--- aliases: - Paul L. Perito - Paul Perito - Paul Louis Perito category: Law Enforcement & Legal created: 2026-10-08 location: Washington, D.C. relations: - end: 1970 fn: 1 role: Assistant United States Attorney start: 1966 type: employed_by with: '[[U.S. Attorney''s Office for the Southern District of New York]]' - end: 1971 fn: 1 role: chief counsel and staff director start: 1970 type: employed_by with: '[[House Select Committee on Crime]]' - end: 1973 fn: 1 role: chief counsel and deputy director start: 1971 type: employed_by with: '[[Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention]]' - end: 1987 fn: 3 start: 1987 type: represented with: '[[Barbara Studley]]' - end: 1991 fn: 4 role: name partner, head of white-collar litigation group start: 1988 type: employed_by with: '[[Laxalt, Washington, Perito & Dubuc]]' - fn: 4 role: partner, later senior counsel; chair of the Washington litigation department start: 1991 type: employed_by with: '[[Paul Hastings|Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker]]' summary: Washington lawyer, former federal prosecutor and White House drug-policy counsel, named in an April 1987 letter on Barbara Studley's file, and a name partner of Washington, Perito & Dubuc before joining Paul Hastings in 1991. tags: - Person - Lawyer - Prosecutor - IranContra - FinleyKumble - WhiteCollarDefense title: Paul L. Perito updated: 2026-10-08 --- Paul Louis Perito (January 23, 1937 to March 22, 2020) was a Washington lawyer. A Paul L. Perito is the lawyer named in the April 28, 1987 letter on [Barbara Studley](/people/barbara-studley/)'s file to the House Iran-Contra committee, and a Paul Perito was a name partner of Laxalt, Washington, Perito & Dubuc in 1991; the records found do not state in so many words that these are the same man. ### Government service He was born in Medford, Massachusetts, graduated from Tufts University in 1960 and from Harvard Law School in 1964. From 1966 to 1970 he was an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, where he tried twenty-one cases including *United States v. Roy M. Cohn, et al.* From 1970 to 1971 he was chief counsel and later staff director of the House Select Committee on Crime, and from 1971 to 1973 chief counsel and deputy director of the White House Special Action Office on Drug Abuse Prevention.[^1] ### The Studley letter, 1987 On April 28, 1987 [Frank Koszorus Jr.](/people/frank-koszorus-jr/) of the Washington office of Finley, Kumble wrote to Kenneth Ballen, assistant counsel of the House Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran: "During your telephone conference with Paul L. Perito this afternoon, you requested a copy of the memorandum from Barbara F. Studley's file regarding Oliver North."[^2] In the deposition of [Daniel O. Graham](/people/daniel-o-graham/) on May 26, 1987, counsel asked whether Graham had met "her attorney, Mr. Perito," and Graham answered, "The one I know is Perito."[^3] ### Washington, Perito & Dubuc and Paul Hastings The [Washington Post](/organizations/washington-post/) reported on December 23, 1987 that Paul Laxalt and Robert B. Washington Jr., partners in the dissolving Finley Kumble, had announced the formation of a Washington-based firm. The bankruptcy court later found that the partnership, Washington, Perito & Dubuc, was organized in January 1988 by thirty-one partners of Finley Kumble's Washington office and others, and ceased practice in August 1991.[^4] On July 20, 1991 the Post reported that Paul Perito, "one of the firm's name partners and head of its important white-collar litigation group," was moving the following Monday with a half-dozen other lawyers to the Washington office of Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker.[^5] [E. Lawrence Barcella, Jr.](/people/e-lawrence-barcella-jr/) was described in July 1991 as a partner at Washington, Perito & Dubuc and became a partner of Paul Hastings on July 18, 1994, and Frank Koszorus Jr. signed that firm's registration papers for the Hungarian embassy from March 1993.[^6] Perito's obituary states that he was ultimately a partner and later senior counsel at Paul Hastings, where he was national co-chair of the White Collar Corporate Defense Practice Group and chair of the Litigation Department of the Washington office, and that after leaving private practice he was an officer and director of Star Scientific, Inc., whose mission the obituary gives as reducing toxins in tobacco products. He was president of the Harvard Law School Alumni Association from 2012 to 2014.[^7] [^1]: "Paul Perito Obituary (1937 - 2020)," *The Washington Post*, March 29, 2020. https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/washingtonpost/name/paul-perito-obituary?id=2005298 [^2]: Letter from Frank Koszorus Jr., Finley, Kumble, Wagner, Heine, Underberg, Manley, Myerson & Casey, Washington, to Kenneth Ballen, April 28, 1987, Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, Appendix B, vol. 12, printed p. 1040 (Internet Archive item micro_IA41152840_0234, https://archive.org/details/micro_IA41152840_0234). [^3]: Deposition of Daniel O. Graham, May 26, 1987, Appendix B, vol. 12 (Internet Archive item micro_IA41152840_0234). [^4]: Karlyn Barker and Kathleen Day, "Robert Washington, Laxalt Team Up to Replace Failed Law Firm," *The Washington Post*, December 23, 1987, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1987/12/23/robert-washington-laxalt-team-up-to-replace-failed-law-firm/71c2b588-772c-47c4-acdb-68bc9bdfe123/ ; In re Washington, Perito & Dubuc, 154 B.R. 853 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. June 2, 1993), https://static.case.law/br/154/cases/0853-01.json [^5]: Sharon Walsh and Saundra Torry, "Washington, Perito Law Firm Losing Additional Attorneys; Name Partner Among Those Leaving," *The Washington Post*, July 20, 1991. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1991/07/20/washington-perito-law-firm-losing-additional-attorneys/0a7d8d2e-2958-4283-9860-874855bd0ca6/ [^6]: "Kinder, gentler profession urged," *Chicago Tribune*, July 23, 1991, https://www.chicagotribune.com/1991/07/23/kinder-gentler-profession-urged/ ; U.S. Department of Justice, Foreign Agents Registration Act, registration 4772, Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker, Supplemental Statement for the six months ending September 30, 1994, Attachment 1, https://efile.fara.gov/docs/4772-Supplemental-Statement-19940930-DHFIFJ02.pdf ; Exhibit B, March 1, 1993, https://efile.fara.gov/docs/4772-Exhibit-AB-19930301-D1Y3N102.pdf [^7]: "Paul Perito Obituary (1937 - 2020)," *The Washington Post*, March 29, 2020 (note 1). --- *The Info Web has an MCP server for agents at https://theinfoweb.org/mcp (streamable HTTP, no auth): search by meaning, exact text, source or date, and follow typed, footnoted connections. 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