Ricardo Solano Jr. has joined FKSA after serving as First Assistant Attorney General of the State of New Jersey. His practice will focus on white-collar criminal defense, internal investigations, corporate compliance, and commercial litigation.

As the second-ranking official in the Attorney General's office, Mr. Solano coordinated the policies, operations, and investigations of the Department of Law and Public Safety, consisting of approximately 9,100 employees, including more than 600 lawyers. He was responsible for day-to-day oversight of the Division of Criminal Justice, the Division of Law, the Division of Consumer Affairs, including the Bureau of Securities, the Division of State Police, and the Office of State Police Affairs.

Prior to joining the Attorney General's office in 2008, Mr. Solano was a partner in a leading New Jersey law firm, where he concentrated on white-collar criminal, complex civil, and appellate law. Prior to that period of private practice, he served for more than five years in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Newark, working in the appeals division, the terrorism unit of the criminal division, and the special prosecutions division. During his career as a federal prosecutor, Mr. Solano prosecuted cases involving mail and wire fraud, violations of federal anti-corruption statutes, tax fraud, export control law violations, and pharmaceutical and other product diversion schemes, and also argued appeals before the Third Circuit.

Mr. Solano graduated in 1995 from New York University and received his law degree summa cum laude in 1998 from Seton Hall University School of Law, where he was an editor of the Seton Hall Law Review. He clerked for former New Jersey Supreme Court Chief Justice Deborah T. Poritz from 1998 to 1999 and for Judge Maryanne Trump Barry of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit from 1999 to 2000.

Mr. Solano has been an adjunct professor at Seton Hall, teaching a seminar on criminal sentencing. He also has lectured on federal appellate practice for the New Jersey Institute for Continuing Education, and has spoken before trade groups on cyberstalking and the First Amendment. He is a member of the Hispanic Bar Association of New Jersey and has been a member of the New Jersey Supreme Court Committee on Rules of Evidence. He is admitted in both New Jersey and New York, and he is fluent in Spanish.

Mr. Solano has been selected for inclusion by Law & Politics in Super Lawyers® 2009 New Jersey Edition for having attained the highest degree of peer recognition and professional achievement in the multiphase Super Lawyers selection process which includes, among other factors, peer evaluation. He was selected for inclusion by Law & Politics in the New Jersey edition of Rising Stars in 2008. (No aspect of this advertisement has been approved by the Supreme Court of New Jersey.)