Sarah Paul, a former assistant U.S. attorney who is moving to Eversheds Sutherland. Courtesy photo

A veteran federal prosecutor in Manhattan who recovered hundreds of millions of dollars from Swiss banks has joined Eversheds Sutherland as a partner in white-collar criminal defense and tax matters.

Sarah Paul, who worked as the tax coordinator in the Southern District of New York U.S. Attorney's Office, will rejoin the private sector Tuesday as an Eversheds partner. In her nine years at the Southern District office, she litigated several high-profile cases including an ongoing case against four people tied to the Panama Papers.

Ron Zdrojeski, co-head of global litigation at Eversheds, said the firm has been trying to bolster its white-collar defense practice in New York when it learned that Paul was looking to make a move. He said colleagues of his, including tax controversy partner Jim Mastracchio, had crossed paths with Paul before while noting that her expertise in criminal tax matters was appealing.

“We had been working for some time in trying to identify someone of Sarah's caliber to join us,” Zdrojeski said. The process of hiring Paul “moved very quickly,” he added.

As a part of the Complex Frauds and Cybercrime Unit, Paul prosecuted a variety of white-collar cases over the years.  Paul, who stopping working at the U.S. Attorney's Office in late April, also worked on a major, ongoing case against four people linked to the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca who were charged with money-laundering and tax-evasion conspiracy and wire fraud. Mossack shut its doors after its clients' secret financial arrangements were leaked.

But some of Paul's most high-profile cases were against Swiss banks and financial institutions, many of which ended up cooperating despite the country's notorious bank-secrecy laws. She represented the government in its probe into Zurcher Kantonalbank, or ZKB, which initially told two indicted employees not to cooperate with prosecutors but later agreed to pay $98.5 million under a deferred prosecution agreement. The two indicted employees pleaded guilty.

A similar resolution was reached against Bank Julius Baer, which also saw two of its employees plead guilty. That bank paid more than a half-billion dollars as part of a deal with Paul and other U.S. prosecutors. She has also gone after individual bankers, lawyers, asset managers and multiple U.S. taxpayers across the country who dodged taxes using foreign bank accounts.

“I was looking for somewhere that had … a strong tax litigation practice, as well as a strong white-collar group,” Paul said. She said she also wanted to continue to work on cross-border issues, and “found all three” at Eversheds, a law firm formed by the 2017 union of U.K.-based Eversheds and U.S. firm Sutherland Asbill & Brennan,

She spoke with pride of her work on the Swiss bank cases. “In terms of deterrence … what we were able to do, piece by piece, in terms of breaking down bank secrecy, was huge,” she said.

Paul said she anticipated that she would soon be playing defense on the kind of cross-border cases she worked as a prosecutor, saying it is easier than ever for prosecutors in different countries to team up. She said IRS Criminal Investigations has been expanding “aggressively” after years of cuts, giving tax authorities the ability to prosecute more cases.

While she will continue to focus on tax litigation, rather than tax planning and advice, Paul added that she would likely take on criminal and civil cases in both U.S. Tax Court and federal district courts.

Zdrojeski said Paul will be working closely with Mastracchio and with Olga Greenberg, who is a leader of the firm's corporate crime and securities enforcement teams.

Before working in the U.S. Attorney's Office, Paul was an associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore and Spears & Imes.