The Life and Career of Attorney David Kelley: Crime-Fighting Attorney

For a lawyer who didn't get into the game until the mid-1980s, David Kelley sure has taken his career to great heights. Launching his career in the government and continuing it in various government roles over a 20-year span, Kelley has developed a strong reputation as a hardworking fighter of crime and terrorism. More recently, he has transitioned to working in a firm as opposed to the government, proving that if you're a great attorney, you can go anywhere in the legal field.

With a background in law enforcement, Kelley decided to take his career to the next level by going to law school in the 1980s.

"I just think that going to law school was kind of a natural progression of my educational interests," says Kelley.

Kelley continued to work for the police department as well as the fire department in his hometown of East Hampton during law school. During this time, he was also a paralegal for the U.S. Attorney's Office under Rudy Giuliani. There, he made many professional contacts that would later serve to advance his career in government.

Kelley graduated from New York Law School in 1986 and began a clerkship with the Honorable T.F. Gilroy Daly of the United States District Court in the District of Connecticut. During the two years that he clerked for Daly, he found him to be "a tremendous mentor, and he had a large impact on the way [he did] things."

After his clerkship, Kelley was made an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. His familiarity with the environment and people, because of his prior job as a paralegal for the office, prepared him for the job and eased his interviewing process.

In keeping with his crime-fighting background, Kelley was named Chief of the Organized Crime and Terrorism Unit in 1995. In this position, Kelley led many successful investigations and prosecutions, including those pertaining to the millennium bombing plot, the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, and the 1998 bombings of the United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. He is also well known for personally prosecuting Ramzi Yousef, a planner of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. In November of 1997, Yousef was found guilty of masterminding the 1993 bombing, and in 1998, he was convicted of "seditious conspiracy" to bomb the towers.

Kelley and his fellow New Yorkers were shaken by the devastation of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001. Kelley was there that day, only four blocks from the Trade Center when the first plane hit.

"I was in my office, and I heard a large bang," says Kelley. When his office got word that it was a plane that hit the Trade Center, Kelley and the head of the FBI were directed to go to the site of the crash.

When he arrived, Kelley coordinated with the heads of the police and fire departments and other agencies. As Kelley and several others stood at the base of the north tower, they received news that another plane was en route.

"Within moments, we heard a large crash and a ball of fire shooting out of the south tower when the second plane hit," he says.

Things only got worse after that.

"In the course of trying to coordinate everything, the south tower came down while we were standing outside the north tower. I was reported dead by the head of the FBI, and I reported him dead. I crawled out of the rubble, got to a phone, and called the U.S. attorney and said, 'I made it, but I think Barry's dead.' She said, 'Well, actually, he's on the other line. He just called to tell me you're dead.'"

Soon after the disaster, Kelley was sent to Washington, DC, to meet with the attorney general and the FBI director. Because of his prior work related to organized crime and terrorism, on 9/11, Kelley was named co-chair of the Justice Department's national investigation of the attacks. During the investigation, Kelley prosecuted John Walker Lindh, the American who was captured fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan. Lindh is currently serving 20 years for his crimes against the U.S.

"I think we're making great strides [in the war on terror]," says Kelley. "Recognize that before 9/11, the determination was made that the government's approach to terrorism was going to be solely through our criminal justice system. It was the view of many of us that the approach was fine, but once you get to the criminal justice system, it usually means that something has already happened. We always thought that there ought to be other things going on to try to prevent that from getting as far along as the criminal justice system."

"The impetus for that wasn't until after 9/11, when we went from a criminal justice approach to more of a military response coupled with the very aggressive intelligence and diplomatic efforts and, of course, the criminal justice system," Kelley continues.

In 2002, Kelley moved on to be a deputy U.S. attorney and later became the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York in 2003. In these positions, Kelley continued to work on legal work from 9/11.

At the same time, during the years of the Enron prosecutions, Kelley began to focus on white-collar-crime cases. Kelley is notable for prosecuting Martha Stewart for insider trading, sending her to jail in 2004. He and his team were involved in investigations of WorldCom and Adelphia Communications, among many others. Kelley also led the development of an international narcotics unit whose aim was to bring down drug lords before they made it to the U.S.
 

Q. What do you do for fun?

A. I golf, fish, mountain climb, and do a lot of hiking. I do a lot of outdoor stuff—a lot of swimming.

Q. What CD is in your CD player right now?

A. Part one of The Messiah.

Q. What is the last magazine you read?

A. Golf Digest.

Q. What is your favorite TV show?

A. I don't watch TV. But the last movie I liked quite a bit was The Waitress.

Q. Who is your role model?

A. Atticus Finch.

Kelley joined the New York firm Cahill, Gordon & Reindel as a partner in 2005 and has remained there ever since. Last year, Kelley was approached by former Governor of New York George Pataki to serve as special counsel in the Hevesi matter. On the eve of the election, allegations about New York's comptroller, Alan Hevesi, arose after a report was issued by the New York State Ethics Commission. Kelley was assigned to analyze the allegations to conclude if the governor would petition for the removal of Hevesi.

These days, Kelley predominantly handles corporate governance and investigations, as well as crisis advisory group and civil litigation matters.

"Right now, I've got a ton of stuff going on. When I first came to Cahill, I wanted a very diverse practice, and that is exactly what panned out," says Kelley.

"I started out going in the law enforcement direction, so the fact that I became a prosecutor was consistent with that, but really what a lawyer is at base is a problem solver. I wanted to have a very diverse practice; I didn't want to be pigeonholed into one area for fear that I'd be boring. My career in the government was extremely rewarding, exciting, and interesting, but I did that for close to 20 years. This was a great opportunity to do something else."

Kelley has had a rewarding and rich career entrenched in many areas of the law, yet his advice to future lawyers is quite simple:

"Follow your heart. Don't do something because it looks good or you think it's cool or you think other people will be impressed. Do it because you really think that's what you want to do. Be true to yourself."