Who

Just got indicted for insider trading? You might want to make an appointment to see Gary Naftalis. A partner at the firm Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel, Naftalis is who many of the city's biggest white-collar criminals turn to in times of trouble.

Backstory

Newark-born Naftalis attended Rutgers before picking up a master's at Brown and attending law school at Columbia. After clerking for U.S. District Court Judge William Herlands, he headed off to the Virgin Islands as special assistant to the U.S. attorney, later returning to New York to serve as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District. He eventually rose to the position of deputy chief of the criminal division before departing for private practice at the now-defunct firm of Orans, Elsen, Polstein & Naftalis.

In the early '80s, Naftalis landed at Kramer Levin, burnishing his reputation working on some of the biggest cases of the era: Salomon Bros. chief John Gutfreund tapped him to represent the firm after it was charged with manipulating the market; Naftalis defended partners involved in the Drexel Burnham junk bond scandal; and he successfully defended a leading Saudi Arabian banker in the notorious BCCI case in the early '90s. Now more than three decades into his career, he's defended dozens of corporations and individuals accused of fraud, insider trading, and market manipulation.

Of note

Once dubbed "Zelig of the white-collar bar" by the Wall Street Journal for the role he's played in so many cases, in the past decade Nafalis has defended Disney CEO Michael Eisner (in connection with his dismissal of Michael Ovitz), Global Crossing founder Gary Winnick (who successfully ducked SEC charges), and Edward Stern, the son of Leonard Stern, who was caught up in a mutual fund trading scandal of 2003. (Naftalis arranged a $40 million settlement with then-Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.) In 2007, Naftalis was tapped by New York City's chief lawyer, Michael Cardozo, to defend the city in connection with the Deutsche Bank collapse. Naftalis defended former Refco chief Phillip Bennett on charges of criminal fraud after the company crumbled amid allegations that Bennett hid more than $700 million in debt. (Nafalis lost the case.) He also served as counsel to ex-NYSE director Ken Langone in connection with former NYSE chairman Richard Grasso's pay package.

Personal

Naftalis and his wife Donna live on Park Avenue, in the same apartment building as real estate queen Michele Kleier.

True story

It's not all shady financiers for Naftalis. He works with the occasional nightlife impresario, too. In the early '80s, he was one of Ian Schrager's lawyers in his Studio 54 tax evasion case.