Firm

Ryan McConnell Partner

Ryan McConnell is a former federal prosecutor who serves as a trusted advisor to Fortune 500 clients and startups in industries ranging from advertising to energy around the globe. He is a trial lawyer, law professor, board member, and advisor to executives and boards.

Ryan’s practice consists of state and federal civil and criminal litigation and advising corporate boards and executives on governance issues. His clients call him to deal with their most difficult and sensitive problems. Ryan has tried nearly twenty federal cases to juries, conducted hundreds of investigations, taught hundreds of law students, and advised Fortune 100 boards, CEOs, and chief legal officers on their most difficult decisions. Before opening his own boutique firm, Ryan worked as a partner at three international law firms, handling every type of criminal and civil litigation and conducting numerous internal investigations. Recent experience, including detailed descriptions of some of the firm’s recent work, is captured on the firm’s litigation and governance pages.

Outside of his law practice, Ryan has had a long-standing commitment to education on compliance and investigation issues. Ryan has taught corporate compliance at the University of Houston Law Center for half a dozen years with Meagan Baker Thompson. He also taught criminal procedure and national security law for many years (including while as an Assistant U.S. Attorney), and in 2011, was named faculty member of the year. His novel corporate compliance class (developed years before law schools began widely offering similar courses) was featured on the Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog and other trade publications for its innovative approach to teaching compliance as a process framework as opposed to viewing compliance through the lens of one specific subject matter. Ryan has written several law review articles on corporate charging and contributes to Corporate Counsel magazine, where he discusses compliance and risk issues as well as other regulatory and in-house legal topics and interviews preeminent executives and directors. With a passion for writing and helping the community, Ryan also serves on the board of Writers in the Schools, the largest literary arts organization in Texas.

Ryan regularly speaks at conferences around the U.S., including the Directors’ College at Stanford University in Palo Alto. In 2018, Louisiana State University approached Ryan to help them build an Ethics Institute and serve on the organization’s Advisory Board. From 2011 to 2013, Ryan organized an Ethics and Compliance Symposium at the University of Houston Law Center that included presentations from global thought leaders and received national attention in publications ranging from Corporate Counsel to the Wall Street Journal. In 2011, he led an empirical study that analyzed the codes of conduct of Fortune 500 companies (that the University of Houston Law Center took over in 2014) with three years of data on corporate codes of conduct. His novel research with firm lawyer Larry Finder on deferred and non-prosecution agreements was mentioned in two separate New York Times articles and cited by Congress in an effort to institute reform for corporate charging.

Ryan previously served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Louisiana and Houston. As part of the U.S. Attorney’s Office Organized Crime Strike Force in Houston, Ryan tried nearly twenty federal criminal cases (many with firm lawyer Matthew Boyden) and conducted hundreds of grand jury investigations of international scope on matters ranging from violations of U.S. trade laws to complex fraud. Ryan’s trials ranged from complex fraud cases to murder for hire of a federal judge. Ryan was also tasked by the U.S. Attorney’s Office to handle appeals, regularly briefed and argued before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and provided legal advice to Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyers in other Circuits on important issues. In addition to his trial work, Ryan participated in the planning and execution of undercover operations to enforce U.S. trade controls as well as some of the most significant worksite enforcement investigations in the U.S. Ryan was also involved in training DOJ federal prosecutors at the DOJ National Advocacy Center in Columbia, South Carolina, including preparing DOJ training materials on criminal procedure, corporate compliance, and charging. On several occasions, Ryan taught the DOJ’s trial advocacy class for new prosecutors to learn how to try criminal cases.

Ryan began his career at Shearman & Sterling LLP in New York City and as a law clerk for Judge John C. Godbold of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.