Roger Spaeder was a leader of the firm until his retirement in 2012. Following law school, Roger served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, and in 1976 he joined Roger Zuckerman in private practice.

Described as one of the defense bar’s “wisest legal talents” by Washingtonian magazine, a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and a top-rated attorney in The Best Lawyers in America for 20 years, Roger spent more than three decades building Zuckerman Spaeder, including early service as the firm’s managing partner.

Roger’s practice focused on criminal and civil litigation, with a concentration on the defense of federal enforcement investigations and prosecutions.  

Throughout his career, Roger represented corporations and their senior executives in investigations and prosecutions for criminal securities fraud, government contracting fraud, tax evasion, and wire and bank fraud. His expertise included the representation of high-profile public company executives before the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and federal grand juries. His civil litigation practice embraced the defense of federal antitrust litigation, false claims actions brought by qui tam relators, and business tort litigation. He successfully defended senior federal officials against allegations of wrongdoing.

Roger was a faculty member of the Attorney General’s Advocacy Institute, National Institute of Trial Advocacy, Georgetown University Law Center (adjunct lecturer), and Harvard Law Litigation Program. He also chaired a Georgetown University and American Bar Association (ABA)-sponsored annual symposium on federal enforcement for more than a decade and was Cardozo Prize Judge at the Yale Law School.