They’ve Got Next: The 40 Under 40 - Eric Sandberg-Zakian of Covington & Burling

Please describe two of your most substantial, recent wins in practice.

In April 2024, the US Department of Justice announced it was declining to prosecute our client, Proterial Cable America. DOJ’s declination letter lauded our client’s prompt voluntary disclosure, full and proactive cooperation, and timely and appropriate remediation.

Long-running criminal investigations take a toll on a company and its personnel, even when the company is doing everything in its power to cooperate and remediate. Ending cases with declinations—getting companies back to work and employees back to their daily lives—is our goal. Most of our declinations are confidential, but this declination was issued publicly under the DOJ Criminal Division’s Corporate Enforcement Policy.

My biggest win as a lawyer was not in a corporate case, however, but in a 2017 pro bono habeas case for an individual client wrongfully convicted of a double murder and serving a life sentence in Kentucky. In an appeal in the Sixth Circuit, we obtained the right to a district court evidentiary hearing on his habeas petition.

Ultimately, we persuaded the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office to forego the hearing and consent to the petition being granted. After local prosecutors in Louisville attempted to retry him, we negotiated a deal allowing him to be released immediately and maintain his innocence.

What is the most important lesson you learned as a first-year attorney and how does it inform your practice today?

The most important lesson I learned as a first-year associate was the value of understanding how the work I was doing formed part of a broader strategy. I was fortunate to encounter more senior lawyers who took the time to explain to me why the documents I was reviewing, the legal research I was conducting, and the memoranda I was drafting fit into our firm’s work for the client, and how our firm’s work for the client fit into the client’s broader legal and commercial picture. Understanding that context allowed me to deliver a work product that was most useful to partners and clients, spot crucial details in documents, and propose creative solutions to thorny issues.

This lesson is a touchstone for me as I practice today. I seek not only to develop defenses that address the enforcement matter we have been retained to handle, but also to set a strategy that aligns with and furthers the client’s long-term commercial and legal interests.

I also make sure I get to know even the most junior team members and explain to them why they have been assigned a particular project. Motivated, engaged, high-performing associates are crucial to the success of any representation. Educating associates on our strategic goals and involving them in tactical decision-making helps build a team that works collaboratively and contributes proactively.

How do you define success in your practice?

I define success as getting a client the best possible result in the riskiest enforcement matters, no matter how long it takes or how many collateral challenges the client encounters along the way.

Trade controls investigations are frequently highly complex matters involving some combination of multiple regulatory agencies and the Department of Justice. The law is complicated and ever-changing, and the government is pursuing larger penalties and more punitive settlements. Corporations often find themselves under investigation for years, straining company resources and burdening thinly staffed legal departments.

When faced with such an investigation, outside counsel must maintain a long-term strategy formulated to achieve the client’s goals for the matter, while also supporting the company through the day-to-day disruption an investigation can cause. Effectively defending a dogged government investigation requires different skills than advising in-house attorneys on ongoing compliance issues and counseling them through a stressful matter in which a company’s legal and compliance team may itself be a subject of government scrutiny.

I only feel successful when our team sets and carries out a long-term strategy that achieves the client’s hoped-for result and when we have made sure that—despite the incredible personal toll a high-stakes national security investigation imposes on a corporation’s employees—the client’s in-house attorneys felt supported and confident in their choice of counsel from start to finish.

What are you most proud of as a lawyer?

My proudest moment as a lawyer was watching a pro bono client who had spent two decades behind bars walk out of a Louisville, Kentucky jail and embrace his mother.

When I first met the client in 2015, he was serving a life sentence after having been wrongfully convicted of a double murder, and his petition for habeas corpus had just been denied by a federal district court. I successfully briefed and argued his appeal of the denial in the US Court of Appeals for Sixth Circuit, winning the right to an evidentiary hearing in district court.

In advance of the evidentiary hearing, we developed a dual-tracked strategy of aggressively accusing the original prosecutors and police who worked the case of misconduct, while collaborating closely with the Kentucky Attorney General’s office attorneys tasked with defending the original prosecution.

Ultimately, we persuaded the attorney general’s office to reverse its position, forego the evidentiary hearing, and consent to the client’s habeas petition being granted, reportedly the first time the office had ever conceded habeas. After local prosecutors in Louisville attempted to retry the client in 2017, we negotiated a deal in which the client was immediately released and maintained his innocence.

It was a true honor to serve as lead counsel for an innocent man who kept fighting and went free against all odds.

Who is your greatest mentor in the law and what have they taught you?

My greatest mentor is Steve Fagell, co-chair of Covington’s White-Collar Defense and Investigations Practice. It would be impossible to describe everything I have learned from Steve. However, two points stand out.

First, great lawyering takes preparation that is not only incredibly deep, but also incredibly broad. When proffering to prosecutors or briefing a client, a good advocate should be prepared with an affirmative presentation and answers to expected questions, as well as with answers to unexpected questions on unrelated issues in other parts of the case, on the client’s business, or other legal issues in the client’s past. Advancing a client’s interests requires being ready to address any topic that could arise.

Second, the best strategic decision-making is the product of collaborative discussion and robust debate. Before making important decisions in a case, Steve discusses it with as many people working on the case as possible, consults with other firm colleagues with relevant experience, and questions the team’s initial recommendation or draft advice, even when it aligns with his own thinking.

This process ensures we debate the strategic options before recommending one and consider a problem from all angles. It also invites creative thinking, helps develop fresh ideas, and keeps team members working on different parts of a case engaged and invested in the matter as a whole.

Tell us your two favorite songs on your summer music playlist.

“Tubthumping” by Chumbawamba and “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg " by the Temptations. My summer playlist is all about ensuring that my three kids know how to sing along at the top of their lungs to the music I heard on the radio growing up in the 90s or the music from the 50s and 60s my dad played around the house when I was little.

Eric Sandberg-Zakian of Covington & Burling and friend, Chewy, at Walt Disney World.

Photo credit: Eric Sandberg-Zakian and Jonathan Hurtarte/Bloomberg Law