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Profile Picture

David Debold

David
Debold

Partner

CONTACT INFO

ddebold@gibsondunn.com

TEL:+1 202.955.8551

FAX:+1 202.530.9682

Washington, D.C.

1050 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Washington, DC 20036-5306 USA

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PRACTICE

Appellate and Constitutional Law Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Anti-Corruption & FCPA Litigation Securities Litigation White Collar Defense and Investigations

BIOGRAPHY

​David Debold joined the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in 2003.  He practices in the Litigation Department, and is a member of the firm’s Appellate and Constitutional Law, Securities Litigation and White Collar Defense and Investigations Practice Groups.

Since joining the firm, Mr. Debold has represented numerous individuals and businesses in a wide variety of white collar, regulatory enforcement, and appellate matters.

Mr. Debold’s white collar and regulatory matters include:  major SEC enforcement actions and investigations involving accounting irregularities, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and books and records issues; large-scale corporate internal investigations for Fortune 50 companies (including independent investigations for audit committees of boards of directors); investigations and regulatory actions by FINRA and the PCAOB; and federal criminal investigations and prosecutions involving a number of federal offenses in the environmental, tax, mortgage loan fraud, securities fraud, stock options backdating, money laundering, and antitrust areas.

Mr. Debold’s appellate practice includes federal and state court appeals across a broad spectrum of civil and criminal issues; petitions for writs of certiorari filed in the United States Supreme Court in both civil and criminal cases; and merits appeals in the United States Supreme Court.  Mr. Debold’s appellate experience includes more than 85 oral arguments in the United States Courts of Appeals and the briefing of more than 200 appeals.

Representative matters handled by Mr. Debold include:

  • United States v. Conrad M. Black.  Mr. Debold co-wrote the successful petition for writ of certiorari and merits briefs that Gibson Dunn filed in the United States Supreme Court on behalf of media entrepreneur Conrad Black.  The Supreme Court unanimously reversed a court of appeals judgment that had upheld Mr. Black’s mail fraud and obstruction convictions.  Mr. Debold was lead counsel at Mr. Black’s resentencing on remand in Chicago, and he helped achieve a three-year sentence reduction for Mr. Black.
  • United States v. Paul S. Minor.  Mr. Debold represented Paul Minor, a highly successful lawyer in Mississippi, at his resentencing on honest-services fraud convictions.  Mr. Debold persuaded the trial judge to reduce Mr. Minor’s sentence by three years, even after the judge determined there had been no change in the applicable Sentencing Guidelines range.
  • FINRA Dept. of Enforcement v. Stephen H. Brinck.  Mr. Debold played a major role in defending the former head of the fixed income desk at a broker-dealer against fraud charges.  Following a 2-week evidentiary hearing in San Francisco and post-hearing briefing, the hearing panel cleared Mr. Brinck of the sole charge levied against him.
  • Comcast v. FCC.  Mr. Debold supervised the briefing among four law firms, as well as the oral argument preparation, in a successful petition to the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.  The Court, in rejecting an FCC regulation that limited the size of cable services providers, took the rare step of vacating the rule in its entirety rather than remanding for further proceedings.
  • United States v. McWane Pipe et al.  Mr. Debold took the lead in drafting appellate briefs in the Eleventh Circuit challenging several convictions under the Clean Water Act.  The Court reversed all convictions on all counts of all four defendants, and Mr. Debold and his colleagues successfully opposed the Solicitor General’s petition for Supreme Court review of the decision.
  • Mr. Debold successfully negotiated a non-prosecution agreement for a company that, at the time Gibson Dunn was hired, faced imminent indictment in Michigan for environmental crimes.  The agreement avoided prosecution of any individuals and dispensed with appointment of a monitor and other costly remediation measures initially proposed by the EPA.  Mr. Debold also successfully negotiated the termination of the 3-year agreement after only 6 months.
  • In appellate pro bono matters, Mr. Debold took over for a pro se defendant and won a rare remand from the court of appeals for an evidentiary hearing on his claim of racial discrimination in jury selection.  He also has taken the lead role in multiple amicus briefs for national criminal defense and immigration advocacy groups before the United States Supreme Court, including a 6-3 victory in Vartelas v. Holder (2012), which protected the travel rights of lawful permanent resident aliens.

Mr. Debold also has significant experience in advising companies on how to create or update their compliance programs to comply with requirements mandated by the United States Sentencing Commission and other authorities.  Mr. Debold was Special Counsel to the Sentencing Commission when the guidelines governing corporations took effect, and as Chair of the Commission’s Practitioners Advisory Group he has testified before the Commission on these and other issues related to the enforcement of federal criminal law.

Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Debold served as an Assistant United States Attorney in Detroit, Michigan, where he had a distinguished career in government service as a member of the office’s Criminal Trial and Appellate Divisions.  In his years as a trial lawyer for that office, he directed more than 100 grand jury investigations and brought to trial over a dozen felony cases, including a multi-million dollar construction loan fraud, a large-scale investment scam and the attempted murder of a federal agent.

