Sean Coffey

John P. ("Sean") Coffey is a retired Navy Captain and former federal prosecutor recognized as one of the most successful trial attorneys in the United States.

Personal Background

Born in 1956 to Irish immigrant parents, Coffey is the oldest of seven children raised in the Bronx, Buffalo and Nassau County, New York. His father John, from County Kerry, was a union carpenter and his mother Mary, from County Cork, was a homemaker. Coffey graduated from Long Island’s Chaminade High School in 1974 and won an appointment to the United States Naval Academy, taking the oath of office as a midshipman at age 17. Graduating from Annapolis with merit and an ocean engineering degree in 1978, Coffey selected flight training and was named Honor Graduate of his Naval Flight Officer class. On active duty during the Cold War, Coffey flew as a P-3C Orion mission commander tracking Soviet nuclear submarines.

After his initial squadron tour, Coffey was selected for shore assignments in Washington, D.C., as an action officer in the Strategy Division of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the personal military assistant to then-Vice President George H.W. Bush. While stationed in Washington, Coffey attended Georgetown University Law Center at night, winning several academic awards (including best grades by a first-year evening student), serving as the sole evening-division editor of the Georgetown Law Journal and graduating magna cum laude in 1987.

Legal Career

In 1987, after resigning from active naval duty, Coffey returned to New York as a litigation associate with Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison. Coffey was appointed an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York in 1991. As an Assistant United States Attorney, Coffey worked with federal, state and local law enforcement agencies prosecuting a wide variety of cases involving firearms, narcotics, business crime, bank fraud, and other major crimes. Coffey tried many cases to verdict. In 1995, Coffey joined the law firm of Latham & Watkins where, as counsel and then partner, he defended Fortune 500 companies in many complex civil, regulatory, and criminal matters.

Success at Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann

After several years as a corporate defense attorney, Coffey returned to pursuing corporate misconduct at the litigation firm of Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann, which represents many of the world’s largest institutional investors, including New York State’s Common Retirement Fund and Teachers’ Retirement System and many Taft-Hartley union funds. During his eleven years at Bernstein Litowitz, Coffey led teams that recovered billions of dollars for victims of corporate fraud and won praise for achieving significant corporate governance improvements. Among Coffey’s notable successes is his role in the WorldCom securities litigation, a case he took to trial in 2005 as lead attorney for thousands of investors, including the New York State Common Retirement Fund. Coffey and his team recovered over $6 billion from Wall Street banks and, in a historic first, required all outside directors and key wrongdoers to contribute millions of dollars from their personal funds. Coffey was selected as one of the National Law Journal’s “Winning Attorneys” of 2005, and was profiled by the American Lawyer, the Wall Street Journal, and Bloomberg Markets magazine, which dubbed him "Wall Street's New Nemesis."

In 2002, arising out of the Baptist Foundation of Arizona's collapse, the largest non-profit bankruptcy in U.S. history, Coffey led a team in trial against auditing firm Arthur Andersen. Acting on behalf of victimized retired Baptist investors, Coffey and his team recovered a $217 million settlement, one of the largest amounts ever paid by an accounting firm.

New York State Attorney General Race

In late 2009, Coffey retired from his partnership at Bernstein Litowitz to seek the Democratic nomination for New York State Attorney General. Although he has never before run for political office, Coffey recently reported that he has raised over $1.65 million in the first two months of his campaign. The primary for Attorney General will be held on September 14, 2010.

Navy Reserve Service

After leaving active duty to pursue his legal career in New York, Coffey served in the Navy as a reservist for more than eighteen years. In addition to one or more weekends each month maintaining proficiency as a P-3C mission commander, Coffey carried out annual duty assignments including armed flights in support of the embargo of the former Yugoslavia and counter-narcotic patrols over Latin America and the Gulf of Mexico. Coffey was selected to command one of the Navy’s elite reserve squadrons, Patrol Squadron 92 (the “Minutemen”), and was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal for his service as skipper from 1996 - 1998. Coffey was promoted to Captain and selected to command the reserve component of the Enterprise carrier battle group staff. He then was assigned as an IMA (Individual Mobilization Augmentee) for the Secretary of Defense in the Pentagon, concentrating on issues relating to the stresses imposed on our reservists by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Coffey retired from the Navy in 2004 after thirty years of service. His other military decorations include the Joint Service Commendation Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, and the Navy Pistol Expert Medal.

Miscellaneous

Coffey is a member of the Board of Visitors of the Georgetown University Law Center and Vice President of the United States Naval Academy Class of 1978. He served for several years as a director and campaign co-chair of The Community Fund of Bronxville, Eastchester, Tuckahoe, Inc., and was previously an Adjunct Professor of Law at Fordham University. Coffey is a devoted fan of the Yankees and Navy football.

Family Background

Coffey is married to Anne Churchill, the daughter of a retired Navy captain and former actress whose credits include This is Spinal Tap. The Coffeys and their three children live in Westchester County, New York.

References

• Heller, Emily. "John P. Coffey and Max Berger: A good cop/bad cop dynamic scores big. " National Law Journal. 20 Jun 2005.
• Longstreth, Andrew. “Breaking the Banks.” The American Lawyer Dec 2005.
• Longstreth, Andrew. “Taking Citi to School.” The American Lawyer Dec 2004.