Law Day: Seeking Justice, Not Victims; Measuring the Success of a Special Counsel Investigation

Larry D. Thompson serves as Counsel to the Atlanta law firm of Finch McCranie, LLP.  He retired in 2014 as EVP, Government Affairs, General Counsel and Corp Secretary for PepsiCo, Inc., a position he assumed in July 2012.  He was responsible for the company's worldwide legal function, its government affairs and public policy organizations, oversaw the global compliance function and served as Pres of PepsiCo Foundation.

Thompson previously served as PepsiCo’s Sr VP of Government Affairs, General Counsel and Secretary from 2004 to 2011. He served as a Senior Fellow with The Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., and his government career includes serving in the U.S. Department of Justice as the former U.S. Deputy Attorney General under George W. Bush (2001-2003). In 2002, Attorney General John Ashcroft named Thompson to lead the National Security Coordination Council. Also in 2002, President Bush named him to head the Corporate Fraud Task Force. He led the Justice Department’s Enron investigation.

Previously, Thompson was a partner in the Atlanta, Georgia law firm of King & Spalding. He also served as the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia. In that role, he directed the Southern Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force and served on the Attorney General’s Economic Crime Council. In July 1995, he was appointed Independent Counsel for the Department of Housing and Urban Development Investigation by the Special Panel of U.S. Circuit Court Judges appointed by the U.S. Supreme Court. In April 2000, he was selected by Congress to chair the Judicial Review Commission on Foreign Asset Control.  

Thompson serves on numerous boards and committees including The Southern Company, the Compensation Committee of the Graham Holdings Company (formerly The Washington Post Company), the George W. Bush Foundation Board, the UGA Foundation and chair of the Ethics Research Center. He also is an elected Fellow of the American Board of Criminal Lawyers. He has received several awards and honors such as the recipient of the Edmund Jennings Randolph Award for outstanding contributions to the accomplishment of the Department of Justice’s mission, Outstanding Litigator Award by the Federal Bar Association, and in 2017, he was honored with the first-ever William T. Coleman, Jr. Lifetime Achievement Award by the African-American Managing Partners Network. He was elected as a Trustee to the University of Georgia Foundation in June 2016.  Thompson was recently appointed by the U.S. Department of Justice as the Independent Corporate Compliance Monitor and Auditor for Volkswagen AG.

He holds a BA degree from Culver-Stockton College, a Master’s  from Michigan State University, a Law degree from the University of Michigan and an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Pace University in New York.