Mary Louise Cohen
(Washington, D.C.)

Mary Louise, a partner with Phillips & Cohen, has great depth of experience in representing whistleblowers in a wide array of qui tam lawsuits brought under the False Claims Act.

She has been the lead counsel in many successful whistleblower cases involving Medicare fraud by healthcare providers. She also has won large settlements in cases brought by whistleblowers against defense contractors.

Among her more notable cases was a whistleblower lawsuit that was part of a recent $875 million settlement by a pharmaceutical firm — one of the largest Medicare and Medicaid fraud settlements ever. She was lead counsel in a whistleblower case that a defense contractor paid $59.5 million to settle.

Other qui tam cases Mary Louise has handled have resulted in settlements from the nation’s largest healthcare provider for billing Medicare for unnecessary blood tests; a cardiac surgery clinic for illegally billing Medicare for the services of doctors; and a railroad company for filing false claims for government payment.

Mary Louise frequently speaks as a panelist at conferences on the False Claims Act and healthcare fraud. She has co-authored several articles on qui tam lawsuits and whistleblowing.

Mary Louise graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1977 where she was a member of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau. From 1977 to 1981, she was an associate in private practice in Atlanta, Georgia and Washington D.C.

Before specializing in representing whistleblowers, Mary Louise spent many years in public service positions. She served as counsel and chief counsel to the Subcommittee on Juvenile Justice of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee from 1981 to 1984. The following two years, she served as Legislative Director for a major public interest group in Washington, DC. From 1986 to 1988, she served as counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Antitrust, Monopolies and Business Rights.

<back>