Vice President, Sexual Misconduct Consulting & Investigations
212.916.8852
Laura Kirschstein joined T&M in December 2012 and serves as Vice President of Sexual Misconduct Consulting & Investigations (SMCI), which provides consulting, training and investigative services to schools, colleges and universities, professional and collegiate sports teams and leagues, non-profit organizations, businesses and private clients in the areas of sexual assault, abuse, harassment, boundary guidelines and proper investigatory techniques during sexual misconduct cases.
Since joining T&M, Ms. Kirschstein has played an instrumental role in the rapid growth and development of SMCI division, a robust team of former prosecutors with an expertise in sexual misconduct, domestic violence and child abuse who have worked with dozens of educational institutions, along with businesses, corporations, law firms and athletic organizations throughout the United States. Ms. Kirschstein and her team of experts assist K-12 private and public schools, colleges and universities with all the various issues related to sexual misconduct and other forms of harassment and violence (domestic violence, stalking, harassment, hazing and bullying) that can impact an educational institution. At primary and secondary schools, she and her team conduct outside independent investigations into reported allegations of sexual misconduct and participate in developing and/or revising schools’ harassment policies to include all types of harassment, bullying, hazing, sexual harassment and sexual abuse/assault. She and her team also work with colleges and universities, helping them to integrate the many requirements of Title IX, the Campus SAVE Act, and the guidelines set forth by “The First Report of the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault,” into their policies, procedures, training for staff and education for students. She and her team conduct investigations into allegations of sexual misconduct and sexual violence that have taken place on and off-campus involving a school’s students or staff. In the specific area of athletics, she and her team develop school athletic policies, evaluate and provide recommendations on athletic department handbooks, advise on appropriate training and education for both student-athletes and athletic department staff and deliver training and educational presentations for athletes and athletic department personnel of all school levels.
For businesses and corporations, Ms. Kirschstein and her team develop and conduct evaluations of policies on sexual misconduct in the workplace and prepare and deliver training sessions to employees on this issue. Working in conjunction with law firms, she and her team also conduct investigations into allegations of sexual harassment and abuse.
In March 2013, Ms. Kirschstein was featured in a New York Magazine issue as one of New York’s Women Leaders in the Law. That same year, she was a subject matter expert for The Working Group on Girls panel, “Preventing Exploitation of Girls at Major Events,” a part of a collection of parallel events being held concurrently with the United Nations’ Commission on the Status of Women fifty-seventh session.
Prior to joining T&M, Ms. Kirschstein served as the First Assistant Deputy Attorney General of the Organized Crime Task Force of the New York State Attorney General’s Office. In that role, she was responsible for conducting complex multi-defendant and multi-state wiretap investigations that included prostitution-based money laundering rings, automobile theft and exportation rings and traditional organized crime.
Prior to joining the Organized Crime Task Force, Ms. Kirschstein was the Managing Director at an investigations and security firm where she served in both case management and investigative capacities. She specialized in domestic and international corporate investigations for both financial firms and law firms, and she managed and conducted intelligence investigations, due diligence reviews, bank fraud and complex international asset searches.
Ms. Kirschstein began her career at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office where she worked as a prosecutor for over 13 years. During that time she conducted hundreds of investigations and Grand Jury presentations and developed a wealth of experience in the investigation and prosecution of sex crimes and child abuse cases. She served as an assistant district attorney for ten years until promoted to Deputy Bureau Chief of one of the six trial bureaus where, among her many responsibilities, she supervised the prosecution of felony cases by 50 lawyers in the bureau. As a senior prosecutor in the Sex Crimes Unit, she presented to the Grand Jury the first John Doe indictment in New York State, based solely upon DNA evidence.
In December 2011, Ms. Kirschstein was awarded the Lefkowitz Award by the New York State Attorney General’s Office for her work on a long-term investigation into the loan-sharking and bookmaking activities of the Gambino crime family.
Ms. Kirschstein earned her Bachelor of Arts in English and Political Science from Bucknell University, graduating with Honors. She received her Juris Doctor from Temple University School of Law, where she was a Notes and Comments editor of the International and Comparative Law Journal. From 2001 until 2003, she served as an Adjunct Professor in the Criminal Justice Department at Pace University.
