Our first runners-up this week are Bill Weinreb and Michael Packard of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan and Douglas Brooks, the managing partner of Boston’s Libby Hoopes Brooks & Mulvey. Brooks represented former Harvard fencing coach Peter Brand and the Quinn lawyers represented Jie “Jack” Zhao, the CEO of iTalk Global Communications Inc., in a case where federal prosecutors claimed Zhao paid Brand $1.5 million in bribes to recruit his two sons. After a three-week trial, federal jurors in Boston last month acquitted both men on all charges.
Runners-up honors also go to lawyers for the six remaining defendants in an alleged Medicare-related kickback scheme involving a clinical research program testing for opioid addiction risk. Federal prosecutors in the Central District of California last year charged four executives and a sales representative from an Irvine, Calif. genetic testing company and four doctors with fraud alleging they fraudulently characterized $150-per-test payments as clinical research fees and that the doctors falsified time sheets to conceal kickbacks. But after a flurry of defense filings last month in the run-up to a planned two-month trial, prosecutors dropped all remaining charges. Defense counsel for Lester Alan Zuckerman included Zuckerman Spaeder firm chair Dwight Bostwick and associate Dan Amzallag and Kendall Brill & Kelly partner Janet Levine. Assaf Tzur Gordon was represented by Bienert Katzman Littrell Williams partners Tom Bienert, John Littrell and associate Alexis Federico. Brian Meshkin was represented by Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth shareholders Jason de Bretteville, Shawn Collins and associate Sean Lobb. Sanjay Bhandari of Buchalter represented Dr. Abraham Cherick. Joseph McMullen of the Law Offices of Joseph M. McMullen represented Ossama Antoine Jawhar. And Dr. Daniel Kendall was represented by Latham & Watkins partners Jake Ryan, Steven Bauer, counsel Katherine Sawyer and associate Rachel Suhr.
