David Pressman David Pressman

David Pressman, a former U.S. diplomat based at the United Nations, has left Boies Schiller Flexner for Jenner & Block's New York office, bringing with him a practice representing entities in international disputes and investigations and parties in national security-related litigation.

As the U.N. ambassador for special political affairs, Pressman represented the U.S. at the UN Security Council from September 2014 to January 2017. He was also the founding executive director of George and Amal Clooney's foundation that highlights human rights abuses overseas, the Clooney Foundation for Justice.

Boies Schiller has seen an exodus of at least 32 partners within the past six months, some of them driven by frustrations over the firm's compensation system and the publicity surrounding founder David Boies' representation of Harvey Weinstein and Theranos. Amid the departures, the firm has also made a small handful of additions, including a Barclays executive in January and a pair of federal prosecutors whose arrival the firm announced Monday: Lauren Bell, the senior counsel to the head of the U.S. The Justice Department's criminal division, and John Kucera, a federal prosecutor in California.

Pressman said his reasons for leaving are all about the promises Jenner embodies.

"I'm really attracted to what these guys are building and what they have," said Pressman, who took note of the London office Jenner opened in 2015 as well as his former role as an ambassador. "I really think that the combination of that background and that work with Jenner's ambition internationally, Jenner's values domestically, really excites me."

Pressman is joining as a partner in Jenner's complex commercial litigation practice group and its government controversies and public policy litigation practice group starting Monday.

His clients include global entities grappling with complex issues but also individuals who find themselves in the national or international spotlight. He is representing the family of Quinn Lucas Schansman, the sole American killed when the Malaysian plane he was on was shot down over Ukraine in 2014. Schansman's family is suing two Russian banks and two U.S. money-transfer companies for allegedly funding the group that shot down MH17.

Pressman's move to Jenner reunites him with Lee Wolosky and Dawn Smalls, who departed from Boies Schiller in February and took with them an independent monitorship of Deutsche Bank. Both Pressman and Wolosky are representing the Schansman family in the litigation.

"I hope to be working with them and the full bench of really remarkable people Jenner has," Pressman said.

Pressman also represented Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman in his congressional testimony about the Trump-Ukraine scandal, as well as a pair of Americans who were detained in China. He has also handled legal work involving the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States and the Office of Foreign Assets Control, the U.S. Treasury Department agency that levels and enforces U.S. financial sanctions.

"You can draw a straight line to the work I've done in government, and I think that has served my clients well," said Pressman, who has also previously served as the assistant secretary of Homeland Security.

Pressman's decision to join Jenner comes as the firm is on a hiring spree of former government lawyers. In late April, Jenner announced the July 1 return of Andrew Weissmann, a top member of Robert Mueller's special counsel team; he will co-chair the firm's investigations, compliance and defense practice. Earlier this month, the firm brought on Jennifer Amerkhail, a former Federal Energy Regulation Commission lawyer.

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