E Danya Perry

Practice Areas

Danya Perry is a skilled trial lawyer, bringing extensive experience in government and private practice to the service of her clients at Perry Law. Specializing in white collar defense and investigations, as well as general commercial litigation, internal investigations, and employment law, she has successfully tried dozens of cases and has argued over a dozen appeals.

Danya has represented corporations and individual officers, directors, employees, and shareholders in criminal prosecutions, civil litigations, and grand jury and regulatory investigations conducted by federal and state government agencies and offices.

Danya’s criminal defense practice includes representing clients in cases involving allegations of fraud, extortion, money laundering, sanctions violations, and corruption, among other charges, and she has successfully secured declinations of charges, favorable pleas, settlements, and extraordinary downward departures at sentencing.

Danya also maintains an active practice representing clients in matters involving sexual assault, discrimination, and harassment. For example, she currently represents a number of survivors of sexual assault in a civil litigation against a major public institution, pushing back the antiquated notions that male sexual abuse survivors are somehow not as vulnerable as female survivors or as deserving of recompense. More broadly, a large part of Danya’s docket is her representation of clients in employment matters, including both plaintiffs and defendants.

She also regularly handles independent corporate investigations.

Career

Danya is the founding partner of Perry Law. Prior to this undertaking, she spent five years as the Chief of Litigation and Deputy General Counsel at MacAndrews & Forbes Incorporated, followed by four years successfully directing a boutique litigation firm. At MacAndrews & Forbes, she managed and advised all aspects of the company’s complex commercial litigation, compliance, and regulatory matters, including in areas of mergers and acquisitions, contract, antitrust, intellectual property, consumer fraud, and employment law. Danya led and coordinated teams of in-house and outside attorneys in the prosecution and defense of all litigation matters. She was responsible for developing, implementing, and enforcing best-in-class compliance programs across the holding company and its operating companies, and she provided guidance to executive management in a broad array of legal and business issues, including in areas of business risk, corporate governance, internal investigations, and best practices.

In 2013, Danya was appointed by the Governor and the Attorney General to serve as Deputy Attorney General for the State of New York and Chief of Investigations for the Moreland Commission to Investigate Public Corruption. In this role, she led a sweeping investigation into public corruption in New York State, recommended policies for systemic reform, and referred numerous matters for criminal prosecution.

From 2002 to 2013, Danya served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, including as Senior Trial Counsel and Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division. As an Assistant U.S. Attorney, she investigated, prosecuted, and supervised hundreds of sophisticated white collar cases, including the prosecution of a billion-dollar health care fraud, the largest immigration fraud and tax preparer frauds in the history of the United States, and one of the largest identity theft rings in the United States.

In late 2023, Danya was appointed as a Criminal Justice Act (CJA) Panelist for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to serve as appointed counsel to criminal defendants, ensuring they receive due process and zealous representation.

Danya also serves as an adjunct professor of law at New York University School of Law, where she teaches Professional Responsibility. She has previously taught a trial advocacy and prosecution clinic. Early in her career, Danya worked at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison and clerked for a federal district judge in the Southern District of New York.

Danya is a graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School. Nationally recognized as an industry expert, Danya frequently speaks on white collar and enforcement panels and is a regular media commentator, including on MSNBC, CNN, and BBC. Danya has written a number of op-eds and articles, including for the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, the New York Daily News, and Law360. She is a champion sub 3-hour marathoner and a proud single mother of three.

Personal

Board Service:

Vera Institute of Justice, Trustee

NYC Kids Rise, Director

When There Are Nine Scholarship Project, Co-Founder and Committee Member

Expert in these Jurisdictions

New York

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 Third Circuit

Supreme Court of the United States

Work Highlights

Government Service:

U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York, Assistant U.S. Attorney and Senior Trial Counsel and Deputy Chief, Criminal Division

New York State Deputy Attorney General and Chief of Investigations, New York State Moreland Commission to Investigate Public Corruption

Clerkship:

Hon. Charles S. Haight, Jr., U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York

Education

Awards