Gary P. Naftalis

Gary P. Naftalis (born 1941) is a leading American trial lawyer, and serves as head of the litigation department and co-chair of Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP, the New York City law firm. Naftalis graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Rutgers University (A.B. 1963), earned a masters in history at Brown University (M.A. 1965), and graduated from Columbia Law School (1967), where he was an editor on the Columbia Law Review.

After clerking for William B. Herlands on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, he joined the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. Naftalis spent six years at the Office, ultimately holding the post of Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division. After a stint as Special Assistant to the U.S. Attorney for the Virgin Islands, Naftalis entered private practice, first as a partner at Orans, Elsen, Polstein & Naftalis, and then as a partner at Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP. Naftalis has also been a Lecturer in Law at Columbia Law School and Harvard Law School.

The Wall Street Journal recently declared him "the Zelig of the white-collar bar: He's everywhere." In 2006, Naftalis was named one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America, and also was awarded the Benemerenti medal by Pope Benedict XVI. In 2007, Naftalis was named one of the ten leading trial lawyers in United States.

Naftalis has been involved in multiple high-profile litigations over the past three decades. Recently, he successfully defended Michael Eisner, the CEO of The Walt Disney Company, in the a 37-day shareholders derivative trial relating to the hiring and termination of Michael Ovitz. He has successfully represented numerous securities industry clients, including Salomon Brothers in the federal criminal and SEC investigations of U.S. Treasury auction bidding practices, and Kidder Peabody in connection with the Wall Street insider trading scandal and ensuing multiple civil litigations. He also successfully represented Canary Capital Partners in the ongoing mutual fund investigations and related civil litigations, and Gary Winnick, the Chairman and Founder of Global Crossing.

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