Mark K. Schonfeld is a litigation partner in the New York office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and co-chair of the firm’s Securities Enforcement Practice Group. He is also a member of the Crisis Management and the White Collar Defense and Investigations Practice Groups.
Mr. Schonfeld’s practice focuses on the representation of financial institutions, public companies, hedge funds, accounting firms and private equity firms in investigations conducted by the Securities and Exchange Commission, Department of Justice, states Attorneys General, FINRA and other regulatory organizations. Mr. Schonfeld also conducts internal investigations and counsels clients on compliance and corporate governance matters.
Mr. Schonfeld is ranked as a leading lawyer in Securities Regulation and Enforcement by Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business, which highlighted client praise for his “invaluable current knowledge of agency practice, procedure and personalities active at the SEC.”
Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Schonfeld concluded a twelve-year career with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, the last four years as the Director of the New York Regional Office, the largest of the SEC’s regional offices. Mr. Schonfeld oversaw professional staff of nearly 400 enforcement attorneys, accountants, investigators and compliance examiners engaged in the investigation and prosecution of enforcement actions and the performance of compliance inspections of more than 4,000 SEC registered financial institutions in the region. Mr. Schonfeld led the New York Office through one of the most vibrant and rapidly evolving periods in the history of the Commission and securities law enforcement and brought many of the Commission’s major landmark cases dealing with complex accounting fraud, mutual fund trading, hedge fund abuses, foreign bribery, insider trading and market manipulation.
Mr. Schonfeld received his Juris Doctor, cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 1988 and his Bachelor of Arts degree, summa cum laude, and with Highest Distinction from the University of Rochester in 1984. Following law school, Mr. Schonfeld was a law clerk for the Honorable Ellsworth A. Van Graafeiland of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Following his clerkship and before joining the SEC, Mr. Schonfeld was a litigator in private practice.