Morrison Cohen today announced that former federal prosecutor and senior SEC trial lawyer Richard Hong has joined as a partner in the firm’s Business Litigation Practice. Richard’s practice focuses on representing individuals and entities in the banking, financial, securities and digital assets industries in governmental investigations, civil enforcement actions and criminal prosecutions, as well as in other high-stakes litigations.
Richard was one of the most experienced trial lawyers in the SEC’s Division of Enforcement. In his 17-plus years of service at the SEC, in New York (as senior trial counsel) and Washington, DC (as assistant chief litigation counsel), Richard litigated virtually every type of federal securities violation brought by the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, including many that involved parallel criminal actions from various U.S. Attorney’s Offices/DOJ’s Fraud Section and state law enforcement authorities. He was awarded the SEC’s Chairman’s Award for Excellence as well as the Enforcement Division Director’s Award (12 times) for his work.
Richard litigated some of the highest profile and difficult post-financial crises cases, including the Bear Stearns and Fannie Mae subprime disclosure frauds. He also worked on accounting frauds, ADR sales practice violations, audit failures, breach of fiduciary duty/conflict-of-interest cases, CMBS bond trading frauds, cryptocurrency frauds, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations (involving a receivership), hedge fund frauds, insider trading, investment adviser frauds, market manipulations, offering frauds, a stop-order AP proceeding and subpoena enforcement matters.
He has tried 43 federal civil and criminal cases – 41 of them tried to jury – around the country. At the SEC, he tried several multi-week complex accounting/disclosure fraud cases before federal juries. Between 2019 and 2022, Richard tried two two-week federal jury trials in the Southern District of New York – tied for the most in the Enforcement Division during that period.
Prior to joining the SEC, Richard served as a federal prosecutor at Main Justice (DOJ) in Washington, DC and at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida (Miami), Economic Crimes Section, where he led numerous complex, white-collar grand jury investigations, including securities and bank frauds, and prosecuted environmental enforcement cases. As a criminal Assistant U.S. Attorney, Richard tried, as lead or another principal trial counsel, 35 cases, including multi-week bank, securities, mail and wire fraud and money laundering cases, to verdict in less than six years. He also worked on more than 15 criminal appeals as an appellate Assistant U.S. Attorney and argued eight times before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, including “first impression” federal sentencing issues. Richard was awarded, among other honors, the Attorney General’s John Marshall Award (DOJ’s highest award for attorneys).
A member of the faculty for the National Institute for Trial Advocacy (NITA), Richard regularly teaches trial advocacy courses to lawyers across the country. He is actively involved on several committees of the New York City Bar Association; in 2022, he was appointed chair of the Federal Courts Committee and is a member of the City Bar’s Working Group on Racial Equity in NY State Courts.
“Richard’s record as a widely acclaimed former federal prosecutor and senior SEC trial lawyer is very impressive. Our white collar litigation clients will benefit tremendously from his substantial experience on the other side of the bar, and we could not be more delighted and fortunate to have Richard join our firm,” said Danielle Lesser, partner and chair of the Business Litigation Practice.
