By Casey Sullivan
NEW YORK, Jan 30 (Reuters) - Reed Brodsky, the former
prosecutor who led the insider trading prosecution of former
Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta, is leaving the Manhattan
U.S. Attorney's office to join law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher
as a partner in New York, according to two sources with direct
knowledge of the move.
Brodsky, who is expected to specialize in white collar
defense and general litigation at the Los Angeles law firm, also
helped convict the hedge fund titan Raj Rajaratnam on insider
trading charges in 2011.
It was unclear when Brodsky will join the firm, but Gibson
Dunn is expected to announce the move on Thursday, one source
said. A spokeswoman for the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's office
declined comment on Wednesday.
Brodsky joins a growing list of government lawyers who have
left public service for private practice. In January last year,
Jonathan Streeter, the former deputy chief of the criminal
division at the U.S. Attorney's office and prosecutor who tried
Rajaratnam with Brodsky, left to join the Dechert law firm. Two
months later, Andrew Michaelson, a prosecutor who also tried
Rajaratnam with Brodsky, left the Securities and Exchange
Commission to join Boies Schiller & Flexner.
Streeter, who has a white collar and securities litigation
practice at Dechert in New York and remains close friends with
Brodsky, said that Brodsky earned himself the nickname on the
Rajaratnam prosecution team as "The Bulldog" because of his
tenacity.
"He was the kind of guy who would bite on to something and
wouldn't let go," Streeter said. "He's relentless."
Streeter gave Brodsky credit for a key moment in the 2011
Rajaratnam trial when Brodsky revealed that eight weeks before
the start of the trial the Rajaratnam family invested millions
of dollars in a hedge fund owned by Richard Schutte, a key
witness testifying on Rajaratnam's behalf.
The evidence, which Brodsky revealed through subpoenaed
documents and cross-examination of Schutte, undercut Schutte's
testimony, Streeter said.
Richard Holwell, the presiding judge in the case who is now
retired from the bench and returned to private practice in his
own law firm, told Reuters last year that the evidence "was a
surprising development and Reed did a very good job of pulling
that out."
Ken Doran, the chair of Gibson Dunn, did not respond to a
request for comment on Wednesday. Neither did Randy Mastro or
Mark Kirsch, co-chairs of the firm's litigation department.
Brodsky joins a list of well-known litigators at Gibson Dunn
that include Theodore Olson, the former United States Solicitor
General under President George W. Bush, and Orin Snyder, a trial
lawyer who represented Facebook in the Paul Ceglia case.
Gibson Dunn employs 1,100 lawyers in 17 offices worldwide
and specializes in practices including mergers and acquisitions,
antitrust and intellectual property.
Brodsky is not expected to have an official leadership title
in his new role on the team, according to one source.