Lyn R. Agre

Agre, a Kasowitz Benson Torres LLP partner, focuses on white collar defense and investigations involving securities fraud, insider trading, obstruction of justice and similar matters. As a first chair litigator with more than 20 years' experience, she also spearheads Kasowitz' major pro bono initiative in partnership with the Marin County public defender's office.

As the coronavirus pandemic resurged in mid-November, she was monitoring a return to court closures after many had tentatively reopened. "I have a case pending in federal court in Houston, and we were just notified that the district there has closed jury trials again until January," she said. "We anticipate a similar situation in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania."

Agre added that during the first months of the pandemic it was somewhat confusing to be in lockdown, but the period gave her a chance to reflect on her practice. "I got the gift of time to concentrate to concentrate on clients' needs beyond the day to day flurry of litigation," she said. "Then came an awakening as we all learned to adapt and do everything remotely. Everything is much more active now that we can Zoom effectively. There's really no alternative."

For a real estate investor client convicted of mail fraud and bid rigging at foreclosure auctions, Agre in 2018 persuaded a federal judge to impose a sentence of confinement at a halfway house rather than in prison. U.S. v. Rezian, 13-cr-00246 (N.D. Cal., filed April 16, 2013).

"He had some medical conditions, and we retained an expert who formerly worked in health care for the Bureau of Prisons," Agre said. "Health care there is at best barely adequate. We persuaded the judge that it would be in Mr. Rezian's best interest to be able to continue his medical care at UCSF, which he could do from the halfway house."

That experience has proved useful in dealing with medically-compromised clients during the Covid-19 era. "I have a pro bono client now out of New York convicted of fraud," Agre said. "He has Covid-like symptoms and pneumonia, and we are working with the prosecution on his placement for sentencing given his risk category. We don't want to put him in a life-threatening situation in a prison."

Agre as a senior white collar litigator at her firm is deeply involved in helping junior colleagues obtain pro bono work as useful training in courtroom work. "I have a background myself as a public defender in Santa Clara County in the 1990s," she said. "That's the kind of place where on your second day of work you're handed a file and tells you to go try a case. You learn fast to be creative and to never give up."

The experience shaped her as a lawyer, she said, and she hopes to pass it on by replicating the situation with young lawyers through pro bono work. "Some of them recently got asylum for a client. It will help them be better lawyers," Agre said.

-- John Roemer