Mr. Debold has lectured frequently at national conferences on criminal law and appellate issues.  He is chair of the United States Sentencing Commission’s Practitioners Advisory Group, which provides input from private practitioners on a variety of sentencing-related issues including proposed amendments to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines and legislative initiatives.  He is editor of the ABA’s two-volume treatise, “Practice Under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines,” a comprehensive sentencing resource.   He also has written numerous articles on developments in federal sentencing law at the Supreme Court level, as well as updates on Department of Justice policies in the investigation and prosecution of corporations and other organizations.  He has also been recognized by The Best Lawyers in America® 2023 publication in the categories of Securities Litigation and White-Collar Criminal Defense.

Mr. Debold graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1985, and served as a law clerk to the Honorable Cornelia G. Kennedy of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

EDUCATION

Harvard University - 1985 Juris Doctor

Wayne State College - 1982 Bachelor of Arts

ADMISSIONS

District of Columbia Bar

Michigan Bar

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Client Alert - January 3, 2023 | Penalty Relief Available: Recent Jurisprudence Offers the Opportunity for Significantly Lower Fines and Other Penalties in White Collar Resolutions with DOJ and Other Agencies
Client Alert - June 29, 2021 | Supreme Court Holds That Private Parties Can Sue States To Seize State Property Along Federally Approved Pipeline Routes
Webcasts - November 16, 2020 | Webcast: Corporate Compliance and Sentencing Guidelines
Firm News - August 15, 2019 | Gibson Dunn Lawyers Recognized in the Best Lawyers in America® 2020
Client Alert - March 9, 2017 | Corporate Social Responsibility Statements – Recent Litigation and Avoiding Pitfalls
Article - November 13, 2015 | WLF Overcriminalization Timeline: Proliferation of Criminal Laws/Sentencing Developments
Article - October 9, 2015 | The Supreme Court’s Johnson v. United States Ruling: A Vagueness Doctrine Revolution?
Client Alert - July 8, 2014 | 2014 Mid-Year Update on Corporate Non-Prosecution Agreements (NPAs) and Deferred Prosecution Agreements (DPAs)
Client Alert - January 7, 2014 | 2013 Year-End Update on Corporate Non-Prosecution Agreements (NPAs) and Deferred Prosecution Agreements (DPAs)
Client Alert - July 9, 2013 | 2013 Mid-Year Update on Corporate Deferred Prosecution Agreements (DPAs) and Non-Prosecution Agreements (NPAs)
Client Alert - July 1, 2013 | 2013 Guidelines Amendments: A Mixed Bag for White-Collar Defendants
Client Alert - April 23, 2013 | United States Sentencing Commission Adopts Greater Penalties for Fraud Offenses and Fixes Anomaly in Sentences for Tax Crimes
Client Alert - January 2, 2013 | Is Harris a Mandatory Minimums Ruling Whose Time Has Run Out?
Client Alert - October 31, 2012 | In the Wake of the Supreme Court’s Ruling, What’s Next for Southern Union?
Client Alert - September 26, 2012 | A Demise Greatly Exaggerated – Apprendi Is Extended to Criminal Fines
Client Alert - July 15, 2012 | Increased Fraud Penalties Are on the Horizon
Client Alert - April 18, 2012 | U.S. Sentencing Commission Approves Increased Penalties for Certain Fraud Offenses
Client Alert - December 15, 2011 | ‘Losing Ground’—In Search of a Remedy For The Overemphasis on Loss and Other Culbability Factors in the Sentencing Guidelines for Fraud and Theft
Client Alert - April 13, 2010 | U.S. Sentencing Commission Amends Requirements for an Effective Compliance and Ethics Program
Client Alert - May 19, 2009 | U.S. Supreme Court to Decide for the First Time the Limits on “Honest Services” Mail Fraud Prosecutions for Private-Sector Conduct
Client Alert - September 2, 2008 | Department of Justice’s New Policy on the Investigation of Companies Warrants Reassessment of Corporate Responses to Criminal Investigations
Client Alert - July 11, 2008 | Justice Department Makes Concessions In Corporate Prosecution Tactics To Forestall Attorney-Client Privilege Legislation
Client Alert - December 12, 2007 | Two Recent Supreme Court Decisions Emphasize the Significant Discretion of District Judges to Impose Sentences Outside of the Sentencing Guidelines Range
Client Alert - June 25, 2007 | Supreme Court Decision in Rita v. United States Resolves Role for Presumption of Reasonableness in Federal Sentencings
Client Alert - April 6, 2006 | The United States Sentencing Commission Votes to Eliminate Requirement That Corporations Waive Attorney-Client Privilege to Earn Credit for Cooperating with Government
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