Former federal prosecutor Patrick Stokes will join Gibson Dunn as a partner in the Washington, D.C. office.
Stokes most recently served as Senior Deputy Chief of the Fraud Section of the Criminal Division at the U.S. Department of Justice.
Within the last six years at the Department, he also served as Chief of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) Unit and Co-Chief of the Securities and Financial Fraud Unit.
At Gibson Dunn, Stokes will focus on litigation, white collar defense and investigations.
“Through his reputation and credentials and our personal experience, we know Patrick was one of the Department’s highest caliber lawyers,” said F. Joseph Warin, Co-Chair of the firm’s White Collar Defense and Investigations Practice Group. “With his background leading two of the highest profile units at the Department’s, we are confident that Patrick will be a very strong addition to our already deep bench of more than 50 former federal prosecutors. His addition will allow us to further distinguish the firm as the leading choice for clients facing their most significant enforcement matters.”
Stokes’s addition follows the recent arrivals of Stephanie Brooker, former Director of the Enforcement Division of the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), and Adam Smith, former Senior Advisor to the Director of the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
“Gibson Dunn has one of the best white collar defense practices in the world and a well-deserved reputation for excellence and collegiality,” said Stokes. “I am looking forward to working with such a distinguished group of lawyers to contribute to the firm’s continued success.”
Stokes, who has served at the Department since 2008, most recently served as Senior Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division, Fraud Section, where he oversaw investigations, prosecutions and resolutions in the FCPA Unit.
From 2014 to March 2016, Stokes was Chief of the FCPA Unit.
In this role, he managed the Department’s FCPA enforcement program and all criminal FCPA investigations and prosecutions nationally covering every significant business sector.
During his tenure, the FCPA Unit’s successes included 11 corporate FCPA resolutions with penalties of about $1.3 billion, including the largest criminal FCPA fine and two of the 10 largest criminal FCPA resolutions to date, and charges and convictions against more than two dozen individual defendants.
Stokes graduated in 1998 from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was an editorial board member of the Virginia Journal of Social Policy and the Law.