Clayman Rosenberg Kirshner & Linder: The Half-Century White-Collar Boutique Built by One of New York’s First Prosecutor-Founders

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When Charles Clayman opened his practice nearly fifty years ago, a defense firm founded by a former federal prosecutor was a novelty — his was among the first in New York. Today Clayman Rosenberg Kirshner & Linder is one of the city’s oldest and most respected white-collar boutiques, a Chambers-ranked firm whose thirteen lawyers try securities fraud, corruption, and tax cases in courts nationwide, argued the first post-Skilling honest-services appeal before the Second Circuit, and operate on a structural rarity in modern law: every matter is handled as a firm, with the eat-what-you-kill model deliberately abolished.

At a Glance

Firm	Clayman Rosenberg Kirshner & Linder LLP (founded by Charles E. Clayman nearly five decades ago; Kirshner and Linder elevated to name partners October 2021)
Name Partners	Charles E. Clayman (chairman; former Assistant U.S. Attorney, E.D.N.Y.), Seth L. Rosenberg, Isabelle A. Kirshner (former Manhattan ADA, 1982–1986), Brian D. Linder (former Legal Aid Society Criminal Appeals Bureau; managing partner 2006–2026)
Office	Murray Hill, Midtown Manhattan (current street address via the firm’s site, clayro.com — see Methodology)
Focus	White-collar criminal defense and government investigations — securities, mail, wire, and bank fraud, tax evasion, insider trading, money laundering, FCPA, RICO, official corruption — plus state criminal litigation, regulatory matters, civil litigation, and appeals
Bench	Thirteen attorneys, many former federal and state prosecutors; all thirteen selected to the 2023 New York Super Lawyers or Rising Stars lists
Recognition	Ranked by Chambers USA among specialist white-collar and government-investigations firms
Fee Structure	Free consultation calls offered; engagement terms by consultation

Career History

Clayman founded the firm after serving as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Eastern District of New York, and has spent more than four decades defending individuals and corporations in matters spanning official corruption, RICO, FCPA violations, tax evasion, securities fraud, money laundering, health-care fraud, and cyber-currency crimes, with a nationally recognized niche in internet gambling law. Isabelle Kirshner prosecuted in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office from 1982 to 1986 — a class of ADAs that included the future Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and future Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance Jr. — joined the firm in 2005, and has since been appointed to the Southern District’s Criminal Justice Act Committee and Criminal Justice Advocacy Board, elected a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, and twice named to the Top 50 Women New York Metro Super Lawyers list. Brian Linder came from the Legal Aid Society’s Criminal Appeals Bureau in 1985, made partner in 1992, and ran the firm as managing partner for two decades through 2026; he appears in the 2026 Chambers USA guide. The bench beneath the name partners includes former prosecutors and federal law clerks, with recent Rising Stars honorees including Effie Blassberger, Thomas Dollar, and Eliel Talo.

Practice Concentration

The core is white-collar criminal defense and government investigations at the federal and state level — the full alphabet of financial crime, from insider trading and commercial bribery through OFAC sanctions violations, enterprise corruption, and obstruction — alongside internal corporate investigations and preventive compliance counseling. Around it sit genuine supporting practices: state criminal litigation (including serious non-financial matters), regulatory enforcement defense, commercial litigation, employment litigation, and a distinguished appellate arm that has argued novel questions before the Second Circuit and the New York Court of Appeals, including a right-to-counsel-of-choice issue at the state’s highest court. The firm’s collaborative structure — matters staffed and shared firm-wide rather than hoarded by originating partners — is unusual enough in this market that the firm’s own peers remark on it.

Track Record

The published record includes verifiable, named results: a full acquittal after trial for attorney Frank Esposito on official-misconduct-related charges; a thirty-day sentence with probation — and no sex-offender registration — for a client who had faced twenty-nine counts of second-degree unlawful surveillance in a high-profile Manhattan case; dismissal of federal bank fraud charges against an accountant at the prosecution’s own motion; a deferred prosecution persuaded out of the Queens DA’s Office in a sales-tax matter; a strict-liability misdemeanor disposition with no jail or probation for a pharmacist in federal court; and retention as sentencing counsel in the internationally covered Nikhil Gupta matter. The appellate landmark — the first post-Skilling honest-services appeal argued in the Second Circuit — is a matter of record. These outcomes are drawn from the firm’s published accounts and independent directory profiles; individual dispositions were not independently re-verified by this research. Past results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome in any future case.

Client Voice

White-collar clienteles do not leave Google reviews, and we say so plainly rather than fault the absence: this firm’s client record runs through Chambers’ confidential client research, where respondents describe an extremely high level of expertise, superior knowledge, high responsiveness, and trial lawyers characterized as formidable and fearless. Chambers’ attributed commentary on the individual partners is unusually warm — Clayman described as universally respected and highly effective, Kirshner as among the best trial lawyers in New York with a gift for making complex concepts understandable to juries. This research did not surface any public disciplinary findings against the firm’s partners.

