Honor highlights Appelbaum’s two decade career in white collar defense, investigations, and trial work.

Southern California white collar criminal defense firm Appelbaum Law, P.C. announced that founding attorney, Sharon Appelbaum, has been named to the Daily Journal’s 2025 Top White-Collar Lawyers list. This annual list recognizes a select group of attorneys across California whose work shapes the field of white-collar defense and government investigations. The profile, published today, features Appelbaum’s twenty-year career and the precision, discipline, and strategic judgment that define her practice.

The Daily Journal highlights Appelbaum’s path from victim’s rights advocacy to her years as a prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, where she handled cybercrime, fraud, financial crimes, child endangerment, and sexual assault cases. The profile details her leadership of a major investigation that began with more than four hundred suspects and required eighteen months of coordinated investigative work, ultimately resulting in ninety-four indictments.

Appelbaum’s practice centers on representing individuals and companies in white collar criminal defense, government investigations, and complex fraud matters. She counsels clients facing inquiries by the DOJ, SEC, FBI, and state regulators and handles parallel civil, administrative, and criminal exposures that arise from alleged financial misconduct. Her work includes matters involving wire fraud, securities fraud, corporate and accounting fraud, cyber and identity theft issues, cross border financial activity, and other high stakes allegations that require careful coordination and strategic communication with government agencies.

In the feature, Appelbaum notes that “the meticulous forensic discipline required to build a case against a financial network is the same discipline required to defend a sophisticated client against prosecution.” The Daily Journal underscores how this background gives her insight into how government agencies build cases and what drives their decisions, allowing her to anticipate and counter prosecution theories and secure favorable resolutions for clients.

This recognition adds to a series of recent honors for Appelbaum, including selection to the 2026 Lawdragon 500 Leading Litigators in America and recognition as a 2025 Woman of Influence in Law by the San Diego Business Journal. She has also been honored as a nominee in the Los Angeles Business Journal’s 2025 Women’s Leadership Awards, the 2025 Los Angeles Times Women of Influence Awards and been named by Los Angeles Times as a 2025 Legal Visionary.

Beyond her litigation practice, the Temple University Beasley School of Law alum is an active voice in the field. Sharon writes for publications like Daily Journal and Law360, contributing practical insight on white collar developments, and is a frequent podcast guest discussing government investigations, defense strategy, and emerging enforcement trends.

Southern California criminal defense law firm Appelbaum Law, P.C. announced today that Founding Attorney Sharon Appelbaum has been selected to the 2026 Lawdragon 500 Leading Litigators in America in criminal defense, white collar. The guide honors litigators who handle the most consequential disputes in U.S. courts.

Appelbaum is a former Manhattan prosecutor who now defends executives, professionals, and public figures in complex criminal and regulatory matters in state and federal court. Her practice focuses on money laundering, wire and mail fraud, healthcare fraud, EDD fraud, asset recovery, cyber enabled crimes, and sensitive misconduct allegations, with trial-first strategy and matter-specific teams of investigators and experts.

“Clients hire us when the stakes are high and the facts are messy,” said Appelbaum. “Our job is to bring order to complexity, pressure test the government’s evidence and build the right team to win leverage or win at trial.”

Recent representative results include securing outcomes that protect clients from charges or resolve them efficiently, such as persuading prosecutors not to file in a high profile investigation after an independent factual showing, winning dismissals of false elder financial abuse allegations, obtaining dismissal of all counts for an octogenarian in an unlawful firearm case, sealing an arrest following successful mental health diversion, and preventing criminal filing in a domestic violence allegation after presenting exculpatory proof.

Appelbaum earned her J.D. from Temple University Beasley School of Law and her B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania. Her most recent recognitions includes the San Diego Business Journal’s 2025 Woman of Influence in Law, the Los Angeles Business Journal’s 2025 Women’s Leadership Awards, and the Los Angeles Times’ 2025 Legal Visionaries.

Sharon Appelbaum has been named one of the Los Angeles Times’ 2025 Legal Visionaries. The recognition and profile, published in the April issue of Business magazine, highlights outstanding attorneys across Southern California for their leadership, impact, and contributions to the legal field.

Read press release here.