Daniel Levy brings disciplined strategy and a prosecutor's instinct for how a case will play out, qualities that have made him a leading lawyer in litigation and white-collar defense. A former prosecutor, he built his reputation in white-collar defense by handling a broad range of high-profile cases — from art fraud and cross-border disputes to bank monitorships, sensitive investigations, and a host of criminal trials. Check out the Q&A below to learn more about this litigation standout and why clients come to Dan for their most important white-collar matters.
In the Q&A below, Daniel talks about the hands-on work behind his cases, his take on jury selection, and what it actually takes to earn a client's trust.
What are your key traits that help you deliver results for clients?
I give clients genuinely high-touch service. That means I do the back-breaking work myself — drafting the pleadings, the briefs, the key documents — and it means I build an encyclopedic knowledge of the case over time, which is often what makes the difference. I'm not the lawyer who just parachutes in as trial approaches.
What's one piece of conventional wisdom in your practice area that you think is flat wrong, and what do you do instead?
The conventional wisdom is that you don't put lawyers on juries, because they'll second-guess trial counsel. I reject that. Lawyers can make great jurors. As a prosecutor, I put the wife of one of the most prominent New York City criminal defense lawyers on a jury, and she had no problem convicting. Why? Our case was predicated on cooperator testimony, and her husband frequently represented cooperators. She knew that if that testimony was corroborated, it could be relied on to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
How do you build trust with clients?
Building trust requires, of course, situating a dispute in its broader context and having the legal acumen to understand how to prevail. But it also requires making sure clients can actually follow the advice we give. For example, advice that's too complicated to follow is worth zero. That requires emotional intelligence: being able to assess how a client digests information, weighs risk, and decides which risks to accept is as important as providing the right advice.
