Former Whitewater Counsel Robert Ray Joins Thompson & Knight in NY
Thompson & Knight LLP announced that Robert W. Ray has joined the firm’s New York office as a partner in the Trial Practice Group. He has previously served as a federal prosecutor and independent counsel for the Whitewater investigation.
“Bob is a prominent, respected litigator who brings to the Firm a wealth of expertise in white collar criminal defense,” said Greg W. Curry, Thompson & Knight’s Trial Practice Leader and a Trial Partner in the Firm’s Dallas office. “He will be a great addition to our white collar team.”
Ray’s practice focuses on white collar criminal defense matters; corporate; governance and compliance issues; internal investigations; and general litigation, including civil RICO and commercial fraud. He has first-chaired more than 25 federal jury trials to verdict in matters ranging from fraud, extortion, bribery, real property, and healthcare law to white collar criminal defense, including sophisticated prosecutions – as both a prosecutor and as a defense attorney – involving RICO, terrorism, violent crime, and public corruption offenses as well as securities fraud.
From 1989 through 1995, he was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. In 1995, Ray joined the Independent Counsel’s office in Washington, D.C., where he supervised, conducted, and participated in complex, long-term, and multi-defendant federal prosecutions involving public corruption at all levels and stages in federal court. He succeeded Kenneth Starr as Independent Counsel and was responsible for the In re Madison Guaranty investigations, which concluded with published final reports on matters involving FBI files, the White House Travel Office, Whitewater, and Monica Lewinsky.
Ray has provided commentary on relevant criminal and legal matters on “Good Morning America,” “The O’Reilly Factor,” “FOX News Sunday,” “CNN Late Edition/Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer,” “NBC Nightly News,” and other television news programs. He is also an op-ed contributor to The New York Times. Ray serves on the advisory council for the History Department at Princeton University. He received an Executive Education Certificate for a program in Mastering Negotiation from the Harvard Kennedy School in April 2016; a J.D., cum laude, from Washington and Lee University School of Law in 1985; and an A.B., magna cum laude, from Princeton University in 1982.
Immediately prior to joining Thompson & Knight, Ray was a partner at Fox Rothschild LLP in New York.
