David Shapiro

Partner

(510) 906-4906 | dshapiro@nortonlaw.com | VCF

David Shapiro, a former federal prosecutor and the former United States Attorney in San Francisco, handles significant criminal and civil matters. 

Since 2008, David has been one of the leading critics of the so-called “right to control” theory of fraud (approved in the Second and other Circuit Courts of Appeal), fighting that theory for fifteen years, filing petitions for certiorari and amicus briefs, on behalf of his client, Michael Binday, and others, in his effort to convince the Supreme Court to reject the theory.   David was one of the first lawyers in the United States to challenge the theory, arguing that it was a judicially created crime that was overbroad, violative of due process, and inconsistent with the Supreme Court’s decision in 1987 in McNally v. United States.

Finally, in 2023, the Supreme Court in Ciminelli v. United States, the Supreme Court struck down the right to control fraud in a unanimous opinion, adopting many of the arguments David had made for years.  Despite that ruling, the government has crafted new iterations of the theory, all in an effort to gain back the advantages it had over individuals for many years, by using a legal theory that reduced the elements of federal fraud to just one: a false statement. David continues the legal fight to protect individuals from overreaching prosecutors.

David regularly represents individuals in response to subpoenas from federal grand juries and the Securities and Exchange Commission.  He has successfully negotiated for immunity for clients, even those who believe they have done nothing wrong, because the Fifth Amendment protects innocent people, too.  David has also convinced the government not to bring criminal or civil cases against his clients.  In his white-collar defense work, he successfully convinced the government not to the vice-chairman of a Fortune 100 company for alleged FCPA violations in Europe, a CFO of a large public company for alleged accounting fraud, and a Fortune 500 company for alleged FCPA violations in China. He regularly represents hedge funds and short-biased analysts in responding to government requests for information, filing whistleblower complaints, and litigating subpoenas.

In addition to his individual representations, David has also represented corporations, such as American Express, Tyco International, Qwest Communications, Copper River Management, and Siemens Healthcare, among others. He also represented The San Francisco Chronicle in response to federal government subpoenas to journalists, and a journalist arrested while covering a story in Tucson, Arizona.

While he was a prosecutor, between 1986 and 2002, in the Eastern District of New York, the District of Arizona, and between 1995 and 2002, the Northern District of California, David

tried accounting fraud, political corruption, tax evasion, RICO, and narcotics cases.