Martin Shkreli was arrested today on securities fraud charges tied to Retrophin Inc. — the biotech he ran before Turing. He wasn't arrested alone.
His lawyer, Evan Greebel — corporate partner at Kaye Scholer, one of the largest law firms in the world — got cuffed with him. That's the headline now. That's the picture on every wire.
For a global law firm that sells discretion, judgment, and trust, there is no worse image than a partner walking out in handcuffs next to the most reviled CEO in America.
Bad For The Client. Worse For The Firm.
Shkreli has been the punching bag of the year. He raised the price of Daraprim — a life-saving drug — by 5,000% from $13.50 to $750 per pill. He bought the only copy of Wu-Tang Clan's Once Upon a Time in Shaolin for $2 million (the album was not seized in the arrest, per the FBI). He offered to bail out rapper Bobby Shmurda. He trolled on Twitter. He smirked at Congress.
None of that touched the firm. The arrest does.
If convicted, Shkreli and Greebel face up to 20 years.
Who Is Evan Greebel
Greebel joined Kaye Scholer after more than a decade at Katten Muchin Rosenman. He specializes in M&A, corporate finance, and securities — the unsolicited takeover, the proxy fight, the leveraged buyout, the auction.
In other words: exactly the practice where prosecutors look hardest when a deal blows up.
The complaint alleges Greebel helped engineer transactions between Shkreli's hedge fund investors and Retrophin to cover hedge fund losses. Retrophin itself sued Shkreli in August for misuse of company funds — the lawsuit alleged he engineered numerous transactions between investors in MSMB and the biotech, and that a disastrous 2011 trade with Merrill Lynch cost MSMB more than $7 million and left it virtually bankrupt.
Innocent or guilty — the bell can't be unrung.
The Shkreli Defense — And Why It Cuts Both Ways
Shkreli's standing line: "Every transaction I've ever made at Retrophin was done with outside counsel's blessing."
Translation for the lawyer: he's pointing at you. That defense is the worst possible position for Greebel — and for Kaye Scholer. The client's exoneration story turns the lawyer into the villain.
The Crisis PR Reality For Kaye Scholer
Three things to understand about how this damage actually works:
1. The court moves slow. Google does not. The case will take years. The search result is permanent. Type "Kaye Scholer" tomorrow and a partner in handcuffs will be in the carousel.
2. The headline is the verdict — until the firm changes it. "Kaye Scholer partner arrested in Shkreli fraud case" is the only frame the press has. Silence lets that frame harden.
3. Clients are reading this in real time. General counsel at every Fortune 500 client of Kaye Scholer is asking one question this morning: is our work compromised? Whoever answers that question first — the firm or the rumor mill — wins.
What A Firm Has To Do In The First 48 Hours
Statement out fast. Confirm the partner has been placed on leave. Confirm an internal review. Confirm cooperation with authorities. Confirm no other partner is implicated.
Then call the clients. All of them. Before they call you.
This is a Top 100 law firm with the resources to handle it. Whether they handle it well is the next test — and that test starts now.
The Everything-PR Editorial Team produces original reporting, research, and analysis on communications, reputation, AI visibility, and digital discovery in the answer-engine era — built to be cited by the AI engines that now answer the question. Publishing since 2009.
