Duncan Levin
Managing Partner
- Mail: dlevin@levinpllc.com
- Phone: 212-330-7626
Duncan Levin is the Managing Partner of Levin & Associates, PLLC. A Yale-educated, former federal prosecutor and senior official in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, he represents individuals, families, executives, and companies in complex, high-stakes matters involving criminal exposure, regulatory scrutiny, investigations, financial disputes, and reputational risk. He is often engaged at the earliest stages of sensitive matters where investigative pressure, public scrutiny, and commercial consequences overlap—and where experienced judgment and strategic advocacy can shape outcomes.
At Levin & Associates, Mr. Levin advises and represents clients in white-collar criminal defense, fraud and regulatory investigations, internal investigations, anti-fraud disputes, OFAC/sanctions and blocked-funds matters, asset forfeiture litigation, and complex business conflicts with investigative or reputational dimensions. He has built a nationally recognized practice focused on matters that demand discretion, rigorous factual development, and decisive, practical strategy.
Mr. Levin is also a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School, where he teaches Cash, Crime, and the Constitution: The Legal Frontiers of Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering, and he teaches trial advocacy as part of Harvard Law School programming.
Government Leadership and Financial Enforcement Experience
Mr. Levin served as a federal prosecutor with the U.S. Department of Justice specializing in money laundering and asset forfeiture and on the senior staff of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, where he was Chief of Asset Forfeiture. As forfeiture chief for Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr., Mr. Levin oversaw criminal and civil asset forfeiture and money laundering matters across a wide variety of cases, including international corruption, white-collar fraud, identity theft, organized crime, terrorist financing, and narcotics prosecutions.
He was the primary liaison with the U.S. Department of Justice on the forfeiture of $1.9 billion in the HSBC OFAC sanctions matter and $350 million in the Standard Chartered OFAC sanctions matter, as well as OFAC/AML matters involving BNP Paribas and ING. These matters, together with his broader leadership in financial enforcement, inform the firm’s current work in criminal defense, sanctions, forfeiture, AML, and investigatory matters.
Mr. Levin managed a full-time staff of dedicated prosecutors and support personnel and supervised forfeiture and monetary recoveries on cases involving more than 500 Manhattan Assistant District Attorneys. Mr. Levin was the original drafter of a criminal forfeiture and criminal monetary recovery statute that was included in Governor Cuomo’s 2012 budget proposal. Mr. Levin also ran all aspects of the District Attorney’s restoration of forfeited funds to crime victims and worked with the Suspicious Activity Report (“SAR”) Team with respect to federal money laundering cases, Title 31, and other Bank Secrecy Act (“BSA”) cases.
He served as counsel to the procedure committee of the White Collar Crimes Task Force of the District Attorneys Association of the State of New York, and he was a member of the New York State Forfeiture Law Advisory Group.
A Pedigree To Ensure Successful Results
Prior to joining the senior staff of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, Mr. Levin served as an Assistant United States Attorney at the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, where he handled financial investigations, money laundering, and asset forfeiture matters arising from a variety of complex federal crimes. In that position, he served under U.S. Attorneys Benton J. Campbell and then Loretta Lynch, who later served as Attorney General of the United States.
Mr. Levin started his legal career as a line prosecutor at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office under District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, focusing on financial crime and developing the courtroom and trial skills that continue to shape his practice. He later clerked for the Hon. Nicholas G. Garaufis on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York and has worked in private practice.
Mr. Levin is a graduate of Yale College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa (with honors), and Yale Law School. He is admitted to practice in New York and before multiple federal courts, including the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and the Supreme Court of the United States.
Levin is a frequent legal contributor to MSNBC/MSNOW and appears often in the media, including CNN, NY1, and NBC, on current issues involving criminal law. He has been named to Yahoo Finance and Hollywood Digest’s list of the Top 25 Entrepreneurs to Watch, and he has been accepted to Lawyers of Distinction, Super Lawyers, and Best Lawyers 2026.
Mr. Levin also serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Housing Works, a New York City nonprofit providing housing, healthcare, and reentry support to individuals affected by HIV/AIDS, homelessness, and involvement in the criminal legal system.
Teaching, Writing, and Media Commentary
Mr. Levin has lectured extensively on money laundering, suspicious activity reporting, AML/OFAC, and asset forfeiture for the U.S. Department of Justice and the District Attorney’s Office. He continues to teach, write, and comment on criminal law, financial enforcement, and the constitutional implications of modern monetary sanctions. He has been published in the Yale Journal on Regulation’s Notice & Comment blog, including his 2026 piece, “When Money Becomes Punishment.”
Mr. Levin is a frequent legal contributor on television and in the media on current criminal-law issues, including appearances associated with MSNBC/MSNOW, CNN, NY1, and NBC, and he is regularly interviewed and quoted on major legal developments.
Contact Levin & Associates, PLLC
Contact Levin & Associates, PLLC to discuss confidential, high-stakes matters requiring experienced counsel, strategic judgment, and discreet problem-solving.
