Overview
Rick Halper is a principal in the New York office of McKool Smith. His practice includes white collar criminal defense, securities enforcement actions, securities and derivative litigation, antitrust litigation, consumer class actions, accounting malpractice and fraud actions, and complex commercial litigation. Prior to joining the firm, he was an associate at Davis Polk & Wardwell. He also served as a special assistant district attorney in Kings County, Brooklyn, New York, where he acted as lead prosecutor or co-counsel in several felony jury trials, including homicide, assault, robbery, weapons possession, and narcotics cases.
After law school, Rick clerked for the Honorable Charles S. Haight Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Rick has also participated in several pro bono activities, including assisting Holocaust survivors in completing applications for benefits under the German Ghetto Work Payment Program, volunteering for the Election Protection effort for the 2008 presidential election, contributing to a handbook for family members of deceased service personnel, and representing a defendant in his appeal of a criminal conviction.
J.D., cum laude, Harvard Law School, 1999
B.A., English and History, summa cum laude, Duke University, 1996
- Phi Beta Kappa
- Hon. Charles S. Haight Jr., U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York
- State of New York
- The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
- The U.S. District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York
- The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas
- The Association of the Bar of the City of New York
- Federal Bar Council