the State of Illinois, of the United States Supreme Court and of several federal district and appellate courts.
Steve Scholes serves as the operations partner for McDermott’s Litigation Practice Group, and is responsible for managing the day-to-day business operations of the group. His trial practice covers all varieties of securities and other complex commercial litigation. Steve has tried civil, criminal and administrative cases in federal and state courts, and he regularly represents clients before the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), state securities regulators and self-regulatory organizations, such as the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board and stock, options and futures exchanges. Steve has substantial experience in securities class and derivative actions, conducting internal investigations in numerous industries. A former attorney in the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, Steve has been appointed by three different federal judges in Chicago to serve as receiver in SEC civil enforcement proceedings.
