A 10-lawyer team that helped build Constantine Cannon’s whistleblower practice has created a new firm with high-profile clients that include informants from Boeing Co., Theranos Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc.’s Facebook.
The new firm, called Whistleblower Partners, debuts Thursday. It includes attorneys Mary Inman, Poppy Alexander, and Hamsa Mahendranathan.
The new firm will not take on corporate defense work in whistleblower cases, Alexander said. “Whistleblower work is all we do and all we want to do,” she said. “We’re really focused on these clients.”
Fast-evolving federal agency whistleblower programs are quickly filling a need for corporate officials looking to report fraudulent activity and are creating a need for specialized law firms, according to lawyers launching the new operation.
The lawyers making the move have been involved in a number of whistleblower awards, including litigation settled last year with KBR Services for about $108 million—the largest cash settlement involving Iraq War fraud to date. A lead counsel in the case was Eric Havian, one of the lawyers making the jump from Constantine Cannon to the new firm.
The firm’s attorneys also have represented a whistleblower who alleged fraudulent behavior at Cisco Systems Inc., which resulted in the first payout in a False Claims Act case involving a failure to uphold cybersecurity standards. Mahendranathan, Inman, and Mike Ronickher from the team moving to Whistleblower Partners represented the whistleblower in the case, who received $1 million from Cisco.
The other partners at the new firm are Chris McLamb, Hallie Noecker, Max Voldman, and Ari Yampolsky. An associate at the new firm is Elizabeth Soltan.
Whistleblower Partners attorneys are spread out among New York, San Francisco, and Washington. Constantine Cannon, founded in New York in 1994, has offices in the same three cities and includes more than 70 attorneys, according to its website.
Alexander and partner Mahendranathan said a key part of what will differentiate their new firm will be their advocacy work to expand protections and rewards programs for whistleblowers.
Constantine Cannon said in a statement that the firm wishes its departing colleagues well. The firm says it is “proud of what we have accomplished together” over the last nine years and that its own whistleblower practice will include more than a dozen lawyers going forward.