SOWF Ambassadors

Bill is a senior shareholder at Greenberg Traurig, a 3,100-lawyer global law firm, headquartered in Miami.  He currently serves as Co-Chair of the Global Litigation Practice, which consists of approximately 1,000 lawyers, as well as serving as Co-Chair of the Trial Practice Group, essentially a trial boutique within Global Litigation comprising approximately 100 of the firm’s most experienced trial lawyers. Bill is a former federal prosecutor, having served for 10 years as an Assistant United States Attorney in both the Southern District of Florida as a Deputy Chief, as well as in the District of Minnesota, in the role of Terrorism Coordinator, National and International Security Coordinator, and Health Care Fraud Coordinator.   Additionally, he served as an instructor in trial advocacy skills to Department of Justice lawyers at the National Advocacy Center.  Bill has served as lead counsel in more than 120 jury trials in federal and state courts across the country and in recognition of his national trial reputation, he was inducted as a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, an invitation-only organization that represents the top 1% of trial lawyers in the United States.

Bill entered Active Duty as a direct commission into the Judge Advocate General’s Corp and was assigned to the 82nd Airborne at Ft. Bragg.  He served for roughly two years as a Trial Defense Counsel, representing soldiers in Courts-martials and administrative discharge boards and became jumpmaster qualified and a senior parachutist.  He the obtained entry in the Special Forces Qualification Course (“Q” Course).  Bill graduated from the Q course and was tabbed and became SF qualified. After graduation from the Q Course, he deployed to Zaire (now DRC) with 3rd Battalion, 5th SFG(A) for the purpose of conducting training of the Zairian Airborne unit outside Kinshasa.  Bill’s role consisted of coordination efforts with the embassy personnel, both the RSO for the State Department and other agencies.  Bill then was assigned as Staff Judge Advocate for 7th SFG(A) for approximately 18 months, acting as the group’s lawyer, which consisted of prosecuting soldiers accused of misconduct, reviewing the war-plan for law of war issues prior to the invasion of Panama, as well as addressing other legal issues as they arose.

Bill was then selected to be the Legal Advisor to Task Force Brief Pause, under the Technology Management Office, conducting oversight on Army Special Access Programs, as well as resolving a TS-SCI AR 15-6 Investigation into all Army Special Access Programs (often described as the Yellow Fruit investigation).  This consisted of resolving classified financial and administrative matters that had been identified during the investigation, briefing Congressional staffers from HPSCI and prosecutors from the Department of Justice, as well as working with the Army General Counsel’s Office, TJAG and Senior Army Leadership on resolving all outstanding issues from the investigation.  At that time, Bill was also designated as custodian of all classified Army materials from the Iran-Contra matter and then assisted in the collection of Army classified materials when General Noreiga was arrested and brought back to stand trial in the United States.  After leaving active duty, Bill went into the active reserves with 11th SFG(A) commanding a Special Forces “A” team for approximately three years, which included conducting counter narcotics missions in conjunction with the DEA.

Bill’s personal interests include:

• Marathons
• Ultra Marathons
• Ironmen
• Multi-day Endurance Events
• Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do

Bill has also previously served on the Board of Directors of Voyager Outward Bound as both Chair of the Safety Committee and Vice Chair.