Philip Khinda

Philip Khinda is one of the nation's leading securities lawyers, litigators, and advisers to public companies, corporate boards, special committees, and financial institutions dealing with corporate crises, shareholder and derivative litigation, and government and internal investigations.

Phil’s leadership of the CalPERS Special Review, its fee recovery of more than $200 million for the nation's largest state pension fund, and its public report on pay-to-play and public corruption issues are notable representative efforts. He has also successfully represented clients in many of the most significant securities matters over the last 25 years, including investigations and litigation involving Rite Aid, Enron, Adelphia, Global Crossing, Time Warner, Yahoo!, UBS, Credit Suisse, State Street Bank, Wells Fargo, and JPMorgan, among others, appearing before US and international securities regulators and prosecutors on their behalf. While Phil has served as successor and settlement counsel for a variety of clients, no corporation or individual that he has represented from the outset of an investigation has ever been sued by the SEC or indicted.

He maintains offices in Washington, D.C. and New York.

Internal Investigations and Governance Matters. In addition to CalPERS, Phil's other investigative engagements include his service as special counsel to the board of the Bank One funds (now JPMorgan), whose investment adviser was named in the New York Attorney General's first mutual fund market timing complaint, and the board of the AmSouth Funds, whose adviser was "Adviser A" in the SEC's landmark action against BISYS Fund Services and others for mutual fund marketing kickbacks. The vast majority of his other special counsel and board engagements remain, by their nature, confidential. However, his work on two matters, later made public, is now reflected in two business school case studies ("Doing the Right Thing" on the Bank One market timing matter, and a Columbia Business School case study on CalPERS).

White-Collar and Regulatory Defense. Phil regularly defends public companies and institutions, officers and directors, regulated entities, and others in matters before the SEC, federal and state prosecutors, and other regulatory authorities. He is well-known for the many government investigations and inquiries he has resolved for clients without any charges ever being filed, or any public disclosure of the government's interest ever being made. Those clients include a broad group of private equity firms, hedge funds, public companies, corporate executives, and public figures.

Diversity of Experience. Earlier in his career, Phil served with the SEC's Division of Enforcement and, earlier still, with Morgan Stanley & Company in New York. For the last 20 years, Phil has served as an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University, and published and taught on financial reporting and accounting, corporate governance, crisis management, securities regulation, and SEC enforcement matters. He is a frequent public speaker on these topics, and his work and legal commentary have been covered widely by the press, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Financial Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, Reuters, CNBC, and Bloomberg, among others.

Born in New York to parents of Indian and Swiss descent, Phil also actively supports diversity efforts and strongly supports pro bono initiatives. As publicly reported, he led a team of lawyers that investigated allegations of a "fight club" instigated by counselors at a summer camp jointly run by the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Washington and the Washington Metropolitan Police Department, and also represented and protected the victim in high-profile date rape proceedings at a prominent university.

Phil leads the firm's SEC enforcement practice. He also regularly advises domestic and overseas entities and individuals on emerging securities law issues. He is a member of the DC Bar's Global Legal Practice Task Force, and a former member of the Board of Trustees of the SEC Historical Society. He also serves as vice chair of the American Bar Association's Corporate Governance Committee, and as chair of its Ethics and Investigations Subcommittee. Securities Docket has named him to each of its "Enforcement 40" lists, its compilation of the 40 leading securities enforcement defense attorneys in the country, and The Best Lawyers in America has recognized him as one of the nation’s leading securities regulation attorneys. The National Law Journal also recently named him a “crisis leadership trailblazer” and among the nation’s very best crisis management practitioners.

Phil is also a fellow in the American College of Governance Counsel, and taught its Masters Class on internal investigations and special situations. He is a graduate of Columbia College and Columbia Law School.