Beyond the Courtroom

Kirshner’s appointments to the Southern District’s Criminal Justice Act Committee and Criminal Justice Advocacy Board are service to the federal indigent-defense system at the governance level, and Linder’s two decades of managing-partner service built the collaborative structure the firm is known for. The firm’s compliance and preventive-counseling work — helping institutions avoid criminal exposure before it exists — is the quiet, unglamorous half of white-collar practice.

Recognition

Sorting per our standard: the Chambers USA ranking rests on confidential client and peer research and sits at the top of our weighting for firms of this kind; Kirshner’s American College of Trial Lawyers fellowship is an elected peer honor of the first rank; the Super Lawyers selections — all thirteen attorneys in 2023, Kirshner’s consecutive Top 50 Women listings, and the Rising Stars designations — are peer-informed recognition from a commercial publication. A disclosure we apply to every New York profile: New York State does not operate a board certification program for legal specialties comparable to the Texas Board of Legal Specialization, so no New York attorney profile on this site will describe its subject as a state-certified specialist, and this profile attributes no certification to any attorney named here.

New York Legal Backdrop

White-collar matters run on a different procedural physics than street crime. Most begin long before arrest — with a grand jury subpoena, a target letter, or a regulator’s document request — and the decisive lawyering often happens entirely in that pre-charge window, where counsel can shape, narrow, or end an investigation the public never learns existed. When state charges do land, the same machinery governs as any New York prosecution: arraignment within roughly twenty-four hours, the CPL § 180.80 release clock on detained felony defendants (120 hours, or 144 spanning a weekend or holiday), CPL § 30.30 speedy-trial limits (six months on most felonies), automatic prosecution discovery obligations under CPL Article 245, and eventual sealing eligibility for up to two convictions after ten crime-free years under CPL § 160.59. Federal matters follow their own rules, where the Sentencing Guidelines’ loss tables make charge and forfeiture negotiations — not trial — the field on which most outcomes are decided. None of this is legal advice; consult a licensed New York attorney about your situation.

Awesome Attorneys Assessment

The case for CRK&L is institutional depth without institutional bloat: a Chambers-ranked, half-century-old boutique with prosecutorial DNA on both the federal and state sides, genuine trial and appellate capability including precedent-setting Second Circuit work, a thirteen-lawyer bench deep enough for parallel-proceeding matters, and a collaborative staffing model that means the client hires the firm, not a silo. For an executive, professional, or company facing a government investigation, this is the category’s most credentialed white-collar option.

The honest trade-offs, stated plainly: this is a white-collar specialist shop, not a volume arraignment practice — a defendant with a routine misdemeanor will find better economic fit elsewhere in this directory, and should ask candidly about minimum engagement scale. The firm publishes no consumer-review base, as disclosed above, so the ordinary-client experience must be assessed through consultation rather than crowd-sourced ratings. And its results are published as narrative highlights rather than a comprehensive dispositions ledger — standard for the specialty, but worth naming.

Methodology & Sourcing

This profile was researched and written independently by Awesome Attorneys in August 2026 without the participation, sponsorship, or payment of Clayman Rosenberg Kirshner & Linder LLP. Primary sources: the firm’s website (clayro.com), including attorney biographies, the white-collar practice page, and firm announcements (founding history and former-AUSA origin; Kirshner and Linder name-partner elevation effective October 1, 2021; Kirshner’s 1982–1986 Manhattan DA tenure and appointments; Linder’s Legal Aid background and 2006–2026 managing-partner tenure; published results including the Esposito acquittal, McAvoy sentencing, and Gupta retention). Independent verification: Chambers USA firm and department profiles (specialist white-collar ranking; client and peer commentary; five-decade history; the post-Skilling Second Circuit appeal and Court of Appeals argument); Super Lawyers firm profile (thirteen-attorney roster and practice designations); LinkedIn firm page (2023 all-attorney Super Lawyers selection; Rising Stars honorees); Alignable listing (Murray Hill location; free consultation calls). The precise street address is available via the firm’s site and should be confirmed at contact. Statutes cited in the New York Legal Backdrop were verified against the New York Criminal Procedure Law (§§ 30.30, 160.59, 180.80, and Article 245).

Publisher Disclosure & Independence Notice

Awesome Attorneys is an independent legal-directory publisher. This profile was not paid for by Clayman Rosenberg Kirshner & Linder LLP, and inclusion in our editorial coverage cannot be purchased. Our methodology and editorial standards are applied consistently across all firms we cover.