Arkin studied at the University of Southern California and then went to Harvard Law School. He graduated cum laude in 1962 and a year later came to New York. "I began working for a man who was a renowned white-collar criminal defense practitioner named Harris Steinberg," he told Earthtimes. "I became a sort of apprentice to him, and in his last year of life I was his young partner. He died in 1969."

Arkin then went into practice on his own and began to focus on economic crime, the defense of complicated financial cases. "I'm not going to mention particular cases," he said, "but I argued the first insider-trading case before the Supreme Court." That was in 1980, when he defended financial printer Vincent Chiarella before the highest court and succeeded in having his conviction overturned following a groundbreaking ruling that limited the legal definition of an "insider."

Michael Douglas may have personified the greed of the 1980s on the silver screen, but it was Arkin who was on the front lines of the effort to create a legal framework for the new and imaginative trespasses of the new very ambitious mentality. "I was involved in many of those cases," he said, "Wall Street greed, arbitrageurs' trials--it was an interesting time."

Does he see a parallel between the excesses of the Eighties and the loss of confidence in today's markets? "There may be some of the same motivations--the arrogance and cupidity--but I think it's somewhat different now because the governance issues now go very much to the core of the professionals who surround a business. I think the Nineties spawned a level of greed and self-interest that certainly has made for a different quality in the problems emerging now. In the Eighties, insider information wasn't as fully understood as it is today, it was very different. Greed has always been the same, but the breadth of the governance issues today reflects a broader malaise, a much greater sense of the things we have to repair. I'm not saying that back in the Eighties auditing was any better--though I suspect it was--but I think that the Nineties bred a diminishing of professional resolve on the part of auditors."

Arkin believes that the growth of commerce, the globalization of the economy, and extraordinary pressures on businesses to remain competitive while maintaining their capital base and credit made corruption today "somewhat more pervasive." "I'm not saying it's corruption of the traditional, biblical sort--or maybe it is--but basically it's spawned by self-absorption, a sense of self-entitlement, an unusual and I think economically indefensible way of valuing the services of particular people."

Arkin believes the government can take action to tackle the problems of the markets. "The government must respond by a showing of muscle. But I think what needs to be done swiftly is an overhauling of the obligations of auditors and accountants. An extraordinary effort has to be made to restore credibility to the American marketplace. Nothing is more important to the marketplace than preserving its traditions of at least claimed probity, and not to do that would be very bad. That's the area in which government and our regulators and our leaders in business should move swiftly, directly and with some apparent resolve and definitive action as opposed to pap."

Arkin has been involved in a number of high-profile Wall Street cases. His clients included Paul Mozer, former head of the Government Trading Desk at Salomon Brothers, for whom Arkin won the enforcement of a plea agreement; arbitrageur Salim Lewis who was charged with stock manipulation; Harold Gleason, the former chairman of the Franklin National Bank; Alan Fiers, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer facing charges in the Iran Contra investigation; and J. Bruce Johnston, a former US Steel executive charged with labor law violations. Arkin also defended Father Bruce Ritter, the former head of Covenant House, against allegations of sexual abuse.

Arkin has represented or advised companies, agencies and individuals in civil cases that included the largest arbitration ever conducted before the National Futures Association involving Republic National Bank and its affiliates. He also represented or advised investor Ronald Perelman; Wall Street executives in connection with regulatory investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the National Association of Securities Dealers; the late Pamela Harriman, US Ambassador to France, on claims concerning trusts established by her husband W. Averell Harriman; Israel Aircraft Industries in a contract dispute with American Express Bank; and Prince Albert Grimaldi of Monaco.

When Goldman, Sachs & Co. faced litigation in connection with the bankruptcy of Orange County in California, it turned to Arkin. Peter Cohen, former chairman of Shearson Lehman Hutton, and Kenneth Roman, former CEO of Ogilvy & Mather, wanted Arkin to represent them in connection with contractual and employment disputes, as did Steve Black of Salomon Smith Barney.

And, of course, Johnny Carson famously asked Arkin to represent him "in the field of matrimonial law," as the law firm's brochure delicately puts it.

Arkin has also been involved in a number of what he calls "exotic cases." These include lawsuits in foreign countries, combining the structure of defense of civil lawsuits across different legal systems, and some high-profile investigations. One such investigation involved the late Edmond Safra, chairman of Republic New York Corporation. "American Express was defaming him around the world, and I put together both an international investigation and a strategy whereby we showed that American Express intentionally was trying to defame Mr. Safra. We made them apologize. It was an interesting case," Arkin said, and it resulted in the American Express Company's payment of $8 million to designated charities and a public apology to Safra.

"Through the nineties there were a number of cases in the regulatory and financial area, a lot of high ticket negotiations," Arkin said. "The practice kind of burgeoned out to where we do not just do criminal or regulatory issues, but are involved in a number of plaintiffs' actions--some of which are novel in their construct. We are defending a host of other civil litigation matters, and then we have a class of cases--about 25 percent of our practice--which we call 'strategy cases.' These are generally complicated cases that have a legal aspect, but also many other dimensions."

