Martin G. Weinberg

Profile
Credentials
Associations
Notable Work

Nationally One of the Best Criminal & White Collar Defense Lawyers Based in Boston, Massachusetts

Martin G. Weinberg is a nationally prominent criminal defense lawyer, considered by many within the legal community to rank among the nation's best criminal and white-collar defense lawyers, and best litigators and appellate advocates.

A 1971 Harvard Law School graduate, he has been recognized repeatedly for his accomplishments as a trial and appellate attorney, educator, and leader within the legal profession. As a chief trial and appellate counsel in hundreds of cases for more than four decades, Weinberg has been the lawyer of choice for industry leaders, including other prominent trial attorneys charged with crimes or misconduct, corporate executives, medical professionals, and internet pioneers.

Weinberg has been selected for inclusion in The Best Lawyers for 36 consecutive years starting in 1987, including the 2023 edition. He was honored as one of the Top 10 Lawyers in Massachusetts in 2011 and has been selected as a SuperLawyers for 18 straight years between 2004 through 2022.

Weinberg has earned the 2022 Martindale-Hubbell®AV Preeminent™ Judicial Award, the highest rating in both legal ability and ethical standards, based on evaluations by other members of the bar and the judiciary in the United States and Canada.

Weinberg has represented accused defendants in over 20 federal district courts, 8 U.S. Courts of Appeal, and in the U.S. Supreme Court, where he successfully argued the landmark Fourth Amendment case of United States v. Chadwick.

In 2010, he successfully challenged the Department of Justice’s reliance on the Stored Communications Act to seize the content of emails in violation of the Fourth Amendment in United States v Warshak.

Weinberg has led defense teams that achieved trial acquittals and pretrial dismissals for business executives charged in high-profile political corruption, money laundering, and health and financial fraud cases.

The former director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Weinberg regularly works closely with the nation’s premier trial and appellate counsel as both a consultant and a member of case-specific litigation teams and joint defenses involving companies and their executives.

Recognized for his trustworthy, caring, and one-on-one approach, Weinberg's guidance and counsel is designed to maximize his clients’ chance of acquittal.

Practice Areas

Employment

1997-Present

MARTIN G. WEINBERG, P.C.
20 Park Plaza, Suite 1000, Boston, MA 02116

Specializing in Criminal Trial and Appellate Cases.

1975 - 1997

OTERI, WEINBERG & LAWSON, P.A.
20 Park Plaza, Suite 905, Boston, MA 02116

Partner. Specializing in Criminal Trial and Appellate Cases.

1972 - 1975

CRANE, INKER & OTERI - Boston, MA
Associate. 1972-1973.
Partner. 1973-1975.

Specializing in Criminal Defense.

Experience In The Courts

Argued United States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. 1, 97 S. Ct. 2476 before United States Supreme Court, April 26, 1977

Argued federal criminal appeals before the United States Court of Appeals for the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth panels and en banc, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits.

Admitted pro hac vice for federal criminal cases in the following district courts:

California (Northern District)
Delaware
Florida (Northern, Middle, and Southern Districts)
Georgia (Middle District, Southern District)
Illinois (Northern District),
Louisiana (Western District)
Maine
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New York (Southern, Eastern, and NorthernDistricts)
North Carolina (Eastern District)
Ohio (Southern District)
Oregon
Puerto Rico
Vermont

Admitted pro hac vice for federal criminal cases in the following state courts:

Florida
Ohio

Expert, Panelist, & Guest Lecturer

Expert Witness: Commission on Proceedings Involving Guy Paul Morin
Toronto, Ontario (November 18, 1997)
Inquiry on Prison Informants and Risks of Convicting Innocent Persons

Guest Lecturer: Meredith Law Lectures;
McGill University Faculty of Law – Montreal, Canada
Topic: "The Applicability of Money Laundering Legislation and Other Enforcement
Procedures to the Criminal Defense Attorney," October 5, 2002

Guest Lecturer: National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers
Topic: “Trial Techniques & Strategies From the Masters.” (May, 2003)

Guest Lecturer: National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers Spring Conference -
“Trial Techniques & Strategies from the Masters.” New York, New York
Topic: "Criminal Law for Criminal Lawyers: A Perspective from a co-chair of the
NACDL Lawyer’s Assistance Strike Force." April, 2003

Panelist: Federal CJA Training Seminar
Topic: "Trying a Federal Criminal Case." December 5, 2002

Guest Lecturer: National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers
Topic: "White Collar Defense." February 20, 2002

Guest Lecturer: ABA White Collar Crime Section Committee Meeting
Topic: "Federal Grand Jury Bill of Rights." January 25, 2001

Guest Lecturer: Second Federal Practice Institute
(sponsored by Federal Defender Office, Concord, New Hampshire)
Topic: "Counseling and Confronting the Cooperating Witness."
September 28, 2000

Guest Lecturer: National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers
Topic: "Money Laundering, Fees and the Criminal Defense Attorney."
August 4, 2000

Panelist: CJA Training Seminar, District of Rhode Island
Topic: "How To Avoid Being Accused of Ineffective Assistance of Counsel in the
Current Legal Climate." June 19, 2000

Guest Lecturer: Massachusetts Criminal Defense Lawyers Association
Topic: "Jury Selection." April 14, 2000

Attended First Circuit Judicial Conference in Newport, RI (1989), Waterville Valley, NH (1991), Boston, MA. 1993, 2003

Invited Lecturer: First Circuit Judicial Conference in Bethel, ME. 1999

Member on Panel of Attorneys Receiving Criminal Justice Act Appointments
in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Committee for Public Counsel, Court Appointment List for murder cases

Guest Lecturer: CJA Panel Training, District of New Hampshire
Successfully Defending Drug Prosecutions,
Topic: "Winning Against Odds: Mock Trials, Voir Dire and Life After Salemme." June 4, 1999

Guest Lecturer: Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education, Inc.
Topic: "Cross-Examination of Witnesses." May 20, 1999

Guest Lecturer: National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers
Topic: "Lessons from Ten Months of Litigating Racketeering Cases:
Roving Bugs, Protected Informants & the Ethics of the Witness Reward System."
April 30, 1999

Panelist: Tufts University, EPIIC International Symposium,
Topic: "Global Crime, Corruption and Accountability." March 5, 1999

Guest Lecturer: Tufts University, Education for Public Inquiry and International Citizenship. February 4, 1999

Guest Lecturer: Committee for Public Counsel Services, Annual Training Conference
Topic: "Ethics — The New Massachusetts Rules of Professional Conduct." May 15, 1998

Guest Lecturer: Boston Bar Association, Criminal Law Section.
Topic: "New Ethics Rules." February 12, 1998

Guest Lecturer: National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
Topic: "Witness Informant Reward System." October 31, 1997

Guest Lecturer: Criminal Justice Expo & Conference.
Topic: "Lawyer's Duty: Protect the Guilty?" October 1, 1997

Guest Lecturer: National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
Topic: "Pretrial Investigation." May 2, 1997

Leadership

Past Vice Chair, Grand Jury Reform Committee,
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers

Past Chairman, Money Laundering Task Force,
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers

Vice Chair, Strategic Litigation Committee,
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. 1990-1992

Bar Membership

Massachusetts (admitted in 1972)
United States District Court
District of Massachusetts
United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit
United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit
United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit
United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit
United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit
United States Supreme Court
United States Tax Court

Professional Memberships

National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (Life Member)
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (Director, 1995 - 2000)
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (Co-Chair Lawyer Assistance Strike Force Coordinator, 1994 - Present)
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (Co-Chair Money Laundering Task Force)
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (Co-Chair 8300 Task Force, 1995 - 1998)
Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (Co-Chair Lawyers Assistant Strike Force)
Local Rules Committee (District of Massachusetts 2002 - 2008)

Awards

Super Lawyers® One of Top Lawyers in State: Weinberg was honored as one of the Top 10 Lawyers in Massachusetts in 2011 and has been selected yearly from 2004-2022 for Massachusetts Super Lawyers, a guide widely used by other lawyers to select counsel.
AV Preeminent® Rating from Martindale-Hubbell® Weinberg has earned the 2019 Martindale-Hubbell®AV Preeminent™ Judicial Award, the highest rating in both legal ability and ethical standards, based on evaluations by other members of the bar and the judiciary in the United States and Canada.
Top 10 Attorneys in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Selected by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly for 2011.
Best Law Firms for Criminal Defense: White-Collar in Boston, MA Best Lawyers: selected for inclusion in The Best Lawyers – since 1988 yearly – including the 2023 edition.
Guest lecturer at Harvard Law School Guest lecturer at Harvard Law School on criminal law and ethics issues.
Panelist & Speaker at Four Judicial Conferences Selected to be a panelist and speaker at four Judicial Conferences of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts Selected by the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts to be a member of its Local Rules Committee, its Criminal Justice Act panel (CJA) and its Committee to Select a Federal Magistrate
Lawyers Assistance Strike Force National co-chairman for the Lawyers Assistance Strike Force for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers for over 10 consecutive years and State co-chairman for the Lawyers Assistance Strike Force for the Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers
Former Board Member for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers for 6 years
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers Committee Co-Chair of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers Committee on Money Laundering and the Reform of Federal Grand Juries
Expert witness on American law
Expert witness on American law and the perils of informant testimony before a high-level Ontario, Canada Commission investigating the wrongful murder conviction of an innocent man
Meredith Lectures given at McGill University Invited speaker at the annual Meredith Lectures given at McGill University, Montreal Canada on the topic of US money-laundering laws.
National CLE Conferences Frequent invited speaker at national CLE conferences run by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the Criminal Justice Act Board, the Massachusetts Committees for Public Counsel and Continuing Legal Education and numerous state bar associations and criminal defense organizations nationwide on topics ranging from white-collar defense issues and strategy to cross-examination, openings, summations, electronic surveillance, and money laundering
Author of Legal Articles
Author of legal articles on the Government’s use of subpoenas to acquire emails from ISPs, on the representation of attorneys responding to searches of their law firm offices, on the Warrant Clause of the Fourth Amendment, and on trial defenses to prosecutions involving internet sex offenses
Martindale-Hubbell Bar Register of Pre-eminent Lawyers Criminal Trial practice, AV rating
Super Lawyers Inclusion in Super Lawyers, a rating service of outstanding lawyers who have attained a high-degree of peer recognition and professional achievement. The selection process is multi-phased and includes independent research, peer nominations and peer evaluations.
The Best Lawyers in America The Best Lawyers in America, Woodward/White  Publisher. 1987-2021 (Criminal Defense)
National Directory of Criminal Lawyers Inclusion in National Directory of Criminal Lawyers,  Tarlow, Edward, Gold Publishing

Publications

Search & Seizure Commentary The Champion, June 2014, NACDL.org Warshak 4 Years Later The DOJ Continues to Fight the Warshak Court Requirement 0f a Warrant (Not a Subpoena) to Search and Seize Emails 2014 Visit Publication
Letters to the Editor The Boston Globe Congress must act to give courts leeway for sick prisoners. Congress has left federal judges without the statutory power on their own to remedy post-sentence medical problems such as those that occurred to former House speaker Salvatore DiMasi; instead, Congress has placed responsibility for responding to unforeseen but catastrophic medical events, such as DiMasi’s throat cancer, in the hands of the Bureau of Prisons. 2013 Visit Publication
Bringing the Fourth Amendment into the 21st Century Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, www.masslawyersweekly.com "Like a sealed or resealed first-class letter, or a document stored in a closed filing cabinet, an email stored on an ISP’s server is a closed container in which an individual has a strong, reasonable expectation of privacy, as the Sixth Circuit concluded in Warshak. Consequently, in accord with more than a century of Supreme Court jurisprudence, emails stored withinan ISP server are entitled to all of the protections afforded by the Fourth Amendment’ 2012 Visit Publication
Trial by Press Conference "Before prosecutors present a single witness in a federal or state courtroom, the community has formed a belief in the guilt or innocence … A cornerstone of our system of constitutional liberties is the presumption of innocence. Yet recent but widespread nationwide practices in federal and state cases — announcing indictments via press conferences … profoundly threaten the charged citizen's right to a fair trial …" 2012 Visit Publication
Sixth Circuit: SCA Unconstitutional to Extent It Permits Warrant 2011 Visit Publication
The Stored Communications Act and Private E-mail Communications 2007 Visit Publication
Internet Sexual Entrapment; The uses and misuses of 18 U.S.C. §2 2002 Visit Publication
Federal Grand Jury Reform Report & ‘Bill of Rights’ Prepared by Commission on which Weinberg served. 2000
The Witness Reward System "The defense attorney … must become a teacher, educating jurors about this imbalanced, unfair system." 1998
Challenging the Law Office Search 1996
United States v. Chadwick: Revitalization of the Warrant Clause? 1977
Cross-Examination of Chemists in Narcotics and Marijuana Cases 1972

