Aidan P. O’Connor Named “Lawyer of the Year” for Criminal Defense: White Collar in the 2026 Best Lawyers® List for the Hackensack Region
Pashman Stein Walder Hayden P.C. is pleased to announce that Aidan P. O’Connor has been included in the 2026 edition of Best Lawyers® list as the publication’s “Lawyer of the Year” for Criminal Defense: White Collar for the Hackensack region. According to Best Lawyers, this honor is awarded annually to only one lawyer per practice area in each region with the highest overall feedback from their peers. This is the second time O’Connor has been named “Lawyer of the Year,” having been previously named for 2021.
About Aidan P. O’Connor
Aidan P. O’Connor is the co-chair of the firm’s Criminal Defense and Investigations practice groups and a member of its Litigation Department. Ranked by Chambers and Partners, he concentrates his practice on criminal defense, internal investigations, and both commercial and complex civil litigation, including securities fraud matters.
Prior to entering private practice, O’Connor was an Assistant United States Attorney in the District of New Jersey for 18 years, serving in the Criminal Division, the Organized Crime Strike Force, and as the chief of the Violent Crimes Unit, conducting and leading RICO, fraud and other investigations and prosecutions.
A seasoned trial lawyer, O’Connor has extensive courtroom experience as well as negotiation skills that bring resolutions to difficult cases in both civil and criminal contexts. His clients appreciate his creative problem solving, direct approach, and history of many successful settlements and decisions. He appears frequently in federal and state courts in New Jersey and New York.
O’Connor has conducted internal investigations for corporate and public entities involving fraud, misuse of private and public assets, embezzlement, and compliance issues, and has represented corporations, public entities, nonprofit businesses and individuals in federal and state governmental investigations. He also has managed subpoena compliance issues for numerous entities. In addition, he has represented clients on matters involving civil RICO, the False Claims Act, securities fraud, regulatory issues, real estate, contract disputes, civil forfeiture and insurance issues.
O’Connor’s experience with criminal matters includes defending individuals against allegations of securities fraud, insurance fraud, health care fraud, tax evasion, financial institution and wire fraud, money laundering, public and union corruption, kickback and commercial bribery schemes, computer intrusions, hacking and other cybercrimes, embezzlement, trade secrets, antitrust matters, and federal grand jury investigations. He has also represented clients accused of assault, kidnapping, Ponzi schemes, extortion, murder, theft, sexual offenses, drug and controlled dangerous substance offenses, and state parole violations in both state and federal courts, as well as municipal court matters. He has also argued cases before the Second and Third Circuit Courts of Appeals, as well as the Supreme Court of New Jersey.
During his tenure with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, O’Connor conducted hundreds of federal prosecutions involving long and short-term investigations, grand jury presentations, witness interviews, wiretapping, and search warrants for offenses including organized crime, RICO, tax fraud and evasion, money laundering, theft of trade secrets, union corruption, embezzlement, commercial and insurance fraud, large stolen property rings, health care fraud, computer crimes, extortion, murder, robbery, and kidnapping.
O’Connor has tried more than 20 federal jury trials, argued hundreds of motions and conducted scores of hearings involving organized crime, tax fraud, money laundering, government program fraud, racketeering, kidnapping, alien smuggling, homicide, bank robbery, narcotics trafficking, civil rights violations and other offenses.
He was a recipient of the Director’s Award for Superior Performance as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for his successful prosecution of a RICO case involving hundreds of millions of dollars in excise tax fraud and organized crime through the use of numerous shell corporations and related entities and the fraudulent transfer of money and assets. Previously, he was a litigation associate with Thacher Proffitt & Wood in New York City, where he conducted or assisted in civil trials involving banking and international maritime insurance in state and federal courts.
Aidan P. O’Connor is proud of the results he has achieved for clients, some of which are noted here. Of course, each legal matter is unique on many levels, and past successes are not a guarantee of results in any other pending or future matters.
The Best Lawyers in America list is issued by BL Rankings, LLC. A description of the selection methodology can be found at https://www.bestlawyers.com/About/MethodologyBasic.aspx
The Chambers USA ranking list is published by Chambers & Partners. A description of the selection methodology can be found at https://chambers.com/about-us/methodology.
No aspect of this advertisement has been approved by the Supreme Court of New Jersey.