Milbank

Litigation & Arbitration

With nearly 20 years of experience as a former federal prosecutor and defense attorney, Nola regularly serves as lead counsel on behalf of global financial institutions, multinational companies, boards, and individuals in high-stakes investigations and multimillion-dollar criminal and regulatory enforcement matters.

Nola specializes in representing institutional clients in enforcement-related matters in light of her significant experience appearing before federal and state regulators including the Department of Justice, Securities and Exchange Commission, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Federal Reserve, New York Department of Financial Services, FINRA, and State Attorneys General.

Institutional clients also frequently turn to Nola to lead sensitive internal investigations involving allegations of workplace misconduct and in response to whistleblower complaints on a wide variety of subjects, as well as in compliance matters. She has a particular expertise in recordkeeping matters related to employees’ use of personal devices for business communications.

Individuals call on Nola to defend them in major federal criminal matters given her years of experience prosecuting and supervising federal cases as an Assistant United States Attorney in Southern District of New York, as well as her successful track record in obtaining favorable dispositions for her clients.

Nola also has significant experience in cryptocurrency matters, frequently representing individuals and institutions in cryptocurrency-related criminal and regulatory probes. Her extensive litigation experience includes leading or supervising more than forty federal jury trials and conducting multiple appellate arguments before the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

In addition to being recognized by Chambers USA and Legal 500, Nola has been recognized by Benchmark Litigation as one of the Top 250 Women in Litigation for five straight years. She was also named to Financier Worldwide’s 2024 Power Players List as a distinguished adviser for Investigations & White-Collar Crime.

Prior to joining Milbank, Nola was a partner at another New York law firm. Prior to that, she served for 11 years as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York (SDNY). She led two different SDNY units during that time, first serving as Co-Chief of the General Crimes Unit, and then as Chief of the Violent and Organized Crime Unit.

During her time in government, Nola trained scores of junior prosecutors and prosecuted or supervised cases involving all manner of federal crimes, including those involving charges of racketeering (RICO), securities fraud, money laundering, bank and wire fraud, tax fraud, health care fraud, and cybercrime, among other offenses. She also served as one of SDNY’s primary liaisons with various federal and state agencies, including the Department of Justice, other US Attorney's Offices, District Attorney's Offices, and law enforcement agencies such as the FBI and IRS.

In 2017, Nola received the Attorney General's David Margolis Award for Exceptional Service, the Department of Justice's highest award. During her time in government, Nola also received the Federal Law Enforcement Foundation's Prosecutor of the Year Award and twice earned Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force Awards of Excellence.

Before joining the US Attorney's Office in 2006, Nola clerked for the Honorable Reena Raggi of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and the Honorable Michael B. Mukasey of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Nola is a member of the Federal Bar Council’s Federal Criminal Practice Committee and the New York City Bar’s White Collar Crime Committee. She serves on the Criminal Justice Act Panel for the Southern District of New York and the Boards of Directors of the Legal Aid Society and Volunteers of Legal Services. She is also one of the co-founders of the When There Are Nine Scholarship Project, created in 2020 to assist promising female law students in honor of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Nola received a J.D. from Yale Law School, where she was Managing Editor of The Yale Law Journal, and a B.A., magna cum laude, from Yale University.