Gary Naftalis is a Litigation Partner and Co-Chairman of Kramer Levin Naftalis and Frankel in New York City. He specializes in representing corporations, as well as officers, directors, and significant individuals, in all phases of complex high-stakes civil, criminal, and regulatory matters.
Naftalis’ most notable work on behalf of clients includes his successful defense of Michael Eisner, the CEO of The Walt Disney Company, in the shareholder derivative lawsuit related to the hiring and termination of Michael Ovitz. After a 37-day trial in the Delaware Court of Chancery, Eisner and the other Disney directors prevailed on all counts. Naftalis also successfully secured dismissal for Kenneth Langone, chair of the New York Stock Exchange Compensation Committee, of all charges brought against him by then-Attorney General Eliot Spitzer relating to the compensation of NYSE Chairman Richard Grasso.
Other notable matters include the representation of the city of New York in the inquiry by the New York County District Attorney relating to the fire at the Deutsche Bank building at the World Trade Center, in which no charges were brought against the city or any of its agencies or its officials. Naftalis defended Rajat Gupta, the former managing director worldwide of McKinsey, in both a high-profile criminal insider trading trial and parallel SEC enforcement action, where he obtained a precedent-setting decision challenging the attempt by the SEC to utilize an administrative proceeding rather than go to court. He successfully defended Salomon Brothers in the federal criminal and SEC investigations of US Treasury auction bidding practices, and Kidder, Peabody in connection with the Wall Street insider trading scandal. In both instances, he persuaded the US government not to bring criminal charges.
The National Law Journal named Naftalis one of the “100 Most Influential Lawyers in America” the past two times it has compiled the list — in 2013 and in 2006. He received Lifetime Achievement Awards from The American Lawyer in 2023, the New York Law Journal in 2017 and Benchmark Litigation in 2014. In 2024, Gary was selected by Forbes in its inaugural list of America’s Top 200 Lawyers.
In 2015, he received the Milton Gould Award for Outstanding Oral Advocacy from the Office of the Appellate Defender. In 2012, he received the New York Council of Defense Lawyers Norman Ostrow Award in recognition of his white-collar defense achievements. Gary was awarded the Benemerenti Medal by Pope Benedict XVI in 2006. Gary is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. Prior to entering private practice, Gary was an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York from 1968 to 1974, where he was the Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division. He also served as special counsel to the U.S. Senate subcommittee investigating abuses in the nursing home industry.
He is the author or co-author of numerous books and articles, including the leading work on the grand jury system, The Grand Jury: An Institution on Trial (co-written with Judge Marvin E. Frankel).
Gary received his AB from Rutgers University where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, his MA from Brown University and his LLB from Columbia Law School where he was an Editor of the Columbia Law Review.
