Alumni Profile

Keith M. Fleischman ‘84

There are as many career trajectories as there are California Western alumni. However, few have traced as much legal territory or earned as much recognition and success in the litigation and trial of nationally consequential cases as Keith Fleischman, founding partner of Fleischman Bonner & Rocco, LLP.

From leading and prosecuting cases in the Bronx District Attorney’s Office, the U.S. Justice Department, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, to leading a national plaintiffs’ firm and founding a thriving Manhattan-based litigation boutique, Keith has carved out an amazingly prolific career and made a major impact in the class action and securities fraud arenas.

Keith says California Western played an important role in preparing him for success. The law school “was full of good and great professors who genuinely enjoyed the law. Their curiosity and motivation to push students to deeper exploration honed my own legal curiosity,” he says, adding that the program was truly rigorous and competitive. “There was always the prospect that you could be on the wrong side of the curve so you worked hard.”

“The good news,” he says with a touch of nostalgia, “was that San Diego was awesome and El Indio stayed open late.”

“ Law school trains your mind to think logically and critically. If you never practice law, you are still gaining a valuable tool and skill that can be applied—or not—to many life situations.”

-Keith M. Fleischman ‘84

As a prosecutor, Keith supervised international undercover operations involving counterfeiting, money laundering, and passport fraud. This included a two-year investigation resulting in one of the longest sentences ever obtained during the Savings and Loan Crisis. After leaving the government, he spent 11 years at the national plaintiffs’ firm Milberg Weiss, where he rose to Senior Managing Partner and established himself as one of the country’s premiere plaintiffs’ lawyers. During this period, Keith obtained an $81.3 million jury verdict as lead trial counsel on a federal securities fraud trial against a national (then Big Four) accounting firm. He also spent four years as co-lead counsel litigating and ultimately negotiating a $400 million settlement in a federal securities class action lawsuit – one of the largest such settlements of its kind at the time.

Keith’s practice presently focuses on the prosecution and defense of complex financial and commercial litigation. He has been an instructor at the Trial Practice Institute of the U.S. Justice Department and has lectured extensively on the investigation, litigation, and prevention of securities and financial fraud.

Keith’s life outside the courtroom and lecture hall has been just as active and prolific. An avid climber and skier, he recently treated himself to a 60th birthday present by climbing the Eiger in Switzerland and running the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim.

Keith says that while he’s “not a big advice giver,” he does have some thoughts for today’s students to consider. “Law school trains your mind to think logically and critically. If you never practice law, you are still gaining a valuable tool and skill that can be applied—or not—to many life situations.”

Keith concludes: “Experience is exponentially more valuable than a fancy legal degree from some fancy law school. California Western has the goods. I go with experience every time.”