Lawrence Gerschwer

Partner, Litigation Barnes & Thornburg LLP

A former federal prosecutor, Larry Gerschwer focuses his practice on white collar criminal and regulatory matters. He routinely represents clients in government investigations of securities and commodities fraud and of domestic and FCPA-related public corruption. He has also defended clients in investigations conducted by the DOJ, SEC, CFTC, IRS, federal and state banking regulators, antitrust regulators, and state and local prosecutors. Larry has extensive experience handling complex matters involving parallel criminal and civil enforcement investigations and cross-border investigations, including alleged manipulation of global financial industry benchmarks such as LIBOR, ISDAFIX, and currency and swap rates. He has represented numerous traders and supervisors in investigations of alleged unauthorized trading and mismarking; and has conducted internal investigations on behalf of institutional clients and defended them before federal and state agencies. An experienced trial lawyer, Larry has tried numerous federal criminal trials, both as a prosecutor and defense counsel, and briefed and argued a number of appeals. Chambers USA describes Larry as “an experienced white-collar practitioner” and “a very effective advocate who is fundamentally very thoughtful, careful, creative and tough.” For almost nine years, Larry served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York, where he was a member of the Securities and Commodities Fraud Task Force and the Public Corruption Unit. He investigated and tried several cases involving violations of the federal securities laws, including schemes involving accounting fraud and boiler rooms. He also investigated and prosecuted a large number of defendants for their participation in a scheme involving the bribery of New York City property tax assessors that former Mayor Michael Bloomberg described as “the largest and most financially damaging corruption scheme ever conducted within city government.”