The New York Times profiles defense lawyer and former Federal prosecutor Dan Gitner who just won the first insider trading case against the US government in a long time. It turns out that Shepard Fairey was previous client of Gitner’s and the high-priced, high-power lawyer took some of his payment in kind:
In Mr. Gitner’s recently renovated Midtown Manhattan office, fat case files line the floor and framed posters lean unhung against a wall.
One poster of the “Obey” design from Shepard Fairey came from the artist himself, after Mr. Gitner successfully kept him out of jail in 2012. Mr. Fairey was accused of destroying evidence relating to a civil case involving his use of an Associated Press photograph to create the “Hope” poster from Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.
“I got on the phone, and he was pleasant, but he was immediately trying to feel out every aspect of the situation,” Mr. Fairey recalled of their first interaction. “More or less, I felt like I was on the stand from the very beginning.”
The case, too, required Mr. Gitner and his team to sort through mountains of information — taking so much time, in fact, that Mr. Fairey bartered some of his original artwork to help ease his legal fees.
“It was very expensive for me to retain him,” Mr. Fairey said. “It was definitely worth it.”
Daniel Gitner, the Defender Who Ended Prosecutors’ Winning Streak in Trading Cases (NYTimes.com)
