WhiteCollarProRobertFrenchmanOnHisMoveToDynamis
By Daniel Connolly
Law360 (June 6, 2024, 3:41 PM EDT) -- Longtime white collar defense lawyer Robert S. Frenchman is adjusting to a new role at boutique law firm Dynamis LLP, the latest move in a long career that has focused on a niche clientele: financial traders accused of crimes.
Last week Frenchman announced he's joining Dynamis, which was launched last year by Eric Rosen, a former federal prosecutor who had prosecuted the "Varsity Blues" college admissions case, and Constantine Economides, who was on a team that helped recover money for victims of the Bernie Madoff fraud scheme.
Frenchman joined Dynamis from Mukasey Frenchman LLP, a boutique he co-founded with former federal prosecutor Marc Mukasey in 2019.
"We had a very successful run, working together for more than 15 years. We've gone our separate ways, but the separation has been completely amicable," Frenchman told Law360 Pulse.
Now 56, Frenchman grew up in Westchester County, just north of New York City, earned an undergraduate degree at Bowdoin College in Maine and graduated from Tulane University Law School.
He worked at various firms including Solomon Zauderer Ellenhorn Frischer & Sharp, the firm now known as Milbank LLP, the firm now known as Bracewell LLP, and Greenberg Traurig LLP, which he left to form Mukasey Frenchman.
Among Frenchman's cases is the defense of Andre Flotron, a UBS trader who was accused of attempting to manipulate the precious metals futures markets. A jury acquitted Flotron in 2018.
Robert S. Frenchman
Frenchman was also part of the legal team representing Michael Gramins, a trader with Nomura who was accused of tricking bond buyers on pricing. The much-litigated case resulted in a light sentence for Gramins: After a jury acquitted him on several counts but convicted him on one count in 2017, a judge sentenced him to six months home confinement, plus probation. This April, the government moved to dismiss all remaining unresolved counts against Gramins.
Frenchman talked with Law360 Pulse about his career so far, his approach to white collar cases and how financial traders think. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What motivated you to become a lawyer?
It really aligned with my skill set. I enjoy language and persuasive writing, and I am naturally argumentative. I enjoy defending people, especially when they are threatened by the government, and I don't have to do math.
What was your first exposure to financial services world?
It's been a part of my practice since I started. I've been at firms with broker-dealer clients from the beginning, and it's a world that I really understand well. And I've been immersed in it for decades now.
You can't fake it. It's a different world, and you have to be immersed in it to represent financial services clients effectively.
For whatever reason, I have been representing traders throughout my career, from equities to bonds, to mortgage-backed securities to foreign currencies to precious metals, to swaps, and so on.
It's fair to say that I speak the language of Wall Street traders.
And you'll see in the cases I highlight in my bio: Gramins was a mortgage backed securities trader. Flotron was a gold trader. That's been a real theme throughout my career.
This might sound obvious, but how do traders think?
Analytically. And they are super-smart. They make really good witnesses because they speak directly and to the point.
But yes, they do think differently from lawyers. They don't think in elegant prose. They think analytically.
What's something people don't know about white collar defense and what it's like to do that?
It isn't just fighting over money. The stakes are very high. Typically, a person's liberty and livelihood are on the line. That's the biggest difference.
How does that affect your experience of working with clients on these cases?
The clients are an integral part of these representations. And they really are part of the team. And again, that's a little different from big civil cases where you have a big corporate client.
When we're gearing up for trial, the client is in our office every day.
If it's a trader, we're learning the markets, we're learning the behavior, we're learning the terminology, we're learning the players. You just can't do that without the client. The client is just such an important part of the team.
What
led you to join Dynamis?
I have been working with [Dynamis partner Eric Rosen] on a case in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. We're representing a crypto defendant [Tyler Marx, who has pled not guilty].
We were both representing the defendant from different firms, we hit it off right away, and it developed from there. Knowing Eric, and liking Eric Rosen, made the decision much, much easier.
Apart from the pre-existing relationship, I wanted to join a boutique because the boutique format works so well for my practice. White collar defendants need small and focused teams of dedicated specialists, not massive general practice firms that cater primarily to large corporations.
How do you feel about joining the new firm?
Very excited. Very excited. It's a really strong group of young lawyers, it's entrepreneurial, it's lean, and it's growing fast.