A partner in the Litigation Department, Liz Hanft focuses on white collar criminal defense and regulatory enforcement matters, internal investigations and other complex litigation. Before joining Paul, Weiss, Hanft spent almost nine years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.
Most recently, she served as co-chief of the General Crimes Unit, where she supervised hundreds of investigations spanning an array of subject matter, including fraud, cybercrime, money laundering, corruption, violent crime and sex trafficking.
Before that, Hanft was a senior member of the Securities and Commodities Fraud Task Force, where she investigated and prosecuted insider trading, market manipulation, accounting fraud, and other securities and commodities fraud cases; and a member of the National Security and International Narcotics Unit, where she prosecuted both international and domestic terrorism cases and led sanctions evasion and counterespionage investigations.
Lawdragon Honors
| Honor | Year | Practice |
|---|---|---|
| The 2026 Lawdragon 500 Global Leaders in Crisis Management | 2026 | White Collar, Investigations, Litigation |
| The Lawdragon 500 Global Leaders in Crisis Management | 2025 | White Collar, Investigations, Litigation |
During her time as an AUSA, Hanft conducted and supervised dozens of trials and argued, briefed and supervised several federal appeals before the Second Circuit. She also led numerous high-profile investigations, including the investigation and prosecution of a former U.S. congressman for insider trading, the insider trading trial of a special purpose acquisition company board member, and the prosecution of a high-profile cryptocurrency promoter for securities fraud, commodities fraud and money laundering.
Select representations include:
- A publicly traded company in a DOJ/SEC investigation into allegations of Bank Secrecy Act/anti-money laundering violations and securities fraud.
- The audit committee of the board of a publicly traded telecommunications company in an internal investigation into alleged misconduct by a senior executive.
- The audit committee of a publicly traded company in an internal investigation into allegations of improper financial reporting.
- A large financial services company in a widely reported SEC investigation concerning cash sweep programs.
- A publicly traded company in an SEC investigation into allegations of accounting fraud.
Hanft served as a law clerk to the Honorable Paul A. Engelmayer of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, and the Honorable Gerard E. Lynch of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Hanft earned her A.B. with high honors from Princeton University, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and her J.D. from Yale Law School, where she was executive editor of the Yale Journal of International Law. Before attending law school, Hanft taught Latin at independent schools.