WASHINGTON, DC, April 17, 2021 – Lawdragon magazine has honored Phillips & Cohen founding partner Mary Louise Cohen as a “legend” in its 2021 “Legends of the 500” list, recognizing her consistent success as a whistleblower attorney and significant contributions to the development and implementation of a strong qui tam law.
The “Legends of the 500” list spotlights “the biggest stars of trials and deals throughout America today,” says Lawdragon. The 32 top-tier attorneys have been repeatedly recognized annually in the magazine’s elite “500 Leading Lawyers” lists and “have thoroughly defined the past decade of Lawdragon.”
Lawdragon calls Cohen the “queen of qui tam.” She played a key role in the development of a modern qui tam practice over the past three decades. At the time she began her work as a qui tam attorney in 1988, only a few cases had been brought. Qui tam work was an untested legal field with essentially no precedents and no record of success.
As co-founder of Phillips & Cohen, she helped build the most successful whistleblower practice in the US. The firm’s whistleblower cases have helped recover more than $12.8 billion.
In the early years following passage of the False Claims Act Amendments, Cohen played a key role in protecting the law from the constitutional challenges by major industries and their lobbying efforts in Congress to repeal or weaken the qui tam provisions.
Cohen’s legal victories include large healthcare fraud cases, including one against Quest Diagnostics, which settled for $302 million – the largest amount paid by a medical lab company for a faulty product. Other prominent cases taken up by Cohen include a qui tam lawsuit alleging a fraudulent Medicare billing scheme by a Medtronic subsidiary and more than 100 hospitals. The case led to a nationwide enforcement effort that recovered nearly $180 million for taxpayers.
Cohen has consistently been recognized in Lawdragon’s annual “500 Leading Lawyers in America” and “500 Leading Plaintiff Financial Lawyers” list. The list highlights lawyers who specialize in representing plaintiffs in securities and other business litigation, antitrust and whistleblower claims.
Lawdragon recently honored six Phillips & Cohen partners in the 2021 edition of its “500 Leading Lawyers in America” list – the 14th year in a row that Lawdragon has recognized Phillips & Cohen partners in its annual list of the “500 Leading Lawyers in America” for their work representing whistleblowers.
To select attorneys for its rankings, Lawdragon typically utilizes a combination of editorial research, law firm submissions and online nominations.
If you are aware of fraud against the government or corporate wrongdoing that violates securities or commodities laws and would like to discuss your situation with experienced whistleblower lawyers, contact Phillips & Cohen for a free, confidential review.
ABOUT PHILLIPS & COHEN LLP
Phillips & Cohen is the most successful law firm representing whistleblowers, with recoveries from our cases totaling over $12.8 billion. We have been recognized for our work by numerous national awards. Our attorneys and cases have been in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times and other news media. Phillips & Cohen’s roster includes former federal prosecutors, the first head of the SEC Office of the Whistleblower, a former deputy administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the author of a leading treatise on the False Claims Act and attorneys with decades of experience representing whistleblowers.