These other dimensions clearly fascinate Arkin. "One of the things I've always believed," he said "is that you can't effectively practice law if you have blinders on, that is to say if you do things simply by reading rule books as opposed to thinking about the case. You have to find your own sense of what the problem is and how to resolve it." He added, clearly relishing the intuitive aspects of his work: "And to my mind the best lawyering, the best representation is if you look at the person's problem in a broad way and understand its dynamic. And, there are times when you have to dig very deep into the law, when you have to understand the nuance of regulations or to interpret law, to put together legal pleadings as the case may be--all of which is a craft and a fine art."

Arkin is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and a former adjunct professor at New York University Law School. Teaching must have come easily to him. "To be effective advocates, to be effective 'get-it-done' representatives of their clients, lawyers have an obligation today to advise their clients on whether they're breaking the law either in letter or spirit. They must attempt to make their client as socially responsible and as productive as can be. That's part of what the profession should be," said Arkin with conviction. "Lawyers are given special license to represent people and interpret law. How unseemly it would be to have lawyers interpret law and represent people in our courts, without at the same time promoting a sense of civil decency and responsibility."

Arkin said he finds "lawyering and representing companies remarkably interesting. I have found in my strategy cases, in particular, that the collection of information is keenly important and that you need information to inform strategy. And over the years, as a lawyer you use private investigators, use other sources--and those devices can be enormously helpful. What I've done in recent years is put together this state-of-the-art company to collect intelligence worldwide." The state-of-the-art company is The Arkin Group LLC (usually referred to as TAG) established in May 2000 as an international consulting firm specializing in strategic business intelligence, crisis management, confidential investigations, and political risk and security assessments. TAG's mission is "to help clients worldwide maximize their performance and achieve strategic objectives through intelligence, analysis and problem-solving."

"I use the services of TAG on a third of my legal cases. It is headed by Jack Devine who was former chief of worldwide operations for the CIA. We have trained analysts and a field network of a large number of people, and essentially we acquire information in state-of-the-art ways--all completely lawful, of course. We interpret that information and we implement strategies for some of my cases that have unusual international dimensions."

Which can be complicated. "We have resources around the world but we are very strict about abiding by the law," Arkin stressed. "We utilize former intelligence agents, journalists, business people, police around the world. And we have Ph.D. analysts to help us interpret the material. The Arkin Group is an amplification of the law practice, but it also has its own business. The group does everything, from investigation in the Ukraine and China and Southeast Asia to Africa and South America. Its clients include mostly US and foreign companies, certain individuals, a couple of governments. Word gets out, and The Arkin Group is now well known."

Arkin is selective about the cases he accepts. "That may be because the subject is not among those that interest Arkin at a given moment, or resources may be thinly stretched. "Or the case does not have an economic future or a principal objective or merit that might balance out the lack of economic opportunity," adds Arkin, not forgetting the bottom line. Yet, over the years he has done a great deal of work without charging anything, "because it's the sort of thing you just don't charge for," he said, modestly declining to be more specific.

And what informs his work? "I value straightforwardness, I value loyalty," he said. "I have my own construct of decency and I won't engage in gratuitously hurting someone. I like combat, but I like fair combat--it doesn't have to be conventional but it must be fair. I like the sense of keeping your word, itís most important. I like people to say what they mean. And if I deal with people who are so thoroughly self-absorbed that they are unmindful of other peopleís interests or concerns, Iím not comfortable representing them. I believe in being aggressive and strong for your own interests, in trying for the very best for yourself, but there are limitations and constraints of common sense. And I believe that there are objectives not worth pursuing."

But Arkin is clear on some of the causes he does consider worth pursuing. "Our society here in America needs to change some things. For one, I think our drug laws are senseless, I think they make criminals out of people who really are not, and they have created the most vastly well funded and corrupt underworld ever in the history of mankind. I think there are lots of ways of handling drug-related problems without having a whole criminal bureaucracy and heinous and cruel laws to deal with what are essentially not criminal issues," Arkin said forcefully. "I think inevitably some drugs will be decriminalized, you see it already in some states, also in England and some European countries. It's hard in a society to balance how many rules you want versus how much freedom. In many ways, the less criminal law you have, the more productive your society can be--I think drug laws have gotten out of control."

Arkin sees overcriminalization as a negative in every field. "Sometimes, well-meant rules end up being socially counterproductive," he said. If you violate any regulation in this country you run a real risk of being charged with a crime. "Name it, every alphabet agency in this country is criminalized. I think that overcriminalization is counterproductive, economically and socially. I've always argued against it. While we're racing off to correct corporate governance, I notice the first reaction was to double sentences from five to ten years. I have to think that is about as socially unproductive as I've ever heard. Because the fact is, five years for any sane human is an extreme and frightening specter. Moreover, often people are charged with more than one count, so you send someone away for 250 years. Whatever President Bush is doing, or whoever is advising him, that's not a wise thing. There must be ways of better defining our laws of disclosure obligations and accounting rules, ways of making chief executive officers and chief financial officers responsible. And I do truly believe that we should invest them with lots of responsibility and not just entitlement."

"Never has a country been so hegemonic not only militarily, but politically and economically at the same time. Yet, I will say this about American justice: there's no place in the world, not anywhere, not ever in the history of mankind, where a better standard of justice has been generally meted out to its people. In this country, more than at any time in the history of man, we generally give people a fair shake."