A partner in the Litigation Department, Michele Hirshman focuses her practice on white collar defense and regulatory enforcement matters and internal investigations. Since joining Paul, Weiss in 2007, she has represented numerous individuals and public and privately held companies before the Department of Justice, the Securities & Exchange Commission, the offices of the New York and Massachusetts Attorneys General and other state and local law enforcement and regulatory authorities. Among her significant individual clients are former New York Attorney General and Governor Eliot Spitzer, the founder and former chief operating officer of a public company in connection with an options backdating investigation, a former television executive producer, and the former general counsel of a global financial institution. She has also advised pharmaceutical manufacturers, financial institutions, marketing companies and political organizations in high profile, high stakes federal and state criminal and civil regulatory investigations.

Prior to joining Paul Weiss, Ms. Hirshman served for eight years as first deputy attorney general for the State of New York and for eleven years as a federal prosecutor in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, where she was the deputy chief appellate attorney and chief of the General Crimes and Public Corruption Units. She has significant jury trial and appellate court experience, and received the John Marshall Award for Outstanding Legal Achievement from the U.S. Department of Justice. Ms. Hirshman has been chosen by her peers for The Best Lawyers in America in the specialty area of White Collar Criminal Defense for the past two years. Ms. Hirshman regularly speaks at conferences and on panels advising other practitioners in the field.

Ms. Hirshman chairs the firm's Public Matters Committee, which is responsible for pro bono and community service activities, and works on a broad range of criminal and civil pro bono cases with young lawyers at the firm. She is a member of the Boards of Directors of The Legal Aid Society and the City Bar Justice Center.

Ms. Hirshman was articles editor of the Yale Law Journal.