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(USGovernment-News.Com, July 15, 2013 ) Farms, Michigan -- In the past most of New York’s top law firms avoided criminal defense work, assignments which were considered déclassé and unprofitable.
As a result, an elite corps of small firms emerged that specialized in defending Wall Street financiers and top executives under government scrutiny. These lawyers enjoyed their work and didn’t mind butting heads with prosecutors.
Charles A. Stillman, one of those lawyers, announced on July 1 that his firm, Stillman & Friedman, has combined with Ballard Spahr, which is a firm out of Philadelphia looking to expand its criminal defense practice and enter the New York market. The new office in New York will be called Ballard Spahr Stillman & Friedman.
This new merger represents a shift that has been occurring over the past few decades. Corporate firms have increasingly engaged in representing executives in various scandals, handling foreign bribery cases and conducting internal investigations.
This move also represents a generational shift. In the 1970s and 1980s Mr. Stillman became a prominent criminal defense lawyer alongside Stanley S. Arkin and Robert G. Morvillo. Most of these lawyers who were former prosecutors in Manhattan at the United States attorney’s office reigned over the market of white-collar cases. In today’s world, hundreds of firms with mass amounts of lawyers engage in criminal defense work.
Mr. Arkin stated that in the past, he and Mr. Stillman were in the niche practice of criminal defense work, which has since turned into big business for any nationwide firm.
Firms can count on a steady stream of financial scandals, especially considering the international nature of the work. More recent examples include the controversy over Libor, the global benchmark interest rate, or insider trading investigations, such as that of Rajat K. Gupta, a former board member at Goldman Sachs.
Mr. Stillman commented that after being told several times by various clients “You’re not big enough to handle this litigation,” he decided to look for a bigger platform for his firm. This new combination is exactly what he was looking for.
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