LARRY P. ELLSWORTH, Partner Publications · Professional Activities Washington, DC Office Office: (202) 639-6032 Fax: (202) 661-4811 Email: lellsworth@jenner.com  Add to Outlook Contacts

Larry P. Ellsworth is a partner in the Firm's Litigation Department.  He is a member of its Securities Litigation and Class Action Practices.  He is also a member of the Firm's Securities Practice and its Subprime Litigation Task Force.  Mr. Ellsworth brings more than 20 years of regulatory experience to the Firm.

Mr. Ellsworth with other Jenner & Block attorneys defends some of the largest companies in the United States in confidential securities investigations, as well as in private class actions, and derivative actions.  For example, he successfully defended General Motors Corporation in a recently settled SEC investigation involving pension, derivatives and commodities accounting and disclosure issues.  Mr. Ellsworth also defends officers, which include Directors, the President, Vice President, CEO, CFO, Treasurer, Controller, Chief Accounting Officer, and the General Counsel of large companies, some involving grand jury investigations.  He additionally advises boards of directors, audit committees, and others with regard to internal investigations involving allegations of accounting, financial reporting, options backdating, insider trading and Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations.

Further, Mr. Ellsworth represents companies and institutional investors in affirmative actions to recoup losses.  For example, he heads the derivatives team in a $2 billion accounting malpractice suit against a Big 4 firm involving accounting for derivatives, mortgage-backed securities and other financial instruments.  Similarly, he represents clients with auction-rate securities claims for hundreds of millions of dollars against major financial institutions.

Previously, as Assistant Chief Litigation Counsel for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Trial Unit, Mr. Ellsworth was named the 2004 winner of the prestigious Stanley Sporkin Award, the highest award for enforcement efforts at the SEC.  In awarding the Sporkin Award, the SEC recognized Mr. Ellsworth as one of the best trial counsel ever to represent it.  During his 12-year career at the SEC, Mr. Ellsworth never lost a case, even though he carried one of the heaviest caseloads and tried a number of the SEC’s most difficult cases.  For example, in 2004 Mr. Ellsworth completed a remarkable hat trick of superb litigation victories.  Most notably, a litigation team under his supervision won a landmark decision following a 2-1/2 week trial in the auditor independence proceeding that resulted in the longest suspension ever of a major audit firm.  Also, Mr. Ellsworth won – for the second time – a jury verdict in a difficult circumstantial case of insider trading.  In addition, he captained the team that won a precedent-setting summary judgment in a major market manipulation case against 55 defendants.

Among Mr. Ellsworth’s numerous victories in prior years at the SEC was an unprecedented order prohibiting joint trading arrangements among a major investment company’s affiliates, where the company was charged with directing investment opportunities from mutual funds to a private retirement fund for management and employees.  In the broker-dealer area, Mr. Ellsworth was a lead litigator for the Enforcement Division in the only temporary cease-and-desist proceeding ever brought.  The result was the shutting down and liquidation of A.R. Barron and subsequent criminal conviction of all of its principal officers for fraud.  Additionally, Mr. Ellsworth won summary judgments for fraud in some of the earliest cases finding joint and several liability among defendants, rejecting credits for business expenses in calculating disgorgement, and justifying suits against relief defendants.  Further, Mr. Ellsworth litigated several international fraud cases, including one that led to a company being delisted from the New York Stock Exchange, in which hundreds of millions of dollars were collected abroad to be distributed to investors.

Before joining the SEC, from 1990 to 1993, Mr. Ellsworth was a Vice President and Director of Litigation for a Fortune 50 Company.  From 1985 to 1990, he was a partner in two prominent Washington, DC law firms, where he represented a number of financial institutions.  His practice during the Savings and Loan crisis involved loan participations, false or misleading financial statements and appraisals, accounting discrepancies, construction problems, breaches of warranties, contractual conditions, fiduciary obligations, collection of notes, enforcement of guarantees, foreclosures and bankruptcies.

From 1978 to 1985, Mr. Ellsworth was head of Federal Court litigation regarding petroleum price and allocation controls at the U.S. Department of Energy.  During his service at the Energy Department, he was the lead litigator in U.S. v. Exxon Corp., in which the Court ordered the largest judgment ever entered in a case brought by the United States—over $2 billion.  Earlier in his career, Mr. Ellsworth was counsel to the Senate Ethics Committee where he took testimony in a highly publicized legislative committee investigation of bribery and influence peddling in the U.S. Senate.

Mr. Ellsworth has been a guest lecturer on securities enforcement issues at the Georgetown University Law School.  Previously, he wrote and lectured frequently on access to information issues and, at one time, while practicing public interest law, was lead counsel in more than 25% of all Freedom of Information Act lawsuits then pending in the country.  Drawing on his experience, he recently has spoken at various forums in New York, Chicago, Detroit, and Washington, DC on such issues as crisis management, current developments at the SEC, broker-dealer litigation, the new broker-dealer regulator, FINRA, hedge funds, financial fraud investigations, the Federal Corrupt Practices Act, insider trading, and subprime litigation.

Mr. Ellsworth obtained his law degree from Harvard Law School where he was an Editor on the Harvard Civil-Rights and Civil Liberties Law Review.  He additionally obtained an L.L.M. from the Georgetown University Law Center.  His undergraduate degree is in Economics from Michigan State University, where he received a B.A. with Highest Honors.

He is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia and New York.