Shawn Crowley

Practice Areas

Appellate Litigation; Congressional Investigations; Cryptocurrency; Cybersecurity and Data Privacy; Employment, Discrimination and Sexual Misconduct; Education; FCPA and Anti-Corruption; Investigations and Crisis Management; National Security and International Law Enforcement; Public Interest Litigation; Regulatory Enforcement and Litigation; Securities Enforcement and Litigation; Trials; White Collar Criminal Defense

Career

Shawn G. Crowley, a highly accomplished trial lawyer and former federal prosecutor, has litigated and tried some of the country’s most influential and important cases.

Shawn has built an expansive white-collar practice at Hecker Fink, where she advises clients on federal, state, and regulatory investigations involving matters including alleged insider trading, securities and wire fraud, market manipulation, sanctions evasion, money laundering, and diversion of controlled substances. She has extensive experience conducting internal investigations for corporate executives and Boards of Directors, and she routinely represents universities in government investigations and regulatory inquiries.

Shawn has achieved significant and rare results for her clients, including obtaining the dismissal of federal bribery charges for a client indicted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), and convincing the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and other federal regulators not to pursue charges in numerous, unrelated investigations into individuals and companies.

Shawn also maintains a broad civil practice, advising clients in defamation, harassment and discrimination, and contractual and labor and employment disputes. Shawn was the co-lead trial counsel representing E. Jean Carroll in her sexual assault and defamation trials against Donald Trump, securing historic jury verdicts of $5 million and $83.3 million. Shawn also regularly represents survivors of sexual harassment and abuse, including former National Women’s Soccer League players who reported pervasive misconduct by their coaches, leading to significant changes within the league.

Before joining the firm, Shawn prosecuted and supervised a wide range of notable cases at the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. As Chief of the Narcotics Unit and, later, Chief of the Terrorism and International Narcotics Unit, Shawn supervised the first-ever felony charges against an opioid distributor, Rochester Drug Co-Operative, and its former chief executive officer and chief compliance officer, resulting in a trial conviction, imposition of a monitorship, and a $20 million fine; sanctions evasion, money laundering, and fraud charges against Türkiye Halk Bankasi A.Ş. or “Halkbank,” for its alleged participation in a multi-billion-collar Iranian sanctions-evasion scheme; the capital prosecution of Sayfullo Saipov for the alleged 2017 truck attack in Tribeca; and the coordinated narcotics-trafficking charges against five doctors and two other health care professionals for oxycodone diversion in 2018. Shawn also supervised the 2020 prosecution of the sitting president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, and other high-level Venezuelan officials, on charges of narco-terrorism and weapons offenses.

Shawn tried numerous cases as a prosecutor, as well, including those involving terrorism offenses, money laundering, opioid diversion, racketeering, murder, and narcotics trafficking. Shawn was one of the lead prosecutors in the successful trial of the so-called “Chelsea Bomber,” Ahmad Khan Rahimi, for perpetrating a terrorist attack bombing in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan in October 2016, and the successful trial of Akayed Ullah for his attempted suicide bombing in the Times Square subway station in 2017.

Shawn previously served as a Lecturer-in-Law at Columbia Law School, where she supervised externships for law students within the SDNY. She began her career as an associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP where she maintained a broad commercial litigation practice with a focus on matters involving violations of federal securities and antitrust laws, and served as a law clerk to the Honorable Lewis A. Kaplan of the SDNY.

Chambers USA ranks Shawn as one of New York’s top litigators in white collar crime and government investigations, with their sources describing her as “a superstar trial lawyer. She has a ton of experience and is incredibly smart.” Shawn has been named a “Rising Star” by the New York Law Journal and “Winning Litigators” finalist by The National Journal, and to City and State New York’s “NYC 40 Under 40,” Lawdragon’s “500 X – The Next Generation,” and Benchmark Litigation’s “40 & Under” lists. Her contributions to public service have been recognized with the Director’s Award for Superior Performance by a Litigative Team and the DOJ's Assistant Attorney General’s Award.

Shawn received her J.D. from Columbia Law School, where she was a James Kent Scholar, a Harlan Fisk Stone Scholar, the editor-in-chief of the Columbia Journal of Environmental Law, and a recipient of the Alfred S. Forsyth Prize for Excellence in Environmental Law. She received her B.A. from Northwestern University.