Trump Organization, SBF Lawyer Mukasey to Join Seyfarth Firm (1)

Veteran New York white-collar defense lawyer Marc Mukasey, who has previously represented President Donald Trump’s company and FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried, is closing his boutique firm to join 1,000-lawyer Seyfarth Shaw.

Mukasey, 58, said in an interview that the move was driven partly by the difficulty smaller firms face in deploying the latest artificial intelligence and data science technologies. He said AI has transformed trial practice, allowing lawyers to sift through much larger volumes of evidence.

The “game is changing rapidly,” he said, adding, “You better know not only how to cross examine a cooperating witness, you better learn how to cross examine a spreadsheet.” Mukasey and law partner Torrey Young will join the Chicago-founded firm’s New York office.

Marc Mukasey

Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg

A former Manhattan federal prosecutor, Mukasey built a list of high-profile white-collar clients over the past two decades. He won the acquittal of former UBS Group AG metals trader Andre Flotron in a major spoofing prosecution. He also represented Bernie Madoff’s chief financial officer Frank DiPascali, who pleaded guilty to his role in the fraud. More recently, Mukasey represented Bankman-Fried at his sentencing. He’s currently defending Chauncey Billups, the NBA coach accused of participating in an illegal sports-betting ring.

Mukasey became better-known, however, for his work for Trump, who hired him to advise the Trump Organization on the initial New York criminal investigation that would eventually result in the president’s conviction. His work was done by the time of the trial, and Trump himself was represented in the courtroom by Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, whom he later appointed to top-level positions at the Justice Department.

During Trump’s first term, Mukasey was often rumored to be in line for an administration post. He declined to discuss any more recent contact with the White House but said that, if asked to serve his country, he would seriously consider it. Neither Mukasey nor Seyfarth currently represents Trump.

Mukasey is the son of Michael Mukasey, a longtime federal judge who became US attorney general during the George W. Bush administration, and was long considered a protege of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Marc Mukasey worked with Giuliani at two large firms before launching the boutique firm that became known as Mukasey Young in 2019.

He said the volume of data and information now available to prosecutors, including a defendant’s “entire private life” on social media, has led prosecutors to seek “almost barbaric sentences in cases that don’t deserve them or justify them.”

To match that, defense firms need to make a “serious investment in technology and innovation,” Mukasey said, and lawyers who don’t embrace such advances will be left behind. Seyfarth more than a dozen years ago created a team of programmers and engineers with legal backgrounds to focus on integrating AI into the firm’s legal work.

Seyfarth chair Lorie Almon echoed that in a statement. “They are world class courtroom advocates who understand how AI, data, and process innovation sharpen strategy and outcomes,” she said of Mukasey and Young.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Chris Dolmetsch in Federal Court in Manhattan at cdolmetsch@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Anthony Lin at alin364@bloomberg.net

Peter Blumberg

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