Before joining the firm in March 2023, Mr. Schuman was General Counsel of Menai Financial Group, a provider of institutional-grade digital asset services, where he built and supervised the legal and compliance functions in the US, the UK and Japan. Before joining Menai in 2021, Mr. Schuman was a partner for four years in the white collar and investigations practice at Perkins Coie, where he led the litigation department in New York. During that time, Mr. Schuman’s practice included obtaining a multimillion-dollar verdict for a blockchain technology client following a three-week jury trial, and his appointment by New York State as the independent monitor of National Grid’s natural gas supply operations.
Mr. Schuman previously served as Special Counsel for Public Integrity in the New York State Governor’s Office, where he oversaw 25 attorneys including the Chief Risk Officer, the Chief FOIL Officer and a team of Special Counsel for Risk, Ethics and Compliance across state agencies. Mr. Schuman worked on sensitive matters including alleged fraud charged by the U.S. Attorney’s Office regarding the “Buffalo Billion” state contracts. Earlier, Mr. Schuman led over 100 attorneys as General Counsel for New York State’s Homes and Community Renewal.
Prior to that, Mr. Schuman spent 12 years at McGraw-Hill/Standard & Poor’s, becoming Executive Managing Director and Chief Legal Officer for S&P Ratings where he supervised the legal and regulatory departments of 30 lawyers globally and was a member of the boards of its US and UK subsidiaries. Mr. Schuman successfully resolved several dozen financial crisis litigations and government investigations, and was lead in-house counsel on strategy and interactions with the SEC, Congress and global regulators.
Mr. Schuman also served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of New York, where he conducted a securities fraud and money laundering trial arising out of the boiler room depicted in the film, “The Wolf of Wall Street,” and received the US DOJ Director’s Award for Superior Performance. Early in his career, Mr. Schuman was a lawyer with the New York firms Paul Weiss and Corbin Silverman & Sanseverino and served as a law clerk to U.S. District Judge Loretta A. Preska in the Southern District of New York.
Mr. Schuman is a Board Member of the New York Convention Center Development Corporation and a Member of the Federal Bar Council Federal Criminal Practice Committee. He was highlighted by Business Insider in 2021 for his work in the digital asset space and recognized by McGraw-Hill’s CEO with an Excellence in Leadership Award for “the best in performance, vision, innovation, dedication and integrity.”
Mr. Schuman earned his J.D., cum laude, from New York University School of Law and received his B.A., with Honors, from Swarthmore College.
Admissions:
State of New York
State of Connecticut
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit
U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
