Brown Rudnick White-Collar Defense Partner Launches Boutique
Justin Weddle quietly launched his own two-person law firm in New York last month after five years at Brown Rudnick and a 15-year career at the Justice Department.
June 25, 2019 at 06:19 PM
3 minute read
Justin Weddle, who spent five years at Brown Rudnick after a 15-year career at the Justice Department, quietly launched his own New York boutique last month.
His two-lawyer firm also includes former Brown Rudnick associate Julia Catania. In an interview with ALM, Weddle said while he greatly enjoyed his time at Brown Rudnick, he simply wanted to be his own boss. Weddle said he plans to use technology and other arrangements to tackle a range of large and small cases in his white-collar defense boutique.
Among his ongoing matters, Weddle is representing Jeffrey Wada, a former staffer at the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board who awaits sentencing after being convicted of sharing regulatory secrets with auditors at KPMG. Weddle has also represented Alfredo Hawit, a Honduran football official charged in the FIFA corruption scandal.
His cases have also included defending Paul Robson, accused of participating in a Libor-rigging conspiracy, as well as handling litigation in the U.S. related to a major Brazilian corruption investigation and cases related to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's appointment of administrative law judges and its use of disgorgement.
While Weddle Law, as his new firm is called, may not be handling the Dieselgate-type defenses or investigations that require a dozen associates to jet across the country, Weddle said he is off to a busy start. Like many lawyers, he said, he has embraced the use of technology to help him keep costs low while enabling his firm to punch above its weight when cases get complex.
“I don't have a copy service. I don't have a giant file room,” he said. “I manage my documents on my iPad.”
Weddle said conflicts weren't really an issue at Brown Rudnick and not something that drove his decision to launch his own firm. That said, he noted that big law firms are sometimes wary of taking on individual clients because of the risk of a conflict. And at the prices big law firms charge, he said, going to trial can be unaffordable for some clients.
By starting one's own firm, Weddle said, “you have the freedom to continue to do the same types of white-collar work [as big law firms do] by scaling up or scaling down as appropriate.”
As a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, Weddle worked in the Computer, Hacking and Intellectual Property section, the Major Crimes Unit, the Complex Frauds Unit and the Securities and Commodities Fraud Task Force. His high-profile cases in the prosecutor's office included Rajat Gupta's appeal of his insider-trading conviction and the United States v. KPMG and United States v. Stein tax-shelter cases.
From 2008 to 2010, he was the resident legal adviser—something of a diplomatic role, he said—to an international law enforcement “fusion center” in Romania, and after returning to New York, he became a deputy chief appellate attorney in the U.S. Attorney's Office.
This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.
To view this content, please continue to their sites.
Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
NOT FOR REPRINT
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
You Might Like
View AllMayor's Advisory Committee To Hold Hearing on Fitness of Judicial Candidates
2 minute readMayor's Advisory Committee To Hold Hearing on Fitness of Judicial Candidates
1 minute readMayor's Advisory Committee To Hold Hearing on Fitness of Judicial Candidates
2 minute readTrending Stories
Who Got The Work
Michael G. Bongiorno, Andrew Scott Dulberg and Elizabeth E. Driscoll from Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr have stepped in to represent Symbotic Inc., an A.I.-enabled technology platform that focuses on increasing supply chain efficiency, and other defendants in a pending shareholder derivative lawsuit. The case, filed Oct. 2 in Massachusetts District Court by the Brown Law Firm on behalf of Stephen Austen, accuses certain officers and directors of misleading investors in regard to Symbotic's potential for margin growth by failing to disclose that the company was not equipped to timely deploy its systems or manage expenses through project delays. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton, is 1:24-cv-12522, Austen v. Cohen et al.
Who Got The Work
Edmund Polubinski and Marie Killmond of Davis Polk & Wardwell have entered appearances for data platform software development company MongoDB and other defendants in a pending shareholder derivative lawsuit. The action, filed Oct. 7 in New York Southern District Court by the Brown Law Firm, accuses the company's directors and/or officers of falsely expressing confidence in the company’s restructuring of its sales incentive plan and downplaying the severity of decreases in its upfront commitments. The case is 1:24-cv-07594, Roy v. Ittycheria et al.
Who Got The Work
Amy O. Bruchs and Kurt F. Ellison of Michael Best & Friedrich have entered appearances for Epic Systems Corp. in a pending employment discrimination lawsuit. The suit was filed Sept. 7 in Wisconsin Western District Court by Levine Eisberner LLC and Siri & Glimstad on behalf of a project manager who claims that he was wrongfully terminated after applying for a religious exemption to the defendant's COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The case, assigned to U.S. Magistrate Judge Anita Marie Boor, is 3:24-cv-00630, Secker, Nathan v. Epic Systems Corporation.
Who Got The Work
David X. Sullivan, Thomas J. Finn and Gregory A. Hall from McCarter & English have entered appearances for Sunrun Installation Services in a pending civil rights lawsuit. The complaint was filed Sept. 4 in Connecticut District Court by attorney Robert M. Berke on behalf of former employee George Edward Steins, who was arrested and charged with employing an unregistered home improvement salesperson. The complaint alleges that had Sunrun informed the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection that the plaintiff's employment had ended in 2017 and that he no longer held Sunrun's home improvement contractor license, he would not have been hit with charges, which were dismissed in May 2024. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Jeffrey A. Meyer, is 3:24-cv-01423, Steins v. Sunrun, Inc. et al.
Who Got The Work
Greenberg Traurig shareholder Joshua L. Raskin has entered an appearance for boohoo.com UK Ltd. in a pending patent infringement lawsuit. The suit, filed Sept. 3 in Texas Eastern District Court by Rozier Hardt McDonough on behalf of Alto Dynamics, asserts five patents related to an online shopping platform. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap, is 2:24-cv-00719, Alto Dynamics, LLC v. boohoo.com UK Limited.
Featured Firms
Law Offices of Gary Martin Hays & Associates, P.C.
(470) 294-1674
Law Offices of Mark E. Salomone
(857) 444-6468
Smith & Hassler
(713) 739-1250