PAUL W. BUTLER

PAUL W. Butler is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer &

Feld LLP. Working in jurisdictions with a high degree of compliance risk, he advises individuals,multinationalsandotherglobalorganizations.

Butler handles a wide range of matters related to federal criminal and regulatory enforcement, particularly related to cross-border issues.

He has experience at senior levels of the Department of Defense and as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York.

As assistant attorney Butler prosecuted major terrorism cases, gaining insight into how the Department of Justice, the FBI and intelligence agencies investigate and make cases to bring them to trial. He also dealt with many crossborder investigations, gaining a strong understanding of how U.S. law enforcement and regulatory agencies deal with their foreign counterparts.

This included serving as one of the trial prosecutors in United States v. Osama Bin Laden, et al., the U.S. government’s indictment of the leadership of al Qaeda prior to the 9/11 attacks, which resulted in the successful convictions, after a six-month trial, of four defendants for their roles in the attacks on the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.

In his role at the Pentagon, Butler was steeped in crisis management, dealing with issues around highly consequential situations, including Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and Fallujah. The Legal 500 United States honored Butler in 2020 and 2021 for his work with corporate investigations and white collar criminal defense. He has been recognized by Chambers USA every year since 2015. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and Business Executives for National Security.

Butler earned a BA from the State University of New York at Albany, an MA, cum laude, from Albany State University, an MA from Johns Hopkins University, and a JD from St. John’s University School of Law.

Marriedwithtwochildren,Butler’spaternalgrandmotherwasborninThurles, Co. Tipperary. All of his great grandparents were born in counties Galway and Tipperary. He attended Trinity College School of Law in Dublin in the summer of 1986 and traced his grandmother’s house in Thurles.