MARCH 4 • 2021 | 27

A

fter a long and storied 
career as a white-collar 
criminal defense law-
yer working with some of the 
most important cases in the last 
few decades, attorney Richard 
Zuckerman is back in town.
Zuckerman, whose most 
recent assignment was serving 
three years as acting attorney 
general of the Tax Division of 
the Department of Justice in 
Washington, D.C., is taking 
some time to unwind in Metro 
Detroit as he waits for his next 
big opportunity.
It’s a strategy that has worked 
for the Yonkers, N.Y., native 
since the mid-1960s, when he 
graduated from the University 
of Michigan and spent four 
years in the U.S. Navy. Time 
and time again, interesting 
opportunities came knocking 
at Zuckerman’s door without 
him really looking for them. 
His career was a sort of a dom-
ino effect where one thing led 
to another, putting him in the 
right place at the right time.
The journey began after 
his time with the Navy 
ended. Zuckerman attended 
Southwestern University School 

of Law in Los Angeles where 
he took a mix of business and 
criminal law courses. He want-
ed to find a way to combine the 
two. “I didn’t want to pick one 
area over another,
” Zuckerman 
said. “I took a lot of tax courses, 
and I liked tax.
”
One day, an opportunity to 
connect his two passions arrived. 
An employment placement 
signup sheet at his law school 

showed that the Department 
of Justice was hiring. “It’s a one 
in a million chance to get hired 
by the Department of Justice at 
a law school,
” he recalled. He 
decided to take a practice inter-
view for it. At least, he thought it 
was a practice interview.
Zuckerman sat down 
with a member of the DOJ. 
He expressed an interest in 
white-collar criminal law, and it 
just so happened that the person 
he interviewed with was a dep-

uty chief of the organized crime 
section of the Criminal Division.
“I decided that I could marry 
criminal law and corporate law 
by doing organized crime pros-
ecutions,
” Zuckerman said. “Not 
the violent stuff, per se, but the 
economic aspects.
” 
He aced his interview and 
received a job with the DOJ, 
moving to D.C. for training. 
From there, a career in white 

collar crime with a subspeciality 
of tax was born.

HIGH-PROFILE CASES
It was a fluke, he said, that even-
tually brought him to Detroit. 
In the mid-1970s, a depart-
ment head mentioned that the 
Detroit Strike Force office had 
an opening. Having met his wife 
at the University of Michigan, 
Zuckerman asked to be assigned 
to Detroit. By January 1975, he 
was working in the Motor City.

During his time in Detroit, 
Zuckerman worked on some 
of the highest-profile cases in 
the city, including the 1975 dis-
appearance of Teamsters boss 
Jimmy Hoffa and the income 
tax evasion of Detroit mafia 
captain Anthony Giacalone, 
among others.
Zuckerman then spent 30 
years as part of the Honigman 
Miller Schwartz and Cohn law 
firm, now Honigman LLC, in 
Detroit, mostly as head of its 
white-collar crime and govern-
ment investigations practice 
group. He also represented the 
Detroit Free Press in the text 
messaging scandal involving 
former Detroit Mayor Kwame 
Kilpatrick, another high-profile 
case to add to his roster.
In December 2017, 
Zuckerman left Honigman to 
accept his most recent position 
with the Tax Division of the DOJ 
in the Trump administration. He 
was part of the senior leadership 
of the department, directing 
some 350 lawyers and 150 sup-
port staff to carry out enforce-
ment of the nation’s tax laws.
His appointment ended on 
Jan. 20 with the inauguration 
of President Joe Biden. Now, 
Zuckerman has returned to his 
longtime home of Michigan 
with no plan other than to see 
what might happen next.
As an integral part of the local 
Jewish community, Zuckerman 
was one of the founding mem-
bers of Temple Shir Shalom, 
also serving on its board. He 
served on the board for the 
Detroit chapter of the American 
Committee for the Weizmann 
Institute of Science as well.
“I’m still interested in prac-
ticing if the right thing came 
along,
” Zuckerman says. “But 
I’m not in a great hurry to go 
back. I’ve decided to take it easy 
for a while and see what comes 
along.
” 

White-Collar 
 Warrior

“I’M STILL INTERESTED IN 
PRACTICING IF THE
RIGHT THING CAME ALONG.” 

— RICHARD ZUCKERMAN

Jimmy Hoffa and the income 
tax evasion of Detroit mafia 
captain Anthony Giacalone, 
among others.

years as part of the Honigman 
Miller Schwartz and Cohn law 
firm, now Honigman LLC, in 
Detroit, mostly as head of its 
white-collar crime and govern-
ment investigations practice 
group. He also represented the 

 Warrior

From Jimmy Hof
 a 
to Kwame Kilpatrick, 
attorney has seen it all.

ASHLEY ZLATOPOLSKY 
CONTRIBUTING WRITER