Neil MacBride, the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, has joined Davis Polk. We caught up with him and his great view at 901 15th St, where he'll direct his gaze to white collar and government investigations matters. In a full-circle moment, Neil tells us this is the same building where he worked as an associate before he went into the government, with a legacy firm to DLA Piper.
Part of Neil's strategic plan on the Rocket Docket was to take a very good office and further "increase our market share" and "raise our brand recognition." How does that work? "Pounding the pavement" and meeting with regulators and agencies like SEC, CFTC, FINRA, FBI, and IRS and saying "hey, you can trust us with these cases." That lead to growth in matters including extraterritorial transnational enforcement, financial fraud, and human trafficking.
Want to be a US Attorney? Pick a good roommate. Neil's two UVA Law roommates are also US Attorneys: the Western District of Virginia's Tim Heaphy and the Eastern District of Pennsylvania's Zane Memeger. Neil left his post in September 2013, after almost exactly four years serving six million VA residents as US Attorney, with a workload that included several of the financial fraud prosecutions from the '08 financial crisis, creation of the Virginia Financial Fraud Task Force, multiple FCPA cases, Megaupload indictment, grand jury investigation of WikiLeaks and indictment of NSA leaker Edward Snowden, investigation of VA Gov. Robert McDonnell, convictions against 26 Somali pirates, and prosecution of several terrorism suspects. He took off the months before starting at the firm to relax with his family and "catch up on reading."
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