Alumnus/Alumna of the Month

Kenneth Thompson (’92)

Read an Interview with Kenneth Thompson.

Read the court transcript from the Abner Louima trial.

Kenneth Thompson is a founding partner of Thompson Wigdor & Gilly LLP. As an experienced trial attorney and former federal prosecutor, Mr. Thompson has litigated a wide range of employment discrimination cases and criminal matters in federal and state courts. He has also led both criminal and civil investigations and is the head of the firm's Trial Practice Group. Mr. Thompson's trials and investigations have resulted in a number of television and newspaper interviews on various legal matters and landed him on the front page of Newsday after he delivered the opening statement in the Abner Louima federal civil rights trial. He has also appeared on Good Morning America and the Fox News Channel. Mr. Thompson served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York for more than five years. Mr. Thompson's impressive record includes a number of convictions at trial and successful investigations and prosecutions of bank robbery, murder-for-hire, bribery, embezzlement, kidnapping and other offenses. He also received numerous awards from the FBI, the Commissioner of the New York City Police Department, and a host of other law enforcement agencies, and was recognized by the U.S. Attorney's Office for his outstanding contributions.

Mr. Thompson's role in the successful investigation and prosecution of New York City police officers for the brutal beating and torture of Abner Louima - one of the most horrific cases of police brutality in the history of New York City - was just one of his career highlights while in the U.S. Attorney's Office. His powerful opening statement at the Louima trial was considered by many, including a number of federal judges and news reporters, as one of the greatest opening statements ever delivered in the Eastern District of New York. Echoing the sentiments of many observers in the courtroom, newspaper columnist Jimmy Breslin reported that Thompson "delivered an opening statement that will be remembered." Most importantly, his formidable trial skills and dedication to the prosecution contributed to former Police Officer Justin Volpe pleading guilty in the middle of the trial and to the jury convicting former Police Officer Charles Schwarz of violating Abner Louima's civil rights. In addition to his trial work, Thompson assisted in briefing then FBI Director Louis Freeh on the status of the Louima investigation.

Thompson has participated in some of the country's most prominent, high-profile investigations. In 1993, he was a member of the Treasury Department's Waco Administrative Review, which conducted the investigation ordered by then President Bill Clinton of the raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas by federal agents, in which four agents were killed and 20 others shot and seriously wounded. Thompson was one of the attorneys who drafted the official report on the Waco incident, known as the "Waco Report, which has been praised as a model for government investigations. The Washington Post called it "[a] thorough and candid account of a .law enforcement disaster." The New York Times also weighed in, describing the Waco Report as "brutally detailed."

Thompson earned his law degree in 1992 from New York University School of Law, where he received the prestigious Arthur T. Vanderbilt Medal for outstanding contributions to the law school, and he earned a B.A., magna cum laude, from John Jay College. Following law school, he served as a clerk for United States District Judge Benjamin F. Gibson, former Chief Judge of the Western District of Michigan. He also worked for United States District Judge Robert P. Patterson, Jr. in the Southern District of New York, for two New York State Supreme Court Justices, and at the New York State Legislature. He is admitted to the New York State Bar, the U.S. District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York and the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals.