Representation for Whistleblowers
Wilbanks & Gouinlock
3490 Piedmont Road, NE | Suite 1010 | Atlanta, GA 30305
3490 Piedmont Road, NE | Suite 1010 | Atlanta, GA 30305
The most common question we get when the new client calls is “How do I know if I have a good case?” That’s where our experience comes into play.
We look for certain criteria in determining if you do have a good case. It has to not only be factually and legally good, but there also has to be a very good chance that there will be a substantial economic recovery. We start out looking for hard facts that show that the defendant lied, stole from, or cheated the Government.
Secondly, we look at what documents do you have, and how would you establish that the defendants did this in a knowing way. Then from a very pragmatic standpoint, we look at the defendant to determine if they have sufficient assets that a big judgement or settlement would be collectible once we go through those basic steps.
At Wilbanks & Gouinlock, we’re in a good position to let a client know whether they have a good case or not. We’ve been doing this long enough to know where the pitfalls are and also try to convey a realistic expectation to the client as to whether they should pursue this or not. We only put our names on cases that we know have good liability facts.
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This article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal advice.
As you might imagine, documents are very important to winning a False Claims Act case. The key is getting the documents to your attorney in a legal way. That is a problem for many people, because they don’t have access to the documents that they would like to have access to.
The key thing here is only using documents that you get legally or within the scope of your employment.
You can’t go in at night after the fact or go in somebody’s drawer to get documents, even if they’re really good incriminating documents. The good news is that there are a number of caveats that protect you as a whistleblower who is trying to expose fraud for instance.
Documents, such as medical records that would normally be subject to HIPPA laws and prohibitions are allowed to be given to your attorney as long as you get them within the scope of your employment and for the purpose of giving the documents to your lawyer for those documents to be evaluated to corroborate your claim of fraud going on against the government.
You cannot give these documents to any other persons. You can’t publish them. You can’t show them to anyone other than your attorney. Assuming that you come by the documents legally, you handle them correctly, and give them to your attorney then those documents can be used to prove your False Claims Act case.
Contact our office for a free, confidential consultation:
This article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal advice.
Currently, our clients don’t pay us anything for evaluating their case. If clients trust us enough with confidential information, then we should honor that by not charging any money to look at the facts.
If we think there is a good case there and the client agrees to proceed, we’ll enter into a written agreement that will specify exactly how any settlement proceeds or judgements will be divided.
We do not make any money on these cases unless we win. We have a typical contingency agreement that gives us a percentage of the proceeds, so we don’t charge to look at the case. We don’t charge to represent the clients through the case no matter how many years it takes. The defendants will pay us our hourly fees if we prevail. Then for whatever judgement we get we divide that with the client as defined in our our fee agreement.
Contact our office for a free, confidential consultation:
This article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal advice.
Many times, clients come to us, and they would like to file a lawsuit but not have their name on it. The downside is if you don’t have enough conviction about the truth of your case and the willingness to take the risk to go forward and put your name it, it may be more difficult for us to convince the Department of Justice that the claims are meritorious and true.
Wilbanks and Gouinlock has never filed cases, which some lawyers do, under a John Doe name. They do this to protect the client’s identity initially, but inevitably, the name will come out. The defendants will be able to find out who it is later on and will be able to take depositions and discover who you are at that point if the case goes forward.
Moreover, we can’t assure clients even if they decide later on that they don’t want to go forward with the case that their name won’t ever become public. When we first started practicing in this area over two decades ago, it was possible to dismiss a case and not have a client’s name ever come out. At this stage of the game, the law has moved more to the trajectory where you have to assume that if you file a False Claims Act (FCA) case and your name is on it, it could become public. It can’t be redacted after the fact, and since FCA cases are brought on behalf of the taxpayers of the United States, the Government feels that that is a public filing, and the information in the complaint should be made public sometime after the seal is lifted.
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This article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal advice.
One of the most difficult things in our business is the question: “Is our client the first to file a particular case against a particular defendant alleging a very specific scheme?” That’s something you don’t know when you file this, because these cases are investigated, wherever they are filed around the country, under seal and in confidence, so that no one can have a way to find out, no matter how much they researched it, that another similar case had been filed before ours.
However, we have developed a good experienced understanding of the types of cases that are likely to be already out there. For instance, if it’s a national case where a defendant is in the same thing and has been doing the same thing for a number of years, there’s a higher chance that someone else would have filed first. We discuss that with our clients, but you never truly know.
If another lawyer tells you different than that, they are definitely not giving good advice. We have developed good relationships with the Department of Justice attorneys, and we know how to look for the clues dealing with these cases, asking the right questions and seeking to find out if there are other relators.
In many situations, even where we were not the first to file, we were still able to reach an agreement with the other relators (AKA whistleblowers), in that case that allowed us to participate in receiving money upon the settlement of the case, because our clients added value to the case. We have always tried to be very reasonable whether we are first to file or second to file. If all of the whistleblowers are working together and growing the pie, we feel that everyone should be able to participate in a settlement or judgement.
Contact our office for a free, confidential consultation:
This article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal advice.
There is a lot of art and a little bit of guesswork in coming up with an educated guess as to what a case is worth. All we can rely on is our experience and our assessment of hundreds of these cases, give a client a range of what a case is worth.
The key thing here is how much did the Government lose. It’s not just how bad was the conduct. What did the defendants do wrong and how can we prove with documents that they intentionally defrauded the Government. It comes down to how much can you collect and a lot of that is based upon the amount of loss to the Government and the size of the defendant’s pocketbook.
So, those things all go together in calculating how much a case is worth. The best indicator of how much you can collect is: “What are the single damages?” Which is, in layman’s terms, “How much did the Government loose?” In a settlement, you’d expect to get two times that loss. If a case goes to trial, of course, there could be additional penalties and three times the Government loss of recoverable damages.
Contact our office for a free, confidential consultation:
This article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal advice.
Through the years we’ve filed many cases for whistleblowers while they were employed. This can be a big advantage, because they have good access to documents as long as they get the documents within the scope of their employment in a lawful way. It is often very helpful to get documents that prove that the fraud is really going on.
Being employed allows you also to record what you see at work with your eyes, what you hear, and to do some present impressions that you write down and maybe keep a diary that give more support to your testimony later.
It can be a real advantage if you’re still employed. Having said that, it’s not a requirement that you’re still employed. We have some clients that have been out of employment for years, but still have sufficient evidence to prove their case. All things being equal, we would prefer that the client still be employed while we are investigating the case, but it’s certainly not an absolute necessity.
Contact our office for a free, confidential consultation:
This article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal advice.
The key thing to remember about suits filed under the False Claims Act, is that these suits deal exclusively with defaults to the Government, not to individuals. We don’t file Class Action Suits.
However, we have discovered that the conduct of the defendants, the fraud that occurred to cheat the Government, many times also effects many other private entities, private insurance companies, and private individuals. For those people, a Class Action may be appropriate.
So, while we don’t file Class Action Suits, after our lawsuits become public, individuals can certainly file with other lawyers. Class Actions do arise occasionally. The most recent example has been where we sued national banks for fraud, in the refinancing of VA loans. We recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for the taxpayers. Class Actions came up after that, where individual Veterans were able to use the same facts and recover on their individual basis.
Contact our office for a free, confidential consultation:
This article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal advice.
Coming forward with a whistleblower case can drastically change your life, and raises many questions. We’ve compiled a list of questions we typically get when reviewing prospective cases.
Wilbanks & Gouinlock, LLP
3414 Peachtree Road NE
Suite 725
Atlanta, GA 30326
Phone: 404-842-1075
Fax: 404-842-0559