About Brian Jacobs

Brian A. Jacobs is a former federal prosecutor who represents individuals and organizations in criminal, civil, and regulatory matters, internal investigations, and appeals. His cases have involved allegations of financial fraud, antitrust violations, accounting fraud, insider trading, bribery and corruption, computer hacking, and trade-secrets theft.

Brian previously served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, where he was Deputy Chief of Appeals. During his six and a half years at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Brian led the investigations and prosecutions of a wide range of federal crimes, including bank, wire, mail, and securities fraud, public corruption, money laundering, obstruction of justice, embezzlement, and cybercrime.  Brian has successfully conducted numerous jury trials, including in multiple high-profile public corruption matters and complex white-collar cases.  In his time as a prosecutor and in private practice, he has argued more than a dozen appeals before the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and as Deputy Chief of Appeals, he co-authored briefs and supervised oral arguments in more than 50 additional appellate cases.

In recent years, Brian has been named a white collar “Rising Star” by Law360, which recognizes “attorneys under 40 whose legal accomplishments transcend their age,” and a “Rising Star” by the New York Law Journal, which recognizes “attorneys 40 and under who have established a record of accomplishments and demonstrated that they are top contributors to the practice of law and their communities.” The Law Journal acknowledged Brian for handling “an impressive roster of headline-producing cases and successful prosecutions of corruption and other criminal cases” as a federal prosecutor. The Legal 500 United States has recommended Brian in the area of securities litigation, calling him “a superstar.” Additionally, Benchmark Litigation: The Definitive Guide to America’s Leading Litigation Firms & Attorneys has recognized Brian as a “Future Star” and named him to its “Under 40 Hot List” four years in a row.

In 2019, Brian was honored with a Burton Award for Distinguished Legal Writing for his Review of Securities & Commodities Regulation article, “How Institutional Dynamics Have Shaped Insider Trading Law.” Brian is the co-author of “Insider Trading” and “Securities Fraud,” two chapters in the treatise White Collar Crime: Business and Regulatory Offenses. Brian is also a co-author of the chapter “Responding to Subpoenas and Other Regulatory Requests” in the book Defending Corporations and Individuals in Government Investigations. Brian has written articles for The Review of Securities and Commodities Regulation and Practical Law, and is a regular contributor to The Insider Blog on Forbes.com. Brian served on Law360’s 2018 white collar editorial advisory board.

Brian is a member of the New York City Bar Association’s Criminal Advocacy Committee and Mass Incarceration Task Force, and previously served as the chair of the Criminal Advocacy Committee. Brian also represents indigent defendants in federal criminal appeals as a member of the Criminal Justice Act Panel for the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Prior to joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Brian was a Law Clerk to the Honorable Amalya L. Kearse of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and the Honorable Jed S. Rakoff of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Brian received his J.D. from Columbia Law School in 2004, where he was an Articles Editor of the Columbia Law Review, was named a James Kent Scholar each year, and was awarded the Paul R. Hays prize for civil procedure and the Charles Bathgate Beck prize for property law. He received his B.A. from Yale College in 2001, cum laude, with distinction in the English major.