ARTHUR L. LIMAN, the renowned litigator, was once described as a “big trouble†lawyer because businessmen in hot water sought his counsel. Ubiquitous during the latter part of the 20th century, Mr. Liman appeared at the defense table alongside prominent clients like the Wall Street financier Michael Milken. The public knew him best, perhaps, as the chief counsel to the Senate committee investigating the Iran-contra affair.
Mr. Liman, who died in 1997, is a patron saint of an elite corps of lawyers in the white-collar bar. A small group of “big trouble†lawyers repeatedly show up on the dockets of major corporate scandals across the decades, both as government prosecutors and as defense counsel.
The lawyers, some of whom are featured below, share similar backgrounds. A few have clerked on the Supreme Court, including John F. Savarese, for Justice William Brennan Jr., or Mark F. Pomerantz, for Justice Potter Stewart. As with David M. Brodsky and Carey R. Dunne, many do stints as prosecutors. And they often become partners at top New York law firms, such as Simpson Thacher or Cleary Gottlieb.
Their success is not simply measured in “guilty†and “not guilty†verdicts. While many have made their names trying prominent cases, much of their work is done away from the public view.
Mr. Liman described that work in his memoir, explaining that the true value of his counsel was “that far less glamorous, behind-the-scenes effort to guide my clients not only through the mazes of what is legal and illegal but in the direction of what is right, and try to do so consistently with discretion, sound judgment, and common sense.â€
