Charles McKenna

Charles McKenna, an adviser to Gov. Chris Christie for several years and a career prosecutor before that, has joined the white collar criminal practice at Riker Danzig Scherer Hyland & Perretti in Morristown.

For McKenna, who came on Monday as a partner, it is a return to private legal practice after many years of serving as a government lawyer and policymaker.

"It was the legal aspect of those positions that I enjoyed, and I missed being in court," McKenna told the Law Journal in a phone interview. He looked into some law firm jobs when leaving government last year before ultimately going in another direction.

"I was looking for a firm who needed a very specific skill set," he said. "I didn't want to just plug into a place. … It's important to fit in."

For Riker Danzig, the hire helps fill a void left by former practice chair Zahid Quraishi, an ex-prosecutor himself who had been at the firm since 2013—and who earlier this year was appointed to serve as a U.S. magistrate judge.

In McKenna's most recent public sector job, he spent four years as CEO of the state Schools Development Authority, remaining until August 2018 as a Christie administration holdover.

The authority around that time would come under public scrutiny because of sexual assault allegations against its then-chief of staff, though McKenna, a self-described "outsider" in Gov. Phil Murphy's administration at that time, has said he was unaware of the nature of the allegations until after he left.

Before joining Riker Danzig, McKenna spent 15 months as general counsel and managing director of Renaissance Associates, an investigative and forensics firm based in Livingston.

McKenna previously held other Christie administration jobs, including chief counsel to the governor, and spent 19 years in the U.S. Attorney's Office in New Jersey, including as executive assistant U.S. attorney during Christie's leadership of that office.

McKenna now joins a practice headed by firm partner Samuel Moulthrop, a Riker Danzig attorney since leaving the U.S. Attorney's Office in 1989. Moulthrop had been white collar practice chair before Quraishi took over early in 2019, and he retook the chair role after Quraishi left to become a judge in June. The practice, in addition to Moulthrop, has a full-time of counsel and full-time associate.

"We were conducting a search" to replace Quraishi, Moulthrop said by phone, and "that effort eventually led to Charlie."

McKenna since August 2018 has been with Renaissance Associates. The firm during that time was retained by Riker Danzig to do work for one of its clients. At some point, Moulthrop suggested that McKenna join the law firm. McKenna knew Moulthrop from years earlier, though they never overlapped at the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Renaissance now will be the sole client McKenna brings to Riker Danzig—he'll continue to advise Renaissance as outside general counsel—though he hopes, and Moulthrop expects, that he'll begin originating business before long.

"The ability to be entrepreneurial, after so many years of being unable to be entrepreneurial, is something I look forward to," McKenna said.

Moulthrop said of the firm's white collar practice, "we already have a substantial workload that he'll help with, which will be a huge relief because we've been down a partner" in Quraishi, as well as having lost another attorney, Ryan O'Neill, to the U.S. Attorney's Office last year.

Moulthrop noted that, in his experience, former prosecutors have generally developed well into rainmakers.

McKenna, a Queens, New York, native who spent some time in a custodial job after high school before going to college and law school, cited his job as Schools Development Authority CEO as a particularly rewarding one.

"From a janitor to the guy who builds the schools was [going] full-circle for me," he said, noting the job's "ability to provide educational facilities for kids who need them the most," and citing the rebuilding of Trenton Central High School as one major project undertaken during his tenure.

It was shortly after leaving the authority that McKenna's name made some headlines. He was among those called to testify before a legislative panel investigating the case of Albert J. Alvarez, the authority chief of staff who is accused of sexually assaulting Katie Brennan, chief of staff at the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency, when the two were both working on Murphy's gubernatorial campaign prior to the election. Alvarez has denied the allegations.

Much of the panel's work centered on identifying who hired Alvarez to a job in the Murphy administration at the same time Brennan was trying to have the allegations addressed. In an October 2018 hearing, McKenna told panel members that he was directed by the Murphy administration to hire Alvarez to the Schools Development Authority, and later was directed to inform Alvarez that he would need to leave the authority—which he did, though without ever being informed of the reasons, according to reports.

In his interview with the Law Journal, McKenna said, "I thought nothing of it until I got a call from a someone in the [Murphy] administration that I would get a call from the Wall Street Journal," which first broke news of Brennan's allegations against Alvarez.

"I wasn't part of the Murphy administration circle" in 2018, he said. "They weren't going to bring me into their tent. … I didn't think it was my place."

McKenna, though, said he understood it was his responsibility to go before the legislative panel.

"When you work in these jobs, you work for the electorate of the state, and when a problem comes up, you should be held accountable," McKenna said. "That comes with the territory."

In Riker Danzig's white collar practice, McKenna will in a way return to his pedigree as a criminal practitioner. Admitted in 1986, he spent six years in private practice at Pryor Cashman in New York, handling copyright and entertainment law cases, before joining the U.S. Attorney's Office in New Jersey—then under the leadership of Michael Chertoff—in order to get some trial experience. He expected to spend roughly three years in the office, but, "I ultimately found criminal law far more entertaining than entertainment law," he said.

Among what he described as his "signature" prosecutions was that of a group of animal-rights activists charged with harassing associates of pharmaceutical company Huntington Life Sciences. McKenna tried the the case, obtaining convictions, before Judge Anne Thompson in 2006.

McKenna recalled being one of the U.S. Attorney's Office mainstays who was "unsure" about Christie when Christie took over the office in 2002 with no prosecutorial experience. "We built a rapport," he said of Christie, who "knew what he didn't know … and became a student of criminal law."

McKenna twice served as Criminal Division chief at the office: once under U.S. Attorney Robert Cleary, and then again under Christie.

Christie lured McKenna to state government after being elected governor. McKenna's first job in the administration was as director of the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security & Preparedness.

McKenna then became chief counsel to Christie for two years. In that role, he got to know Christopher Porrino, who at the time was Division of Law director.

Porrino, currently with Lowenstein Sandler, called McKenna "a very skilled trial lawyer" and a "white collar criminal expert who also has relevant business experience, having done a number of other jobs."

"He's going to be very effective in private practice," said Porrino, who would succeed McKenna as chief counsel and later become attorney general. "People know, respect and trust Charlie McKenna."

McKenna said of Riker Danzig's white collar practice, "I'd like to see it grow, but I think it's a great core … and hopefully I can add to that."