Who says that white collar practice has to be defense side only?
Not Steven Molo.
Molo is a partner in the law firm of MoloLamken.
Molo, a former federal prosecutor and partner at Winston & Strawn, joined with former Baker Botts partner Jeffrey Lamken and in 2009 launched their new firm with five lawyers. Four years later they are at 21 lawyers and growing.
But while they practice traditional white collar defense, they also do plaintiffs side whistleblower work.
“There is opportunity out there,” Molo told Corporate Crime Reporter in an interview last week. “There are economic advantages. You can take more risk. Some of the cases are 100 percent contingent fee. That’s one reason. Also, it’s fun and interesting to be on the plaintiffs side. You are able to advance new theories and push the law forward.”
“We love being lawyers. We enjoy what we do and we enjoy being advocates. I don’t know whether it’s just inertia or easier for people to fall into a particular kind of practice, be very good at it and say — why change it, whether that’s solely defense or solely plaintiffs side. We enjoy all aspects of our practice. That’s why we formed the firm. And that’s why we take on the kinds of cases we do now.”
MoloLamken is involved with a False Claims Act case in Boston, a securities whistleblower case before the Securities and Exchange Commission and a number of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) cases.
At the same time, the firm is juggling a number of traditional white collar criminal defense cases.
“We’ve had some great successes on the defense side,” Molo said. “This last year, we had a couple of big declinations. We represented a Japanese executive in a big cross border antitrust case. We had a public corruption case that was declined in New York. We had a mixed verdict in a health care trial in Florida earlier in the year. And then later in the year, we had an unsuccessful outcome in an obstruction case. But the last verse is not yet written on that one.”
It’s the kind of mix you don’t see at big white collar law firms.
“You would not see that at a big firm,” Molo said. “But it makes perfect sense for us to do that. We have the expertise. We understand the issues. And if someone comes to us with a case, we can more easily determine whether or not it has legs. We think it is an area that we are going to continue to do a lot more work in. It dovetails real well with the existing practice and the existing expertise that we have. It’s a growing area of our practice.”
“We are relatively small,” Molo says. “There is no question that there is an esprit de corps that you have in a smaller institution, especially one that tends to go to trial and engage in the kinds of battles that we engage in on behalf of our clients. And that’s an exciting opportunity for a younger lawyer. There are a lot of great large law firms in the world. They provide their opportunities. But we provide younger people who come to us with an opportunity to work very closely with senior experienced people, to get their hands dirty from the start, digging into the matters that we are handling. It’s not uncommon for somebody to see their name on a brief to the Supreme Court of the United States within a few months of joining us.”
“Last year, there was an associate who joined us in March, and he put on a couple of witnesses in a criminal trial that he tried with me and another partner in December. So, those kinds of experiences are harder to come by in larger law firms.”
Given the firm’s recent success, why won’t it continue to grow into a big law firm?
“We have always thought that once you got to around 40 or 50 lawyers, the character of the place would probably change,” Molo said.
“We like what we have been building so far in terms of the culture and quality of the people and the mix of cases. Being at 21 lawyers has given us some advantages in terms of the variety of matters we have been able to take on. You are able to take more risk on the plaintiffs’ side of cases. I would be very surprised if we were ever to be larger than 50 lawyers. But I suppose there is always a chance that for some reason or another you will get bigger. But it won’t be through a merger. We are just not interested in that.”
[For the complete Interview with Steven Molo, see page 27 Corporate Crime Reporter 7(13), February 17, 2014, print edition only.]