Shawn J. Chen

Shawn J. Chen is a partner based in the Washington, D.C. office.

Mr. Chen’s practice focuses on white-collar criminal defense, securities enforcement, and complex civil litigation. Mr. Chen has represented public corporations, financial institutions, and individuals in a wide range of government investigations involving the Department of Justice, Securities and Exchange Commission, Department of the Treasury, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, Office of Foreign Assets Control, and federal and state banking regulators. He also advises boards of directors and audit committees on matters of corporate governance and internal investigations. He currently serves as co-chair of the ABA Subcommittee on Corporate Criminal Litigation, and his white-collar criminal defense practice is recognized by Chambers USA and The Legal 500 U.S.

Mr. Chen’s expertise covers issues relating to securities fraud, government contractor fraud, insider trading, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, anti-money laundering compliance, and economic sanctions and embargoes. He has taught constitutional law as a teaching fellow at Yale Law School and a course on computer crimes as an adjunct professor at New York Law School.

Mr. Chen joined the firm in 2004, after having served for five years as a federal prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Connecticut, and became a partner in 2008. As an Assistant U.S. Attorney, Mr. Chen successfully prosecuted several cases to jury verdict, on charges ranging from tax evasion to interstate murder-for-hire. He also successfully argued seven cases before the U.S. Court of Appeals.

Mr. Chen is a regular author and speaker on a variety of white-collar and securities litigation related topics, including most recently on enforcement in the wake of financial regulatory reform. He currently serves as a regular securities law contributor to Thomson Reuters' News & Insight, covering trends and developments within the criminal and civil securities enforcement arena. In addition, Mr. Chen is a member of the ALI-ABA Advisory Panel on Securities Law.

Mr. Chen received a J.D. degree from Yale Law School in 1995, where he was a Senior Editor of the Yale Law Journal. He received an undergraduate degree, summa cum laude, from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1992. From 1995 to 1996, he served as law clerk to the Honorable Jon O. Newman, Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit; and then, from 1996 to 1997, he served as law clerk to the Honorable Louis F. Oberdorfer, Senior Judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Mr. Chen is a member of the Bars in Illinois, New York, and the District of Columbia. He is vice-chair of the firm’s Washington, D.C. office diversity committee. His native language is English, and he is proficient in German.