Michael E. Horowitz is a litigation partner and member of the Business Fraud and Complex Litigation Group. Drawing on his experience as a high-level official at the Justice Department in Washington and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York City, Mr. Horowitz counsels and represents corporations and individuals in complex civil litigation matters, and on a variety of criminal and regulatory issues including securities, antitrust, health care, banking, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and white collar crime matters.

Mr. Horowitz also has substantial expertise dealing with compliance, corporate governance, and sentencing issues. President Bush nominated Mr. Horowitz, and he was unanimously confirmed by the Senate in May 2003, to serve a six-year term as a Commissioner on the U.S. Sentencing Commission (a part-time position which allows him to maintain his practice at the firm). Mr. Horowitz had previously served as a member of the Sentencing Commission’s Advisory Group on the Organizational Guidelines, where he reviewed the impact of the guidelines on corporate compliance programs. While working at the Justice Department in 2001, Mr. Horowitz was appointed by the Attorney General to serve as the Department’s ex-officio member of the Sentencing Commission, where he helped rewrite the sentencing guidelines for fraud and money laundering offenses. Mr. Horowitz has served as co-chair of PLI’s Advanced Corporate Compliance seminar and as a faculty member at PLI’s corporate compliance programs. He also has lectured on compliance issues at the Blue Cross/Blue Shield Association’s national compliance conference, and at the Ethics Officers Association annual convention.

Prior to joining Cadwalader, Mr. Horowitz served from 1999 to 2002 in the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, first as Deputy Assistant Attorney General and then as Chief of Staff. In those positions, he was a principal advisor to the head of the Criminal Division and worked directly with the Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney General, the FBI Director, the head of the Civil Division, and nearly every U.S. Attorney. Mr. Horowitz also worked closely with the leadership of the Treasury Department, the State Department, the SEC’s Enforcement Division, and the HHS Inspector General’s Office. As a liaison to the National District Attorney’s Association and the National Association of Attorneys General, he interacted regularly with District Attorneys and state Attorneys General. Mr. Horowitz was an active participant in the International Association of Prosecutors, and he led the Justice Department’s delegation to the IAP’s annual conferences in China, South Africa, and Australia. As a result, he has developed close relations with high-level prosecutors throughout the world.

During his tenure at Main Justice, Mr. Horowitz helped draft the Department’s Principles of Corporate Prosecution, participated in drafting the medical records privacy rules, and was centrally involved in the post-September 11th anti-money laundering efforts. He appeared before the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate on numerous occasions to testify and brief Members of Congress on behalf of the Administration.
From 1991 through 1999, Mr. Horowitz was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York, where he served as Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division and Chief of the Public Corruption Unit. He successfully prosecuted and supervised a variety of sophisticated white collar matters involving securities fraud, health care fraud, violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, environmental crime, money laundering, and tax evasion. His work on a complex five-year corruption investigation earned him the Attorney General’s Distinguished Service Award, the Department’s second highest award. He also successfully argued numerous cases before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Prior to joining the Justice Department, Mr. Horowitz was an associate at Debevoise & Plimpton in New York and a law clerk to the Honorable John G. Davies, U.S. District Judge for the Central District of California.

In addition to the organizations mentioned above, Mr. Horowitz has lectured at events for the American Bar Association, the American Corporate Counsel Association, the Justice Department, the State Department, and the FBI. He also has been an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown, George Washington, American and Catholic Law Schools, and he is presently a Barrister with the Edward Bennett Williams Inn of Court.
Mr. Horowitz holds a B.A., summa cum laude, from Brandeis University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and a J.D., magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School, where he was Executive Editor of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. He is a member of the New York State Bar and the District of Columbia Bar.