Alison M. Bonelli is an experienced litigator who handles some of the firm’s most significant white collar defense and complex civil litigation matters. She has been recognized by Lawdragon in its 2024 “500 X – The Next Generation” guide, which highlights rising stars in the legal field identified as “future leaders of the law,” and as one of Lawdragon’s 2025 “500 Leading Litigators in America.”

Ms. Bonelli has played a key role in the firm’s defense of individuals in high-profile federal criminal proceedings, helping to earn Levine Lee recognition from Law360 as one of its White Collar Groups of the Year and Legal Lions of the Week, and from The American Lawyer as one of its Litigators of the Week. In recent years, she defended the former Chief Investment Officer of Allianz Global Investors US, who was indicted in a complex securities fraud in which the Government argued that the defendant caused billions of dollars in investor losses. Following years of litigation, the Firm’s efforts resulted in a non-jail sentence and a finding of zero loss attributable to the defendant. Ms. Bonelli was also a key member of the defense team during the recent trial of a former Platinum Partners portfolio manager in which the jury acquitted the defendant of the central charge against him, and the Court sentenced him to less than one year of probation.

Ms. Bonelli also represents companies and individuals in complex civil actions involving securities litigation, class action litigation, bankruptcy litigation, contract disputes, and intellectual property litigation, as well as in internal corporate investigations. Recent representations include: an individual in a seventeen-case family dispute over one of the world’s largest private art collections valued at over $1 billion; a performing rights organization in connection with a copyright dispute between two of its affiliates; a prominent multi-strategy hedge fund in a confidential arbitration; an individual in multiple securities class actions; and a large financial institution in an internal investigation.

Prior to joining the firm, Ms. Bonelli was a litigator at Milbank LLP and clerked for the Hon. William H. Pauley III of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School (cum laude) and Georgetown University (cum laude).