John Nassikas, a partner at Arnold & Porter, draws on his extensive experience in federal grand jury practice and trial work to counsel clients on complex parallel criminal and civil litigations, internal corporate investigations, congressional investigations and cross-border cases across a wide range of industries. In ranking him in the top tier of Washington defense counsel, Chambers USA describes Nassikas as a “strong communicator” and “strategic thinker with an approach that inspires confidence.” He has defended companies and individuals in significant federal and state investigations throughout the United States and internationally, particularly in the areas of financial, health care, and government contracts fraud and global anti-corruption, antitrust and environmental enforcement.
A former federal prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, Nassikas regularly engages with the U.S. Department of Justice, Securities and Exchange Commission, and federal and state enforcement agencies across the country. He has broad experience with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the False Claims Act and the Classified Information Procedures Act, and has successfully represented companies and executives in multi-jurisdictional national and international matters for over three decades.
Nassikas has been a speaker at American Bar Association, and other, conferences on cross-border, constitutional and other criminal law issues. He has been a visiting law school lecturer on criminal law and an instructor of continuing legal education courses on corporate and individual criminal law topics, and is former chairman of the Criminal Law Committee of the D.C. Bar Association. In recent years, he has been a court-appointed member and chair of the Merit Selection Panel for U.S. Magistrate Judge openings and reappointments in the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Virginia. He served as chair for the white-collar group at Arnold & Porter from 2010-20, and chaired the merit selection panel for magistrate judges in EDVA for the past few years.
A committed advocate of pro bono and nonprofit work, Nassikas has done extensive work for Martha’s Table and Afghan refugees seeking political asylum, and served for many years on the advisory board of the Amazon Biodiversity Center and on the Board of Trustees for Potomac School. Judges in EDVA have also reached out to Nassikas often over the years to represent defendants in both high- and low-profile matters.