Defending lawyer in Enron, Martha Stewart cases to give Korn lecture

By Courtney Potts '06

Richard M. Strassberg '85, who has defended clients in the Enron investigation and in the insider-trading case linked to Martha Stewart, will deliver a talk at Cornell Law School March 31, "From Cornell to the Courthouse: Representing High Profile Clients in Criminal Cases."

His talk, which is the 2005 Korn Lecture at the Law School, will take place at 6 p.m. in the Stein Mancuso Amphitheater, Room G90 Myron Taylor Hall, and is free and open to the public.

Strassberg is a partner in Goodwin Procter LLP's litigation department and is chair of its white-collar crime and government investigations practice. In that role, he has represented defendants in several major cases during the past two years, including the investigation into Enron Corp.'s misleading accounting practices and the insider-trading trial of home decorating mogul Martha Stewart, where he represented her former financial adviser at Merrill Lynch, Peter Bacanovic.

After graduating cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1988, Strassberg served as a law clerk to the Hon. Robert J. Ward of the U.S. Court for the Southern District of New York (SDNY). He went on to serve on the SDNY's Securities and Commodities Fraud Task Force, before becoming the chief of the district's major crimes unit in the U.S. Attorney's Office. He has been in his current position with Goodwin Procter since 2002.

When he is not involved in high-profile cases, Strassberg is an adjunct professor at Fordham Law School and is actively involved in pro-bono work. He has served on the Attorney General's Advisory Committee-Subcommittee on Health Care Fraud and is currently a member of the SDNY Criminal Justice Act panel, representing indigent defendants in criminal cases.

In June 2004, he won a Burton Award for Legal Achievement for an article he co-authored, "Is Selective Waiver of Privilege Viable?" published in the New York Law Journal in July 2003.

The Korn lecture is an annual presentation at the Law School on legal and public service issues, funded in Henry Korn's name by a grateful client. Korn, who received his A.B. degree from Cornell in 1968, is a partner with the New York law firm LePatner and Associates.

Courtney Potts is a student intern at Cornell News Office.