Former federal prosecutor Randall W. Jackson '00 has joined Wachtell, Rosen, Lipton & Katz in a rare lateral hire for the Wall Street firm.
Jackson joined Wachtell as a partner in its litigation department from Willkie, Farr & Gallagher, where he was co-chair of the firm’s white-collar defense practice group. Jackson’s move was first reported by legal columnist David Lat on Sept. 24.
“Randall is a superb lawyer and we are delighted that he has joined our firm,” said Bill Savitt, co-chair of the Litigation Department at Wachtell.
The storied New York firm known for its top-tier litigation and transactional teams makes lateral hires infrequently. Its last hire from outside the firm came in 2020 when Sarah Eddy, the former Chief of Appeals for the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District, rejoined the firm.
Jackson is former assistant US attorney for the Southern District of New York. He spent over eight years in Manhattan’s top office prosecuting numerous high-profile cases, including securing the convictions of five key aides of Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff and a guilty plea from “Times Square Bomber” Faisal Shahzad.
He left the Southern District in 2015 to join Boies Schiller Flexner before heading to Willkie in late 2018. Last year, Jackson co-led the legal team that secured the acquittal and victory for former Trump aide Thomas Barrack, founder of Colony Capital, who was brought on federal foreign lobbying charges in the Eastern District of New York. He also co-led the successful defense against securities charges brought by the Justice Department against shipbuilding executive Jean Boustani.
A Detroit native, Jackson earned his B.A. in English in 2000 then went on to earn his J.D. from Harvard Law School, has led or co-led over 20 federal trials. - Bloomberg Law