Renaissance Lawyer Milt Williams Makes the Case for an Eclectic Practice

Milt Williams truly has done it all. His distinguished career has spanned decades, specialties and courtrooms. From private to public, Manhattan D.A.’s Office, in-house to outside counsel, to the U.S. Attorney's Office (SDNY) and most everywhere in-between. Having tried upwards of 60 cases, Williams has amassed a wealth of knowledge that can only be born of experience, but it’s his dynamism that truly sets him apart.

The former federal prosecutor has deep roots in the white-collar world. He’s worked for some of the biggest corporations in the world. The seasoned litigator actively works in employment, regulatory, criminal, and complex commercial litigation. For a man of so many talents in so many arenas, it’s shockingly simple for Williams to distill what truly matters when it comes down to it.

“You can't take weak facts and turn it into something magnificent,” says Williams. “You’re only as good as the facts you have. The jury and the judge are far more important than the lawyer.”

Williams didn’t set out to become a renaissance-lawyer. Instead, he based his career choices on deeply personal reasons – a healthy split between what would feed his interests, as well as his family.

“My career was based on making choices to do what I thought was interesting and to be able to make enough money to support my family,” says Williams. “I had no idea that my career would take some of the paths or the avenues that it did. It happened organically.”

Working in-house at Time Inc. over the years, Williams wore many hats as Deputy General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer. Amidst the vast range of his responsibilities, Williams managed a wide span of employment law matters; handled restrictive covenant, whistleblower, race, age, disability and gender discrimination cases; as well as white collar, independent contractor and intellectual property matters. Working in-house – where he actually litigated and tried the cases himself – meant that Williams handled pretty much everything that came through, which taught him a lot about how to be more effective as outside counsel, too.

“It's really important for the outside counsel to realize that they're fungible,” says Williams. “Their real job is to make the in-house counsel look good to whomever he or she may be that they're answering to.”

Williams has more than earned his place on the masthead at his firm, recently rebranded Walden Macht Haran & Williams after the partners all unanimously voted. Williams is a member of the 2024 Lawdragon 500 Corporate Employment Lawyers.

Lawdragon: Congratulations on getting on the masthead!

Milt Williams: Thank you. It was Jim Walden's idea – I am very appreciative that my partners approved this proposal. He came to me in December and proposed the idea, and that was the basic genesis of it. I don't think anything much will change. I've been involved in the firm heavily since I got here. I started May 8th, 2017, so I’m right at my seventh-year anniversary. It's a real honor.

Jim started the firm because he wanted a certain culture that was in line with his vision of how a firm should be. And most of that is based on building collegiality. For lack of a better word, a culture of niceness, kind people and the absence of difficult personalities. I think that we've done a good job in achieving that. It's still a workplace, it’s a complex ecosystem so obviously it's not perfect, but I've worked at a number of different places, both in the government, private sector, and companies as well as law firms – and I would say that this firm culture is one of the very best.

It's really important for the outside counsel to realize that they're fungible and that their real job is to make the in-house counsel look good.

LD: We’d love to hear about your mix of practice. What does it look like currently?

MW: My practice has been very eclectic. I had two huge white-collar trials back in 2018. I do a lot of Employment Law on both sides – plaintiffs and representing companies. I had an interesting defamation case, I have had an antitrust matters. I currently have a case in the commercial division involving satellite telecommunication spectrums. That's a case with a lot of physics, and a lot of expert information, in the commercial realm. I also do advising. I've advised in some antitrust matters, more advisory in terms of a smaller, mid-sized company being pushed out by a bigger company that was basically trying to establish a monopoly.

I still have a varied scope of practice. For the first five years that I was at Time, Inc., there was an initiative by the company to have experienced litigators who could actually handle and try the cases themselves to reduce outside counsel costs. So we did about 85 percent of the litigation in-house at Time, Inc. There were three of us who were former assistant U.S. attorneys from the SDNY, and we did the actual work in-house and there were occasionally some matters where we hired outside counsel. For the first five years I was there, that was the model. Then a new GC came in and that model changed. And just around that time, I got a hold of a big internal white-collar investigation which resulted in me becoming Chief Compliance Officer.

LD: As someone who has spent significant time working in-house, what mistakes do you see outside lawyers making in terms of dealing with in-house counsel?

MW: The biggest one, to be very blunt, is that some outside counsel don’t always realize how fungible they are. There are a ton of excellent lawyers out there. It’s important from an in-house counsel's perspective, to have a firm that is literally going to jump off the roof for you, to protect you. There's a lot of really good lawyers and sure, there may be a couple of situations where you need a particular lawyer – their particular name, expertise or their prominence – but that doesn't happen in many cases.

For the most part, in order to retain business, it's really important for the outside counsel to realize that they're fungible and that their real job is to make the in-house counsel look good to whomever it may be that they're answering to. The outside counsel must of course do a good job, but they must be able to give the credit to the in-house counsel.

LD: Interesting. Can you talk to us about the trends you’re seeing currently in employment law?

MW: The big thing on the horizon is whether or not the proposed ban on restrictive covenants and non-competes is going to come through.

LD: What effect would it have if it goes through?

MW: Well, it would mean that companies essentially could not stop employees at a certain level from being able to immediately move from one job to another and basically compete against their former employers right away.

LD: How about in your broader practice? Is there a recent win in the last five years that stands out to you as particularly memorable for one reason or another?

MW: In 2018 I tried two cases. The U.S. Attorney's Office, where I used to work in Manhattan, was investigating Andrew Cuomo and the Chamber. They ended up indicting his right-hand man in this overarching scheme. And one part of the indictment was based on honest-services fraud, and my client and other businessmen, were accused of bribing the Governor’s right hand man to get special favors done in the state government. The second part of it which involved the same client was an indictment for bid rigging on Governor’s signature Buffalo Billion construction project..

They had two schemes in one indictment and the indictment got severed, so there were two separate cases now. One of those cases was a trial that lasted eight weeks and we were fortunate that our client was acquitted. The second part was the bid rigging trial and the client got convicted on the right-to-control wire fraud theory. Both cases went to the U.S. Supreme Court eventually. I argued the one where my client got convicted in the 2nd Circuit and we lost. I didn't argue in the Supreme Court; it was argued by a former solicitor general, Michael Dreeben, who did a fabulous job. He was the guru, he did all the key Supreme Court arguments. He took both cases and got them reversed. So my client’s conviction on right-to-control wire fraud theory was reversed by the United States Supreme Court. That was a big win for him.

LD: With your deep trial experience, what high-level advice do you have for lawyers in the courtroom?

MW: If I had one piece of advice I’d say – a lawyer is only as good as the facts that he has. You can't transform weak facts and turn them into something magnificent. You're only as good as the facts you have. The jury and the judge are far more important than the lawyer.

LD: You have had a pretty unique career path. Was that by design?

MW: Not entirely, no. My career was based on making choices to do what I thought was interesting and to be able to make enough money to support my family, but I had no idea that my career would take some of the paths or the avenues that it did. That includes some of the outside activities that I've done, boards I've been on, as well as being co-chair of the Moreland Commission on Public Corruption. It just kind of happened organically, so to speak.