Page 17 - OAD 2023 First Monday Digital Journal

Mark Racanelli is a partner in O’Melveny’s New York office and co-chair of the firm’s
White Collar Defense and Corporate Investigations practice. Mark represents large
corporations, financial institutions, and individuals in internal investigations and crim-
inal and regulatory enforcement matters. He is an accomplished trial lawyer, having
tried numerous criminal and civil cases to verdict involving antitrust, fraud, breach of
contract, and other commercial disputes.

Before joining O’Melveny, Mark served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the United
States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York for five years. During that time, he prose-
cuted a variety of criminal cases—including fraud, money laundering and RICO cases—handled complex
grand jury investigations, and led several trials involving RICO and money laundering charges.

Seetha Ramachandran, a partner at Proskauer, is a leading expert in anti-money
laundering, Bank Secrecy Act, economic sanctions, and asset forfeiture matters. She
is an experienced trial and appellate lawyer, having spent nearly 10 years as a federal
prosecutor, first as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York
and later as the first chief of the Department of Justice’s Money Laundering & Bank
Integrity Unit, where she led DOJ’s first wave of AML and sanctions cases against
global financial institutions. She represents clients in a range of white collar and regu-
latory enforcement matters, handles internal investigations, and provides regulatory
and compliance advice. Seetha also represents institutions and individuals in the financial penalty phase
of criminal and regulatory matters and is among a small handful of white-collar practitioners with deep
expertise in civil and criminal forfeiture proceedings. She is often retained to litigate forfeiture and restitu-
tion claims for victims, third parties, and individual defendants.

Seetha is ranked in Chambers for White Collar & Government Investigations, was named an outstanding
leader in the field in GIR’s 2021 Women in Investigations and was recently shortlisted for White Collar
Lawyer of the Year by Euromoney’s Women in Business Law.

COURT CRIER

Myrna Felder, a matrimonial attorney at both the trial and appellate level, as a member
of the Board of Directors of the Office of the Appellate Defender, was one of a number
of enthusiastic supporters for the creation of the First Monday in October program,
for which she has served as co-chair and court crier since its inception thirty years
ago. A former Chair of the New York State Bar Association’s Committee on Courts of
Appellate Jurisdiction, Ms. Felder organized the State Bar’s day-long CLE program on
New York appellate practice and has been a frequent lecturer on appellate practice
for the Appellate Division, First Department; the New York State Bar Association; the
American Bar Association; the Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York; and other bar groups.
Ms. Felder serves on the Subcommittee on Appellate Practice of the New York State Office of Court
Administration’s Advisory Committee on Civil Practice, of which she has been a member since 1983, and
authored the chapter, “Special Considerations in Matrimonial Appeals” in Thomas Newman’s New York
Appellate Practice.

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