Joseph Tartakovsky represents clients in government investigations, enforcement actions, and complex civil litigation. He brings nearly a decade of experience in government roles and in virtually every type of court, from state magistrate benches to the U.S. Supreme Court. He is based in Eimer Stahl’s San Francisco office.
As an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Northern District of California, Joseph led investigations and prosecutions across a wide range of offenses, including cybercrime, cryptocurrency, bank and wire fraud, COVID-19 fraud, embezzlement, money laundering, firearms and violent crime, healthcare and consumer fraud, and drug and pharmaceutical offenses. He was a member of the Transnational Organized Crime section, where he investigated and prosecuted money laundering and organized criminal conduct in the United States and abroad. He was named the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s Coordinator on drug and pharmaceutical diversion cases (working closely with the FBI and FDA’s Office of Criminal Investigations, Office of the Chief Counsel, and Consumer Protection Branch). He prosecuted Northern California’s first federal cyberstalking case and secured guilty verdicts in numerous multi-defendant organized crime cases.
As Deputy Solicitor General of Nevada, he advised the Attorney General, Governor, and agency heads on constitutional and regulatory issues of statewide and national significance. He argued appeals in state and federal courts and co-authored briefs that led to three U.S. Supreme Court certiorari grants. He co-led high-profile litigation involving education and school choice, federalism and separation of powers, preemption, free speech, free exercise and establishment, whistleblowers (including one matter resulting in a nearly $140 million settlement), property rights and takings, due process, taxation, federal lands, the Environmental Protection Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act. He helped lead a 21-state coalition that invalidated a federal labor regulation. He was regularly called upon by Nevada state legislators to assist in drafting statutes.
Joseph has briefed and argued numerous cases before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, both in private practice and during his time as Deputy Solicitor General and a federal prosecutor.
Before and after his government service, Joseph worked in private practice at a major international law firm. He represented clients in appellate and constitutional matters, white-collar defense, and complex commercial disputes involving privacy, intellectual property, trade secrets, and labor law. For example, he helped a rideshare company respond to a first-of-its-kind challenge to New York City’s attempt to subpoena proprietary data. He brought a free speech challenge on behalf of a client who had installed digital advertising screens on taxis. He represented the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), based in Paris, and defeated a copyright infringement claim. Joseph was also part of the team that represented the City of Boise in the landmark Ninth Circuit case Martin v. City of Boise, involving homelessness and the Eighth Amendment. This experience led to his co-authorship of No Way Home: The Crisis of Homelessness and How to Fix It with Intelligence and Humanity (2021)—the first book to examine the law of homelessness.
Joseph is also an expert in constitutional law and the author of The Lives of the Constitution: Ten Exceptional Minds that Shaped America’s Supreme Law (2018), which became a #1 Amazon bestseller in the fields of constitutional law, legal biography, and legal history.
His legal and literary commentary has appeared in national publications including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Los Angeles Times, and he has been featured on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal.
Joseph earned his J.D., magna cum laude, from Fordham University School of Law and clerked for Judge Paul J. Kelly, Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.