Richard Ben-Veniste

Richard Ben-Veniste is one of world’s most distinguished lawyers in both the public and private sectors. He is currently a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of the international law firm Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw and has been a key figure in some of the nation’s most significant governmental activities at the intersection of law and politics. Ben-Veniste knows the government’s power and world influence better than most. Exclusively represented by Leading Authorities speakers bureau, he is known for his pointed questions and criticisms of government officials and offers bold and stimulating ideas through his lens of experience, expertise, and insight.

Government and Litigation. Richard first achieved national prominence during the mid-1970s, when he served as a lead prosecutor on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force. From 1995–1996, he acted as chief counsel (minority) of the Senate Whitewater Committee; from 1976–1977, he was special outside counsel for the Senate Subcommittee on Governmental Operations; and from 1973–1975, he held the position of chief of the Watergate Special Prosecutor’s Watergate Task Force.

In 2002, Ben-Veniste was appointed to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the United States, and from 2003–2004, he served as one of 10 commissioners on the bipartisan 9/11 Commission. In 2009, he served on a task force created by the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security to assess the national alert system and make recommendations for improvement. Ben-Veniste is also a presidential appointee to the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group.

In Pursuit of Truth, Justice. While in private practice and as the chief of the special prosecutions section of the Southern District of New York’s U.S. Attorney’s Office, Ben-Veniste developed expertise in areas like white collar crime, fraud, corruption, organized crime, labor racketeering, tax evasion, antitrust, and more. Additionally, he has been involved in a wide range of civil matters involving class action securities fraud, RICO, congressional investigations, Lanham Act, breach of contract, licensing and intellectual properties, civil rights, partnership disputes, and trade secrets.

A Multimedia Litigator. Ben-Veniste is the author of The Emperor’s New Clothes: Exposing the Truth from Whitewater to 9/11 and Stonewall: The Real Story of the Watergate Prosecution and has been a guest lecturer at numerous law schools, including Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Georgetown, and Fordham. During the Congressional hearings on the Iran-Contra affair, he was NBC’s on-air legal consultant. He has also appeared more than 200 times on television and radio programs on every network.

Ben-Veniste has been listed in Who’s Who in America since 1975, The Best Lawyers in America since 1983, and Washingtonian’s “Top Lawyers” in Washington, D.C., since 1992, when the list first appeared. He received his JD from Columbia Law School, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone scholar. Following his graduation from Columbia, he was the recipient of a Ford Foundation fellowship at Northwestern University Law School, where he earned his LLM.