Jenner & Block managed to impress one government favorite, enough to nab him. Neil Barofksy, the former prosecutor who litigated for the federal government’s 2008 bank bailout program, after being confirmed by the U.S. Senate in late 2008 to be the special United States Treasury Department inspector general on civil and criminal fraud and abuse linked to the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, as Reuters reported, resigned in 2011 to teach at New York University School of Law. Now he’s moving on yet again, joining Jenner, where he will work white collar defense and investigations, securities litigation and enforcement, and government controversies and public policy legislation.
Barofsky seems to have been impressed that Jenner & Block didn’t represent financial institutions during the financial crisis of 2008, but instead, “exposed bad practices on Wall Street” with its Valukas Report on the Lehman Brothers collapse.
“It just reflects not just the type of legal work that the firm does, but also where its stance is,” he said. “Jenner took the side of really getting to the truth of the matter.”
Deciding to fight for truth, and work with a firm he highly respects, Barofsky, 43, will be continuing the legal quest he began as an assistant U.S. Attorney in Manhattan between 2000 and 2008, continued with his work with the government, with his teaching, and now in joining Jenner.