DLA Piper announces launch of State Attorneys General practice
DLA Piper announced today the formal launch of its State Attorneys General practice, a practice that successfully represents and advises companies facing state-level enforcement, including significant investigations and lawsuits with potentially wide-ranging implications for a number of industries. The practice will be led by partners Jeff Tsai (San Francisco) and Scott Wilson (New York).
The State Attorneys General practice is comprised of an experienced group of state AG practitioners, including attorneys who have served in key leadership positions in state AG offices and lawyers with broad experience representing clients across a spectrum of business sectors in significant matters before state AGs. In addition to Tsai and Wilson, who served in senior level positions in the California and New York state AG offices, respectively, the team includes Matthew Denn, the former elected Attorney General of Delaware.
The practice also benefits from the experience of a number of former federal prosecutors who served in Main Justice and US Attorney’s Offices across the country, as well as trial attorneys, senior policy officials and others who served in federal agencies, including the Federal Trade Commission, Securities and Exchange Commission, Department of Transportation, Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Defense.
The DLA Piper platform provides the State Attorneys General team with access to deep subject matter experience in areas of focus for state AG enforcement, including Life Sciences, Consumer Finance, Transportation, Data Privacy, and Environmental Torts. Together with its broad geographic coverage, DLA Piper is well equipped to handle the legal issues, practical implications and public pressure of investigations and litigation by state AGs.
“In recent years, state attorneys general have increasingly been among the most aggressive regulators in the US,” said Jeff Tsai, who served as special assistant attorney general in the office of the California Attorney General, assistant US attorney in Miami, a trial attorney for the Public Integrity Section of the Criminal Division of the US Department of Justice, and senior counsel to a former Assistant US Attorney General for the Justice Department's Criminal Division. “During this pandemic, for example, state AGs across the country have brought a number of enforcement actions under both civil consumer protection and criminal statutes. This growth in state-level enforcement highlights the value DLA Piper can bring to clients through its broad array of experienced practitioners who have both served in state AG offices and handled significant cases before state AGs, giving our team a well-rounded, thoughtful perspective on the best way to handle state enforcement matters.”
“Our platform enables us to provide clients comprehensive coverage for state AG-facing matters, across all sectors and areas of the law,” said Scott Wilson, who served as senior advisor and special counsel in the office of the New York Attorney General. “Our team has the breadth and depth of knowledge to handle any area of state AG enforcement, as well as joint federal-state matters and parallel litigation by private plaintiffs.”
