By GREGORY ZELLER //
Timothy Sini has enjoyed some lofty perches in his storied legal career – and that definitely includes the former Suffolk County district attorney’s new home.
Sini, who lost his November 2021 bid for re-election to former federal prosecutor Ray Tierney, has joined international law firm Nixon Peabody, which maintains 12 U.S. offices – including a thriving Jericho hub – and four across Asia.
Sini, also a former assistant United States attorney and Suffolk County Police Department commissioner, is now a partner in Nixon Peabody’s Litigation Department and Government Investigations & White-Collar Defense Practice Group.
Sini is also throwing his weight behind Nixon Peabody’s COVID-19 Response Team, which helps clients navigate legal challenges specifically related to the coronavirus pandemic. His practice, which will focus on Long Island and the Greater New York region, will be based in the Jericho office.
Adding a seasoned attorney (and political operative) with executive experience at one of the nation’s 20 largest prosecutors’ offices – and its 11th largest police department – is a major get for Nixon Peabody, according to Allan Cohen, the Jericho office’s managing partner.
Allan Cohen: Putting assets in the seats.
“Tim brings a truly unique blend of experience across crisis management, trials and litigation, and compliance,” Cohen said in a statement. “His deep knowledge of how government agencies make decisions will be an enormous asset for our firm regionally as well as for our national Government Investigations & White-Collar Defense practice.”
Sini’s arrival marks another giant leap for private Long Island law. Earlier this month, international law firm Greenberg Traurig – which boasts 2,400-plus attorneys across 42 offices in the United States, Europe, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East – announced the opening of new Long Island offices in Garden City and Bridgehampton.
Greenberg Traurig also welcomed attorney Mark Lesko – a former acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, former Hofstra University vice president for economic development and former executive director of the Accelerate Long Island commercialization fund – to the fold.
And now a new corner office at Nixon Peabody for Sini, who is arguably known best for leading internal investigations – and implementing corrective action plans – at the Suffolk County DA’s Office and the SCPD, two of the nation’s largest criminal-justice organizations.
In addition to those super-high-profile investigations, the new partner – who earned his JD from Brooklyn Law School and his bachelor’s degree from American University (both magna cum laude) – has personally supervised hundreds of complex investigations and prosecutions covering corruption, racketeering, fraud and other financial crimes, environmental crimes and labor-related crimes, including multijurisdictional and international cases.
The former adjunct professor at St. Joseph’s College and the Touro Law Center also spent more than a year as an assistant deputy county executive for public safety under Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone, advising Bellone on criminal-justice and public-safety issues.
At Nixon Peabody, he will focus on commercial litigation and crisis-management matters, while lending his unique perspective to cases involving U.S. Department of Justice investigations (or charges) and other government inquiries.
He figures to be busy, with what Sini labeled “increased enforcement actions and investigations by both the federal government and the New York State Attorney General’s Office” in play.
“It is a complicated business environment,” he said Monday. “I look forward to helping clients navigate challenges by developing and implementing strategies to eliminate or mitigate damage to their reputations and businesses.”
