Barnes & Thornburg LLP - Solomon L. Wisenberg - Attorney - Partner

Solomon L. Wisenberg is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Barnes & Thornburg LLP and co-chair of the firm’s White Collar Crime Defense Practice Group. He has more than two decades of experience as lead counsel in complex white collar crime investigations and jury trials.

Mr. Wisenberg’s practice is primarily devoted to representing individuals and businesses exposed to federal criminal inquiries or charged with federal crimes. His government career included serving as deputy independent counsel, the number two position in the Whitewater/Lewinsky Investigation, and he was selected by Judge Kenneth Starr to conduct grand jury questioning of President Bill Clinton.

From 1999 to 2004, Mr. Wisenberg was partner and chair of the White Collar Crime practice group at the Washington, D.C. firm of Ross, Dixon & Bell. In 2004 he founded Wisenberg & Wisenberg PLLC, a white-collar boutique, where he practiced until 2008. Since entering private practice, Mr. Wisenberg has represented clients under investigation for public corruption (Hobbs Act), bribery, fraud (securities, bank, mail, tax, health care, FDA), foreign corrupt practices, false statements to government officials, arms export control act violations, theft of federal property, unlawful transportation of firearms, and possession with intent to distribute narcotics. He has also conducted internal investigations and insurance coverage fraud inquiries for corporations and non-profits.

Prior to his service with the Office of Independent Counsel, Mr. Wisenberg was chief of the Financial Institution and Health Care Fraud Unit in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Texas. He directed approximately 75 to 100 criminal investigations during his tenure as an assistant U.S. attorney in Texas and North Carolina.

Mr. Wisenberg's investigation of the Victoria Savings Association scandal, identified by Congress as a "Top 100" savings and loan failure causing $200 million in losses, resulted in the conviction of nine defendants (after a two-month jury trial). He received the Director's Award from Attorney General Janet Reno for his service in the Victoria Savings case.

Mr. Wisenberg has tried and won numerous other white collar cases, including U.S. v. CTI, Inc., a military contracts fraud case cited by the U.S. Air Force as one of its most significant matters of 1990, and U.S. v. RMI Services International, a three-month jury trial involving a $40 million international securities scam. He also directed the Communicare Home Health Care investigation, a four-year health care fraud inquiry.

In the 1980s, Mr. Wisenberg served as acting special counsel for judicial selection and attorney-advisor in the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Legal Policy under U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese.

A nationally recognized authority on federal criminal defense issues, Mr. Wisenberg is a frequent guest on MSNBC and CNBC. He has also appeared on NPR, The Today Show, ABC's World News Tonight, ABC's Nightline, the CBS Morning News, CNN, and Fox News Network. Mr. Wisenberg's articles, essays and reviews have been published in the Washington Post, the National Law Journal, Corporate Counsel, the Wilson Quarterly and other journals. He was the author of FindLaw's annual summary of the Supreme Court's criminal law and procedure decisions.

Mr. Wisenberg has served as an instructor at the Justice Department’s Trial Advocacy Institute and as a guest speaker at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va. He has also lectured on federal white collar crime topics at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, the University of Texas School of Law, the Georgetown University Law Center, the George Washington University Law School, George Mason University School of Law and American University. In 2007, he was appointed adjunct professor of law at Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law, and taught the course on Business Crimes.

Mr. Wisenberg is a 1980 graduate of the University of Texas School of Law and the school’s Criminal Defense Clinic. He won his first jury trial while he was still a law student, securing an acquittal for a client charged with criminal assault. Mr. Wisenberg clerked for the Honorable Tom G. Davis on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and the Honorable J. Daniel Mahoney on the United States Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit. He is a member of the American Bar Association – Criminal Justice Section, and the National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys. He is Martindale-Hubbell AV® Rated and listed in The Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers.

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