Barton LLP

Arbitration; Commercial Litigation; Executive Compensation and Separation; Financial Services, Investment Funds, and Regulatory Compliance; Internal Investigations; Labor & Employment Advice and Counsel; Labor and Employment Disputes; Securities Litigation, Regulatory Investigations, and Enforcement; White Collar Defense

Operations Partner

James represents financial institutions, broker-dealers, registered investment firms, executives, and individual advisors in federal and state litigation, arbitration, regulatory proceedings, and investigations. He has extensive experience pertaining to investigations, due diligence, and compliance matters. He regularly counsels financial institutions and individual advisors on mergers and acquisitions, practice purchase and protections, raiding, and recruiting, including guidance on restrictive covenants and the Protocol for Broker Recruiting.

James has represented board members, managing directors, and executives of leading Fortune 500 firms in the highly regulated financial services, investment advisory, banking, and healthcare industries. These matters often concern employment issues, compensation, federal investigations, and compliance. He also represents corporations and individuals charged with federal and state crimes, shareholder allegations of wrongdoing, securities and financial-related matters, fraud, conversion of client assets, breach of fiduciary duty, insider trading, and money laundering.

James draws on his extensive investigative experience to assist in internal corporate investigations, pre-litigation strategy, general investigations, and strategic defenses concerning sensitive corporate issues, employee conduct, and other matters that could materially affect a client’s business. In that role, he regularly liaises with federal and state investigative agencies and prosecutor offices when assisting companies who uncover criminal activity. In his white-collar defense practice, James has successfully defended against securities indictments, wire fraud indictments, insider trading, tax evasion, racketeering, money laundering, and financial violations.

Prior to attending law school, James served as a Special Agent for various agencies within the United States federal government. As a Special Agent, he was responsible for conducting international money laundering and narcotics investigations. His duties included criminal investigations into complex narco-conspiracies and financial investigations into global criminal enterprises. In that role, he assisted various U.S. Attorney Offices in case management, collection of evidence, and witnesses and trial preparation. After September 11, 2001, he transferred to the newly created Department of Homeland Security in a counter-terrorism capacity.

Immediately prior to joining Barton LLP, James was with Stevens & Lee.

New York State Bar Association New York County Lawyers Association

Fordham University School of Law, Magna Cum Laude, The Archibald R. Murray Public Service Award, J.D Duke University, B.A. The Lawrenceville School