Michael L Spafford

Practice Areas

Michael Spafford is a partner in the Investigations and White Collar Defense practice of Paul Hastings and is based in the firm’s Washington, D.C. office.

Mr. Spafford’s practice focuses on white-collar criminal defense, government investigations, regulatory enforcement, internal investigations, and related litigation. He has represented financial institutions, funds, committees of boards of directors, and a variety of other companies, as well as individual clients in numerous high-profile government investigations and parallel litigation involving alleged violations of the federal securities, commodities and banking laws, price fixing and collusion, fraud and manipulation, tax, accounting and trading offenses, and the False Claims Act. Mr. Spafford frequently represents clients before the DOJ, SEC, CFTC, FERC, FTC, and other federal, state, and local government authorities.

Mr. Spafford has extensive experience with matters involving complex financial products and commodities, including derivatives and Fintech, and related enforcement inquiries, internal investigations and commercial litigation.

Mr. Spafford serves as the Chair of the ABA Business Law Section Committee on Derivatives and Futures Law. He previously served as the Chair of the ABA Subcommittee on Innovative Digitized Products and Processes, including virtual currencies and block chain, and co-authored the ABA White Paper, “Digital and Digitized Assets: Federal and State Jurisdictional Issues.”