Steven Alan Reiss is nationally recognized for complex civil, criminal and international matters, especially those with multi-jurisdictional or parallel civil and criminal components. In recent years, Mr. Reiss has represented companies in many of the major international antitrust investigations and litigations, including those involving the airlines, auction houses, vitamins, lysine, carbon fiber, EPDM rubber, graphite electrodes, MSG, military insignia and milk industries. He also has extensive experience in representing companies and individuals in a variety of other high stakes/high profile matters - including major constitutional litigation - at trial and on appeal.
Prior to joining Weil Gotshal in 1989, Mr. Reiss was a tenured professor of law at New York University Law School, where he taught criminal law, constitutional law, evidence and trial advocacy. He has published numerous books and articles and co-authored Modern Federal Jury Instructions, a standard reference work on jury instructions and practice in the federal courts. Mr. Reiss was the editor-in-chief and then contributing editor of the White Collar Crime Reporter and the Reporter for Second Circuit Judicial Conference Committee on Juries. He currently serves as General Counsel to the Brennan Center, a premier public policy interest law firm that specializes in a spectrum of constitutional issues and public policy litigation.
Mr. Reiss served as a law clerk to Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. of the United States Supreme Court and to Judge John Minor Wisdom of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He is a graduate of Stanford Law School, where he was articles editor of the Law Review, and Vassar College, where he has served as a trustee.
Public Service and Professional Activities
- The Brennan Center for Justice: General Counsel and Member of the Board
- Volunteers of Legal Services: Member of the Board
- Reporter, Committee on Juries of the Judicial Conference of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
- Arbitrator, American Arbitration Association
- Federal Bar Council: Committee on Second Circuit Courts
- Association of the Bar of the City of New York: Committee on Federal Legislation
- Vassar College - Trustee
- Professor of Law, New York University Law School (until 1991 )
- Law Clerk, Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., United States Supreme Court
- Law Clerk, Judge John Minor Wisdom, United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit