Corporate Criminal Liability: What Happens When a Company is Charged with a Crime?

Brandon L. Garrett joined the law faculty in 2005. His research and teaching interests include criminal procedure, wrongful convictions, habeas corpus, corporate crime, scientific evidence, civil rights, civil procedure and constitutional law. Garrett’s recent research includes studies of DNA exonerations and organizational prosecutions. The research web pages below provide data related to those studies.

Garrett’s recent book examining corporate prosecutions, titled “Too Big to Jail: How Prosecutors Compromise with Corporations,” was published by Harvard University Press in Fall 2014. Translations are forthcoming in Spain and Taiwan. A new book examining the implications of the decline of the death penalty is in contract with Harvard University Press. In 2011, Harvard University Press published Garrett’s book, "Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong," examining the cases of the first 250 people to be exonerated by DNA testing. That book was the subject of a symposium issue in New England Law Review, and received an A.B.A. Silver Gavel Award, Honorable Mention, and a Constitutional Commentary Award. It was translated for editions in China, Japan and Taiwan. In 2013, Foundation Press published Garrett’s casebook, “Federal Habeas Corpus: Executive Detention and Post-Conviction Litigation,” co-authored with Lee Kovarsky. Garrett’s work has been widely cited by courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, lower federal courts, state supreme courts, and courts in other countries, such as the Supreme Courts of Canada and Israel. Garrett also frequently speaks about criminal justice matters before legislative and policymaking bodies, groups of practicing lawyers, law enforcement, and to local and national media.

Garrett attended Columbia Law School, where he was an articles editor of the Columbia Law Review and a Kent Scholar. After graduating, he clerked for the Hon. Pierre N. Leval of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He then worked as an associate at Neufeld, Scheck & Brustin LLP in New York City.

Steven P. Solow is co-head of Katten's Environmental and Workplace Safety practice and co-head of the White Collar, Investigations and Compliance practice in the firm's Washington, DC office. Steve is also a member of Katten's Board of Directors and the Executive Committee. He focuses his practice on business crimes, internal investigations, corporate compliance and security programs and environmental civil and criminal litigation. He represents and counsels corporations and business associations regarding their legal and regulatory obligations, develops integrated compliance programs that address corporate and government expectations and represents both corporate and individual clients in white collar cases.  

Steve advises chemical, energy, utility, homebuilding, construction, pipeline, shipping and technology companies on a range of regulatory matters, including enforcement defense, internal investigations, litigation, compliance issues and homeland security matters. He counsels senior management and corporate boards of directors on corporate best practices and Sarbanes-Oxley compliance. Major energy companies seek Steve's advice on the regulatory standards applicable to all energy sources—including hydraulic fracturing—as well as security and site vulnerability assessments. He also provides experienced representation to major international shipping concerns in connection with maritime and environmental matters involving the US Coast Guard and other agencies.

Formerly chief of the Department of Justice (DOJ) Environmental Crimes Section, Steve supervised 30 federal prosecutors and oversaw the prosecution of environmental criminal cases nationwide. He also coordinated an international law enforcement initiative to combat smuggling of banned chemicals into the United States and served on an Interpol workgroup.

Steve was a prosecutor with the New York State Organized Crime Task Force for five years. He also served as law clerk to the Honorable Harold L. Murphy of the US District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

Steve is a prolific speaker, providing training at the FBI National Academy, DOJ National Advocacy Center, Wharton School of Business, National Practice Institute, US Agency for International Development (USAID), Federal Judicial Center, Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, Interpol and other professional, business and educational institutions. He is a member of BNA's White Collar Crime Report advisory board.

Steve served as an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center and Pace University School of Law. He was a full-time law professor and law clinic co-director for Pace University School of Law from 1992–1994, and for University of Maryland School of Law from 2000–2002. Steve was named a Senior Fellow of the Carol and Lawrence Zicklin Center for Business Ethics Research at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business. The Center studies and supports private sector responsibility and public accountability; promotes thinking and scholarship on business and normative ethics; and provides research assistance to the Center's many stakeholders. Steve was sought out by the Zicklin Center because of his experience in identifying the root causes behind regulatory non-compliance. He has participated in Wharton programs designed to examine ways for US and international businesses and financial institutions to reduce the likelihood of compliance failures.

Named one of "America's Top 50 Women Litigators" by The National Law Journal, Elizabeth Ainslie has tried more than 75 cases to verdict and conducted innumerable evidentiary hearings, sentencings, oral arguments and arbitrations.

From 1979 to 1984, Ms. Ainslie was a federal prosecutor for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, serving as the chief of the Fraud Section during 1983 to 1984. After leaving the U.S. Attorney's office, Ms. Ainslie worked for 15 years at a law firm she founded, and since 1999, she has been at Schnader. She is on the roster of neutral arbitrators of the American Arbitration Association.

Ms. Ainslie has been handling settlement conferences for the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas for over 20 years. She has served as a paid arbitrator on several occasions and has been first-chair in two International Chamber of Commerce arbitrations.

Daniel J. Horwitz is the Chair of the Firm's White Collar Defense and Investigation Practice. He focuses his practice on the defense of individuals and companies in white collar criminal and regulatory enforcement investigations, as well as in complex commercial lawsuits and arbitrations. He routinely handles matters before federal and state prosecutors and regulatory agencies, including the U.S. Attorneys for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Manhattan District Attorney and the New York Attorney General. He has also led numerous internal investigations on behalf of corporations, audit committees, special litigation committees and special board committees.

Specifically, Mr. Horwitz has represented clients in connection with allegations of securities fraud, corporate accounting fraud, insider trading, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations, tax fraud, construction industry fraud, money laundering, public corruption and antitrust violations.

Prior to joining McLaughlin & Stern LLP, Mr. Horwitz was a partner in the New York office of an AMLaw 100 firm and a boutique litigation firm. Previously, Mr. Horwitz served as an Assistant District Attorney in the Frauds Bureau of the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. He is an accomplished trial lawyer, having tried many complex cases in both federal and state courts.

Between 2011 and 2016, Mr. Horwitz served as a Commissioner of the New York State Joint Commission on Public Ethics ("JCOPE") and was appointed as Chair of JCOPE by Governor Andrew M. Cuomo in 2013.

Mr. Horwitz began his legal career as a law clerk to the Honorable John T. Nixon in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee (Nashville). Prior to his legal career, Mr. Horwitz served as Legislative Director and Legislative Assistant to Congressman Thomas J. Downey from 1982 to 1990.

He has been named a Top 100 New York Metro Attorney by New York Super Lawyers in each edition from 2012 to 2015. He has been recognized since 2009 in New York Super Lawyers and the 2012 – 2015 editions and the 2012 – 2015 editions of Best Lawyers in America in the area of White Collar Criminal Defense.