Boston Magazine Names Five Whistleblower Law Collaborative Attorneys As Top Whistleblower Lawyers of 2021

December 14, 2021

Whistleblower Law Collaborative is pleased to announce that attorneys Suzanne Durrell, Linda Severin, Bruce Judge, David W.S. Lieberman, and Erica Blachman Hitchings, were named 2021 Top Whistleblower Lawyers by Boston Magazine.

This year, Boston Magazine unveiled its inaugural Top Lawyers list.  It is specially curated to showcase only the region’s finest legal minds. To compile this guide, Boston Magazine invited lawyers in the area to nominate up their peers in a number of specialties. An advisory board of select lawyers then reviewed the top vote getters in each category.  The full list can be viewed here.

“Given the rigorous selection process, we are even more gratified that so many of our attorneys were named as 2021 Top Whistleblower Lawyers by Boston Magazine,” said Whistleblower Law Collaborative’s co-founder Suzanne Durrell.  This award recognizes the exceptional success we have achieved for our clients, including our $16 million settlement with Arthrex only last month.

Attorneys Named Top Whistleblower Lawyer By Boston Magazine

• Suzanne Durrell – is a co-founder and managing member of the Whistleblower Law Collaborative. Ms. Durrell served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney and as Deputy Chief, and then Chief, Civil Division, U. S. Attorney’s Office, Boston, supervising and prosecuting the office’s burgeoning qui tam and False Claims Act cases from 1989 to 2002.
• Linda Severin – is a managing member of the Whistleblower Law Collaborative. She was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York from 1984-92, where she investigated and tried cases involving fraud, racketeering, money laundering, and extortion. She served as Deputy Chief – Appeals, Deputy Chief – Narcotics, and Chief – New York/New Jersey Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. Linda has also represented companies and individuals who were under government investigation and worked as an in-house litigation attorney at a Fortune 100 corporation.
• Bruce Judge – served as a federal prosecutor for over twenty years. During his time at the U.S. Department of Justice, he supervised complex criminal investigations involving public corruption, obstruction of justice, money laundering, bank fraud, and racketeering.  Bruce charged, tried and convicted corporate executives, elected officials, bank officers, union officials, attorneys, and law enforcement agents.
• David W.S. Lieberman – is an experienced litigator of complex fraud claims, and a former environmental crime prosecutor with the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office.  David has represented whistleblowers and governments in major false claims act cases.  These include United States ex rel. Hendrix v. J-M Manufacturing Co. filed against the world’s largest municipal water pipe maker, United States ex rel. Doe v. CleanSlate Centers, prosecuted along with the Massachusetts Attorney General against a chain of opioid treatment centers, as well as settlements against Jewish Hospital, and Arthrex.
• Erica Blachman Hitchings – spent nine years investigating and litigating a wide range of False Claims Act cases at the Department of Justice before joining WLC. At DOJ, Erica was a series of procurement fraud litigation team that recovered over $250 million for numerous technology and consulting companies and handled numerous healthcare fraud matters, including two cutting-edge Medicare Advantage fraud investigations. Since joining WLC in 2019, Erica has taken on numerous new matters, including a qui tam action against a Massachusetts-based fuel company that recovered $850,000 for the Commonwealth.  Erica began her law career in Boston clerking for the Honorable Patti B. Saris of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

Whistleblower Law Collaborative

The Whistleblower Law Collaborative LLC, based in Boston, devotes its practice entirely to representing clients nationwide in bringing actions under the federal and state False Claims Acts and other whistleblower programs. Under the False Claims Act, a private citizen (known as a “relator”) who suspects or knows of fraud against the government can act as a whistleblower and file a sealed complaint on behalf of the government. Successful cases entitle the relator to a share of the government’s recovery.  Among the firm’s many successes is the governments’ $885 million settlement with AmerisourceBergen.

For more information, contact the Whistleblower Law Collaborative LLC at 617.366.2800.