Linklaters' former US co-chief Larry Byrne is to join the New York Police Department (NYPD) later this year, where he will serve as a deputy to the city's police commissioner Bill Bratton.

Byrne is currently a partner in the white collar litigation and investigations group at law firm Pepper Hamilton, having moved to the firm with a five lawyer team in February 2013.

He is also a managing director of global risk management consultancy Freeh Group, which Pepper Hamilton acquired in 2012.

Byrne will also leave the Freeh Group when he joins the NYPD in September.

He headed up Linklaters' US litigation practice for four years from 2006 and became co-managing partner of the New York office for three years from 2007, as well as co-head of the global US practice from 2009 to 2011.

Between 1988 and 1994, he was a federal criminal prosecutor with the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York and the Criminal Division of the DoJ in Washington DC. His practice spans white-collar criminal, government regulatory and civil litigation matters.

Bratton, to whom Byrne will directly report, is one of the US' best known police commissioners, and was sworn in to lead the New York department at the beginning of this year. In recent years, Bratton has also been touted as a potential London police commissioner.

"Deputy commissioner Byrne brings over 25 years of legal expertise to the NYPD leadership team," said Bratton. "He not only brings a great wealth of knowledge ranging from white collar crimes to First Amendment and media litigation, but quite a proud family legacy as well."

In 1988, Byrne's 22-year-old brother Edward – a recently-graduated New York police officer – was shot and killed while guarding a witness in Queens.

Since then, Byrne has since served as a trustee of the Patrolman Edward Byrne Substance Abuse Foundation, set up with the goal of promoting drug education and rehabilitation, and other law enforcement efforts.