A chambers, established 1986

Considered counsel.Lasting outcomes.

Marshall & Benson is a full-service chambers advising institutions, executives, and families on the legal matters that determine their commercial and personal position. We are instructed where judgement, patience, and trial-room capability matter most — and where the work merits seeing through.

Our Disciplines Advocates

Years in practice

Offices, three continents

Disciplines, one bench

Senior practitioners

“The matters that determine a client’s position deserve counsel willing to do the work themselves.”

A different model

Practice built around the work itself.

The chambers was founded on a single proposition: that the legal matters which most directly determine a client’s position deserved senior counsel from the first conversation to the last. Four decades on, the proposition has not been revised.

Our members carry their instructions through. The bench is small enough that the work is genuinely supervised, and large enough that we are instructed in the matters that warrant supervision.

About the chambers

Disciplines

Fourteen disciplines, practised together.

The integration that modern clients increasingly require — not as a marketing line, but as the operational model of the chambers.

Featured discipline

Litigation & Disputes

Our litigation practitioners are instructed in commercial disputes, regulatory proceedings, and the high-stakes arbitrations that increasingly accompany cross-border enterprise. We are first-chair trial counsel — the kind of practitioners who can recommend a settlement with credibility precisely because they are demonstrably willing, and demonstrably able, to try the case.

Discipline

Criminal Defence

Trial advocacy in federal and state criminal matters and parallel enforcement.

Discipline

Financial Crime, AML & Sanctions

Programme design and defence at the regulatory frontier of financial-services.

Discipline

Corporate & Commercial

Considered counsel for the transactions that determine enterprise position.

Discipline

Regulatory Practice

Considered engagement with the U.S. federal and state regulators who shape industries.

Discipline

Legislative & Policy Practice

Bipartisan representation before Congress, federal agencies, and state legislatures.

Discipline

Tax & Financial Architecture

Tax counsel from transaction structure through controversy.

All fourteen disciplines

Advocates

Senior practitioners, personally instructed.

Each instruction is led by a member of the chambers who carries the matter through. There is no hand-off to a junior team after the introduction.

Member of Chambers

Ronald Malcom

Financial-crime programmes that withstand the long examination, not just the first one.

Washington, D.C.

Founding Member

James Benson

The institutional questions that shape modern higher education — and the counsel who carries them.

Washington, D.C.

Member of Chambers

David Brown

The trustee-room questions that modern universities increasingly bring to outside counsel.

Washington, D.C.

Member of Chambers

Lisa Brown

American, British, and European enforcement co-ordinated under a single set of instructions.

New York

The entire bench

Industries

Sectors we know from the inside.

Substantive depth in the ten industries where our clients operate, compete, and engage with their regulators.

Financial Services

Counsel for the banks, fintechs, fund managers, and platforms that move capital.

Healthcare & Life Sciences

Counsel for the providers, payors, and innovators shaping modern medicine.

Technology

Counsel for the platforms, software firms, and AI innovators shaping the digital architecture of modern enterprise.

Corporates & Multinationals

Counsel for Fortune 500 enterprises and growth-stage challengers.

Public Sector & Sovereigns

Counsel for federal agencies, state authorities, and sovereign-related clients.

Education

Counsel for the universities and accreditors carrying the institutional weight of American higher education.

Real Estate & Construction

Counsel for owners, developers, financiers, and institutional investors.

Energy & Infrastructure

Counsel for conventional and renewable producers, sponsors, and infrastructure operators.

All industries

From the Journal

Notes and long reads from the bench.

Considered analysis from the practitioners shaping the matters they describe. Published when there is something worth publishing.

Note · May 22, 2026

FinCEN’s Refreshed Screening Guidance: An Operator’s Reading

FinCEN’s recent screening guidance reaches further than the public statement might suggest. Reporting institutions should reassess transaction-monitoring scope, ownership analysis, and the evidentiary trail supporting every risk-based decision.

7 min Read →

Long Read · May 16, 2026

Board Oversight of Artificial Intelligence: The Questions Directors Should Be Asking

Federal and state regulators are converging on a recognisable AI-oversight baseline. Boards should not wait for the precise contours of that baseline to clarify before adapting their oversight cadence.

9 min Read →

Long Read · May 4, 2026

FCPA Enforcement After the 2026 Corporate Memorandum

The Department of Justice’s 2026 corporate-enforcement memorandum signals a meaningful recalibration of FCPA priorities. Multinational clients should reassess voluntary-disclosure posture in light of the framework.

9 min Read →

All journal entries

When the matter merits a considered conversation, the chambers is instructed.

Speak with a member of the chambers about the matter that brought you here. We respond within one working day.

Get in touch +1 (315) 922-9460