Alexander H. Southwell is Of Counsel in Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s New York office.  He is a member of the firm’s White-Collar Defense & Investigations, Crisis Management, Securities Litigation, and Intellectual Property Practice Groups.  Mr. Southwell also serves on the firm’s Diversity Committee and the Electronic Data Discovery Initiative Steering Committee.

Mr. Southwell has represented various corporate and individual clients in connection with white-collar criminal investigations by federal and state prosecutors as well as related civil investigations by various regulators.  He also has significant experience in conducting internal corporate investigations and compliance monitoring.  These matters have focused in the areas of securities fraud, tax fraud, health care fraud, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and public corruption, among others.  Additionally, Mr. Southwell counsels a variety of technology-focused clients on privacy, information technology, and network security issues.

Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Southwell served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York from 2001 through 2007.  As a member of that office's Securities and Commodities Fraud Task Force for three years, Mr. Southwell investigated and prosecuted a wide range of cases under the federal securities laws, including accounting fraud, insider trading, fraudulent offering of securities, market manipulation, and hedge fund improprieties.  Among his significant investigations and prosecutions, Mr. Southwell handled the successful prosecution of the former CEO and Chairman of Board of Directors, President and COO, CFO, and other executives in a $260 million accounting fraud at a publicly-traded medical diagnostics company, including a three-week trial; led the successful prosecution of a securities attorney and others in a “pump-and-dump” scheme involving small cap stocks traded on the Over-the-Counter Bulletin Board, including a two-week trial; and successfully prosecuted a former renowned market forecaster and commodities trader for a $700 million “Ponzi” scheme.  Mr. Southwell also focused on investigating and prosecuting computer hacking and intrusion cases and intellectual property offenses, as well as other high-technology offenses.  Additionally, Mr. Southwell prosecuted a range of cases including wire and mail frauds, insurance fraud, public corruption, Foreign Corrupt Practice Act violations, bank secrecy act violations, identity theft, firearms crimes, tax offenses, child exploitation, and immigration crimes.  As a federal prosecutor, Mr. Southwell tried a dozen felony cases and handled over a dozen appeals before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. 

Mr. Southwell is also an Adjunct Professor of Law at Fordham University School of Law where he teaches a seminar on cyber-crimes, covering computer misuse crimes, intellectual property offenses, the Fourth Amendment in cyber-space, computer evidence at trial, data breach and privacy issues, and information security, among other areas.  

Mr. Southwell earned his undergraduate degree, magna cum laude, from Princeton University and his Juris Doctor, magna cum laude, from New York University School of Law.  Following law school, Mr. Southwell was a Law Clerk for the Honorable Naomi Reice Buchwald of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Please click below for detailed profiles on specific areas of Mr. Southwell’s practice.

White Collar and Securities Fraud Profile