Thomas H. Lee is a partner at Gruenstein Law and the Leitner Family Professor of International Law at the Fordham University School of Law, where he has taught for over 20 years. Tom has extensive experience litigating complex and novel challenges to federal, state and local laws and regulations, as well as other matters of constitutional, national security and international law.
In private practice, Tom has litigated a wide range of federal lawsuits, including antitrust, securities and consumer-protection disputes; data security and telecommunications matters; and cross-border cases involving foreign governments and officials. He has also served as an expert witness in U.S. and foreign litigation and international arbitration regarding the Alien Tort Statute, the American legal system, investment treaty claims and international territorial disputes.
In 2024, Tom was lead counsel in the first lawsuit to obtain a federal court ruling that the Corporate Transparency Act was unconstitutional.
From 2019 to 2020, Tom served as Special Counsel to the General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Defense, where he advised on a wide variety of national security law matters including executive- and deliberative-privilege and sovereign-immunity assertions, cybersecurity and AI policies, national security sanctions, procurement disputes and CFIUS review.
At Fordham, where he also serves as Co-Director of the Center on Asian Americans and the Law, Tom has taught courses in constitutional law, federal jurisdiction and litigation, international arbitration, international law, national security law and telecommunications law. He has also been a Visiting Professor at Columbia Law School, Harvard Law School and the University of Virginia School of Law; a member of the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) Panel of Conciliators; and U.S. Law Adviser to the Constitutional Court of Korea.
Tom is a summa cum laude graduate of Harvard College and an honors graduate of Harvard Law School, where he was Articles Chair of the Harvard Law Review. He also holds a master’s degree in Regional Studies-East Asia from Harvard and is fluent in Korean and proficient in Japanese. After law school, Tom clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit for Judge Michael Boudin and on the U.S. Supreme Court for Justice David H. Souter. Before law school, he served as an active-duty U.S. naval cryptology officer aboard submarines and with the National Security Agency.
Benjamin Gruenstein serves as a trusted advisor to companies, boards of directors and senior executives navigating their most consequential legal challenges in the areas of government and internal investigations, regulatory enforcement, white-collar criminal defense and complex civil litigation.
Before launching Gruenstein Law, Ben spent 14 years as a partner at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, where he was a founding member of the firm’s Investigations and Regulatory Enforcement Practice. In that role, he represented companies and executives in investigations and litigation involving securities and accounting fraud, money laundering, healthcare fraud, trade sanctions, theft of trade secrets, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the False Claims Act. He also routinely advised companies and their boards of directors on corporate governance and regulatory compliance.
Ben is a first-chair trial lawyer, who has tried numerous cases as a federal prosecutor and in private practice. He also regularly argues cases in federal courts of appeals, and recently argued a case before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Ben has been recognized as a leading lawyer by Chambers USA for White-Collar Crime & Government Investigations, named a “National Star” by Benchmark Litigation and selected by Lawdragon as one of the “500 Leading Lawyers in America.”
Clients and peers have praised Ben as “highly esteemed,” “the most strategic lawyer I’ve ever worked with” and “known for his strategic acumen, meticulous approach and dedication to achieving the best possible outcomes for his clients.” Others have noted that he “brings an exceptional amount of intellect to his cases and is strategically on point,” and has “impeccable judgment” and “total command of the facts of a case.” Another has described Ben’s “professionalism, effectiveness, intelligence, legal expertise and bedside manner” as “unparalleled,” stating that he “went above and beyond anything I or any board member had ever experienced.”
Before joining Cravath, Ben served from 2002 to 2008 as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. He is a summa cum laude graduate of Harvard College and a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. After law school, he clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit for Judge Stephen F. Williams and on the U.S. Supreme Court for Justice David H. Souter.
