2024 Lawyers of the Year
During its 24th Annual Conference, The Anti-Fraud Coalition bestowed its Lawyers of the Year Award to a group of lawyers from the firms Berger Montague and Reese Marketos for their extraordinary results in United States ex rel. Penelow v. Janssen Products, LP and United States ex rel. Silver v. Omnicare, Inc., PharMerica Corp., et al.
Berger Montague: Sherrie Savett | Michael Fantini | Joy Clairmont | William Ellerbe
Reese Marketos: Pete Marketos | Andrew Wirmani | Josh Russ | Whitney Wendel | Adam Sanderson
The award recognizes a member or members of The Anti-Fraud Coalition who achieved outstanding results, overcame especially challenging circumstances, and/or brought change to an industry thought their incredible efforts in the last year.
Below is a photo from the award ceremony and more information about the accomplishments of the teams from Berger Montague and Reese Marketos.
Berger Montague & Reese Marketos’ Accomplishments
What a year for this dynamic duo! Berger Montage and Reese Marketos teamed up for some truly outstanding results this year, including in two monumental declined qui tam cases which resulted in major victories for the government and for the relators’ bar: United States ex rel. Silver v. Omnicare, Inc., PharMerica Corp., et al., (“PharMerica”), which settled for $100 million, and United States ex rel. Penelow v. Janssen Products, LP (“Janssen”), in which they won a jury verdict of $150 million in single damages (with the potential for a judgment north of a BILLION dollars).
Both of these declined cases were litigated for more than a decade. PharMerica was settled just two weeks before trial was scheduled to begin. In Janssen, the jury reached a verdict after a 5-week trial. During both cases, the teams faced challenging circumstances.
In PharMerica, which lasted 13 years from start to finish, the relator defeated multiple motions to dismiss, including a motion to dismiss on public disclosure grounds which was granted and appealed to the Third Circuit. The circuit court reversed, resulting in an excellent decision on public disclosure which is of value to our entire bar, though the entire appeal process took almost three years. After fighting through major discovery disputes at every turn, the Berger Montague team was faced with PharMerica’s motion for summary judgment, which included a 300-page statement of “uncontested facts,” virtually all of which were contested, and which they had to respond to paragraph-by-paragraph, and just weeks later, the court scheduled a trial date of December 4, 2023.
Facing this trial, the Berger Montague team decided to unite with the Reese Marketos team to rely on their trial expertise. The case was highly technical, had complicated facts, and the team had few friendly witnesses, however, the trial team was prepared. After the court denied PharMerica’s summary judgment motion from the bench at an in-person hearing on November 6, and having failed at every attack it had mounted over the years, PharMerica realized the huge risk it faced in proceeding to trial, and after a marathon mediation session, they settled the case two weeks before trial was to begin.
On the other hand, Janssen never tried to settle the case or offer anything meaningful, despite the court’s denial of Janssen’s pretrial motions. After building the case for over a decade, the Berger Montague team brought in Reese Marketos, who tried it to perfection with their support. Among other tactics, the skillful Reese Marketos trial lawyers obtained valuable testimony and admissions through cross examination from the retired CEO and the National Sales Director, both of whom were hostile witnesses. Additionally, the team had great friendly witnesses, including their two excellent relators, who all told the story of being directed by top management to use off label information to promote sales of two HIV drugs in order to boost sales, which were far below Janssen’s forecasts. The jury reached a verdict in their favor after a 5-week trial. That verdict is being challenged, but once the dust settles, could be the largest judgment in FCA history.
Every time relators takes a big complex case to trial and win a large settlement or verdict, it changes the mentality of the defense. The Reese Marketos team, with the full support of the Berger Montague team, out-dueled Janssen’s big firm lawyers at every turn at trial. When defendants, especially big corporate defendants, see what the relators’ bar is capable of, it changes behavior across the board.
Award Nomination Process
The Lawyers of the Year Award and others are nominated by the general membership of The Anti-Fraud Coalition before the organization’s annual conference.
Once submitted, The Anti-Fraud Coalition’s Conference & Member Education Committee deliberate and vote on award recipients.
