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Howard Master

Howard Master

Adjunct Professor of Law

Howard Master, a recognized expert on corruption, financial crime, and investigations, serves as Managing Director and Counsel to the CEO at Nardello & Co., the global investigations firm.  He supports the firm’s global practices and advises the firm on major strategic initiatives.

Previously, Mr. Master served as a leader, investigator, and trial lawyer in federal, state, and local prosecutors’ offices, working on many of the offices’ most significant cases during his time in public service.

At the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), where Mr. Master served as a public corruption prosecutor and later as Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division and Criminal Health Care Fraud Coordinator, he investigated and prosecuted individual and corporate wrongdoers responsible for major corruption scandals and financial crimes, including those responsible for the largest fraud, kickback, and money laundering scheme ever perpetrated against New York City; Sheldon Silver, the Speaker of the New York State Assembly, who received millions of dollars in bribes; and a corporate executive at Valeant Pharmaceuticals who carried out a $10 million kickback and money laundering scheme.

Later, at the New York State Office of the Attorney General (OAG), where Mr. Master served as Senior Enforcement Counsel to the Attorney General, Mr. Master led and represented the State of New York in significant OAG and multistate investigations. His accomplishments included a pioneering investigation and enforcement action targeting pervasive workplace misconduct by Harvey Weinstein and The Weinstein Company, and successful multistate and local investigations of the opioids industry.

At the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office (SCDAO), Mr. Master served as Special Counsel to the District Attorney. There, he supervised an investigation that exonerated a man who served 33 years in prison for a murder he did not commit. Howard also created the SCDAO’s Conviction Integrity Bureau and oversaw all of the SCDAO’s conviction integrity, public corruption, and complex fraud and money laundering cases.

Mr. Master has been an Adjunct Professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School since 2016.

Mr. Master clerked for the Honorable José A. Cabranes in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and for the Honorable Victor Marrero in the Southern District of New York.

Mr. Master received his J.D. magna cum laude from the New York University School of Law and his bachelor’s degree from Yale University. He is the author of “Legislative Corruption” in The Anticorruption Manual: A Guide for State Prosecutors (2021).

Mr. Master has received numerous awards throughout his career, including the U.S. Department of Justice Director’s Award for Superior Performance; the Federal Law Enforcement Foundation’s Prosecutor of the Year; and the U.S. Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces’ Investigation of the Year.