Accomplishments

Weinberg's Expertise Encompasses a Broad Spectrum of Complex Legal issues.

2019 - Reversal of federal conviction in Puerto Rico of a business executive for bribery with the Court of Appeals ordering the entry of a judgment of acquittal, US v Bravo-Fernandez

Principal lawyer in successful, ground-breaking challenge to the Department of Justice’s 20-year history of seizing the content of emails through secret subpoenas to Internet Service Providers in circumvention of the Warrant Clause of the Fourth Amendment, United States v Warshak

2016 Court of Appeals reversal of federal RICO conviction of state probation heads, United States v Tavares

Trial acquittals in recent political corruption case where the adviser for the Massachusetts Speaker of the House was charged and found not guilty by a jury in the DiMasi-Vitale trial

Trial acquittals in recent federal white collar racketeering conspiracy, tax evasion conspiracy, and money laundering trials for business executives and practicing attorneys

Successfully argued landmark Fourth Amendment case, United States v Chadwick, in United States Supreme Court

2013 Court of Appeals reversal of federal public corruption conviction in Puerto Rico based on proof of gratuities but not bribery, United States v Bravo

Recent dismissal of 73 count indictment charging public corruption in State of Ohio

Successful defenses of doctors, trial lawyers, hospital executives, CEOs of companies, and alleged organized crime leaders in a myriad of challenging cases over the past 40 years in eight federal courts of appeals and over 20 federal district courts from California and Florida to New England and New York

Appellate reversals in recent federal honest services case involving a hospital CEO accused of bribing a state politician and a business executive charged with money laundering

Representation of over 100 attorneys in matters including disqualification challenges, motions to quash grand jury subpoenas, contempt proceedings, and federal criminal prosecution for money laundering and obstruction of justice

Member of the Merit Selection Panel of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts regarding the appointment of a United States Magistrate Judge (1999-2000)

Weinberg Quoted as an Expert

Shelley Murphy and Travis Andersen | Boston Globe Staff | May 30, 2019
By Travis Andersen | Boston Globe Staff | October 31, 2017
Travis Andersen | Boston Globe Staff | October 30, 2017
Travis Andersen | Boston Globe staff | October 28, 2019
Kris Olson | Mass Lawyers Weekly | October 24, 2019
Michael Levenson | Globe Staff | October 23, 2019
Maria Cramer| Globe Staff | July 30, 2019
Eric T. Berkman | Mass Lawyers Weekly | June 20, 2019
Maria Cramer| Globe Staff | June 7, 2019
Andrea Estes, Shelley Murphy and Maria Cramer | Globe Staff | May 23, 2019
Danny McDonald | Globe Staff | April 26, 2019
Maria Cramer| Globe Staff | March 30, 2018
Martin Finucane | Globe Staff | March 30, 2018
Scot Lehigh | Globe Staff | March 22, 2018
Maria Cramer | Globe Staff | March 21, 2018
Maria Cramer | Globe Staff | March 1, 2018
By Maria Cramer | Globe Staff | February 7, 2018
Yvonne Abraham | Globe Staff | December 14, 2017
Kris Olson | Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly | May 25, 2017
Maria Cramer | Boston Globe Staff | October 31, 2017
Danny McDonald, Felice J. Freyer and Bob Hohler | GLOBE STAFF | September 21, 2017
Nestor Ramos | Globe Staff | June 08, 2017

In the Press Dive deeper into the groundbreaking cases Martin G. Weinberg has handled.

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