Career
Robert Luskin is a partner in the Investigations and White Collar Defense practice at Paul Hastings and is based in the firm’s Washington, D.C. office. He is one of the best known and most highly regarded litigators in Washington, D.C., concentrating in complex criminal litigation at both the trial court and appellate level. Over the last three decades, Robert has represented clients in virtually every high-profile matter in Washington, D.C. As a testament to his outstanding career, Chambers USA honored Robert as White Collar Lawyer of the Year for 2021. According to Chambers USA 2021, clients refer to Robert as “a legend, and justifiably so.” In addition, Robert is “one of the finest white-collar lawyers in North America.” In its June 2021 profile of Robert, Global Investigations Review (GIR) called him “a legend in the FCPA bar.”
While at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), he helped supervise the ABSCAM investigation, which resulted in the conviction of several members of Congress, and thereafter represented the DOJ in hearings before Congress concerning the investigation.
Since entering private practice, he has represented a cabinet officer and senior White House officials of both parties in criminal investigations by independent counsels and the DOJ, the senior staff of a U.S. senator in the Keating Five Senate Ethics Investigation and members of Congress from both parties in criminal investigations and congressional proceedings. Robert successfully represented a sitting U.S. district judge in a criminal trial and appeal, securing the reversal of his client’s conviction before the U.S. Supreme Court and the en banc U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. More recently, represented the U.S. ambassador to the EU in recent impeachment proceedings before Congress.
Robert has devoted his attention recently to the particular challenges posed by the representation of foreign corporations and financial institutions in multijurisdictional, cross-border criminal investigations and has reached path-breaking with the U.S. Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission and foreign enforcement authorities.
Robert has extensive experience in congressional investigations, having represented multiple members of Congress in ethics investigations, and senior Justice Department officials, White House officials and leading international corporations in congressional investigations.
From 1980 to 1982, he was special counsel to the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he was responsible for legal and policy issues concerning the Organized Crime Strike Forces, as well as supervision and review of complex undercover operations. Robert is a past chairman of the Committee on RICO, Forfeitures and Alternative Remedies of the American Bar Association Criminal Justice Section. For two decades, he was a lecturer at the University of Virginia School of Law, where he taught courses in advanced criminal law and labor racketeering and is currently a member of the faculty of the Georgetown University Law Center, where he teaches a course in Global Anti-Corruption. He has lectured at Harvard Law School, the Sorbonne and other universities.
