Sam Rosenthal

Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, which has taken steps this year to bulk up its Washington, D.C., presence, hired another partner in the nation's capital, nabbing former federal prosecutor and Justice Department official Sam Rosenthal from Squire Patton Boggs.

Continuing a string of lateral hires in 2017, Nelson Mullins announced Rosenthal's addition to the firm on Thursday. He joins as a partner in the firm's white-collar defense and government investigations team in Washington, but will also spend some of his time in New York, according to his Nelson Mullins online biography.

“We are thrilled to have Sam join the firm,” Solomon Wisenberg, co-chairman of Nelson Mullins' white-collar practice, said a statement. “He has tremendous experience in all aspects of white-collar litigation and will be a great asset to our clients.”

Although he comes to Nelson Mullins from Squire Patton Boggs, where he worked in the white-collar defense practice, Rosenthal's past experience also includes a stint as an assistant U.S. attorney in New Jersey and a high-ranking position in the Department of Justice's Criminal Division, where he served as chief of the appellate section. Nelson Mullins said on Thursday that throughout a more than 30-year career, Rosenthal has argued cases in all of the federal appeals courts in the United States.

In private practice, Rosenthal focuses on representing individuals and entities in a range of white-collar and regulatory issues, including bribery allegations under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and economic sanctions arising out of the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, according to Nelson Mullins.

Rosenthal touted Nelson Mullins' breadth and its efforts to provide top service to clients as part of his reason for making the move.

“Representing clients involved in government and internal investigations calls upon many different subject matters and areas of expertise. I am excited about joining a firm that has such broad and deep experience in so many areas,” he said.

Rosenthal's hire marks the latest increase in the ranks at Nelson Mullins, a firm that moved onto the Am Law 100 this year after landing in the second hundred in 2016. As of August—when The American Lawyer reported that Nelson Mullins had hired former Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo partner Bret Cohen as its co-chair of employment litigation—the firm had brought in 17 partners in 2017.

Those additions included two partners each in its Charlotte and Raleigh offices in North Carolina, and pairs of new partners in Atlanta, Boston and New York. The firm's traditional home base is in Columbia, South Carolina.

Nelson Mullins has also bulked up in Washington, adding partners Raymond Cotton, Thomas Ferrigno and Edward Rubinoff over the past several months. Cotton works in the firm's school and college law practice, while Ferrigno, a former chief counsel of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement division, focuses on securities matters. Rubinoff focuses on international trade law, including export controls and economic sanctions.

Timothy Fitzgibbon, managing partner of the Nelson Mullins' outpost in Washington, said Rosenthal's addition just adds to what he sees as an already impressive group of lawyers in the U.S. capital.

“Our office has a dynamic group of attorneys and policy advisers doing cutting-edge work every day,” Fitzgibbon said. “Sam is a welcome addition to our team, and his practice, as wells as all of ours, will benefit from this move.”