Tim Sini, the former Suffolk County district attorney, has joined Nixon Peabody, a global law firm based in Jericho. Sini is a partner at the firm’s litigation department and its government investigations and white-collar defense practice.
Sini, a longtime public servant, had lost his bid for reelection in November, and began to pursue the private sector.
Allan Cohen, the firm’s managing partner of the Long Island office, said a mutual friend put them in touch. Sini’s expertise, Cohen said, fit well with the Long Island office’s strategy for growth.
Prior to his role as district attorney, Sini served as Suffolk County police commissioner, and before that was a former assistant U.S. attorney in the criminal division of the Justice Department’s Southern District of New York.
Cohen and Sini subsequently “spent a lot of time on Zoom and really hit it off,” Cohen said.
The Nixon Peabody announcement comes at a time when Long Island’s legal landscape continues to evolve, bringing A-list public servants into the private sector. Less than two weeks ago, Greenberg Traurig, another global law firm, announced it was opening two offices on Long Island, with Mark Lesko, the former acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, joining the firm.
Sini told LIBN that Nixon Peabody was “the obvious choice for me,” noting that he could combine his previous experience and “have that ability to be entrepreneurial, grow a practice and provide a real service.”
Sini is also a member of the firm’s COVID-19 response team, which helps clients navigate the challenges surrounding the pandemic. As the district attorney, he led the public office’s COVID-19 response since the earliest days of the pandemic, through his term. And in his roles at both the district attorney’s office and the county’s police department, he managed a large workforce, a proficiency that Cohen said, would also benefit the firm.
Cohen said that Sini has a “truly unique blend of experience across crisis management, trials and litigation and compliance,” adding that this expertise “will be an enormous asset for our firm” both regionally, thanks to his knowledge of the Long Island economy and business community, as well as nationally.
At Nixon Peabody, Sini will work on matters that involve government investigations or charges, including by agencies such as the Department of Justice, state attorneys general, and district attorneys, while also working on commercial litigation matters and crisis management situations.
His background includes handling and overseeing hundreds of complex investigations and prosecutions involving a wide range of crimes, including RICO, public corruption, environmental crime, fraud, financial crimes and labor offenses, among others. And Sini’s investigative and litigation experience includes matters that are multi-jurisdictional and international in scope.
Sini said today’s business environment is “complicated,” and would be “exacerbated” further by “increased enforcement actions and investigations by both the federal government and the New York State Attorney General’s Office.”
He said that in his work at Nixon Peabody, he would assist clients to “navigate challenges by developing and implementing strategies to eliminate or mitigate damage to their reputations and businesses.”
Sini has worked in the private sector previously, having served as a litigation associate at two law firms in Manhattan.
He earned his JD from Brooklyn Law School magna cum laude, and his BA from American University, also magna cum laude.
Sini is the only partner in the Long Island office of the firm’s government investigations and white collar practice, though there are several who are based in the city. Across the offices of the firm, there are 50 partners in the practice.
