What is a whistleblower lawyer?
In the most general terms, a “whistleblower lawyer” is any attorney who specializes in
representing clients that either (1) want to report, stop or prevent misconduct, and/or (2) need legal protection for engaging in some type of protected whistleblower activity, such as trying to prevent the misconduct, alerting supervisors about it or reporting it to government authorities or other outsiders. There are many different types of whistleblower lawyers. Some help clients in so-called False Claims Act qui tam matters. Others assist in reporting SEC fraud, CFTC fraud and IRS fraud to government agencies. But there are also a variety of other contexts and industries where whistleblowing activities and related legal needs arise, including, banking, transportation, environmental protection, public safety, cybersecurity, money laundering, foreign corrupt practice violations, and many more.
How can people receive a whistleblower reward?
Usually in order to get a whistleblower reward there must be a written statutory law that provides for one. Some whistleblower reward laws require the person to file a formal lawsuit. For example, the federal and state false claims acts mandate the filing of qui tam lawsuits in a court. Others permit the whistleblower to simply file a tip, complaint or report with an investigative agency. For example, the SEC, CFTC and IRS whistleblower programs allow a person to file on-line notices of fraud with those agencies. Regardless of which of these two procedures is followed, there are some common principles to each. These include: providing information that is not already widely or publicly known, being the first to alert the authorities to the misconduct, having valuable factual information, and being able to corroborate one’s whistleblower allegations with recordings, witnesses and documents. In some instances a whistleblower must be willing to be publicly identified; in others they can proceed anonymously. Often there is a dollar range for possible rewards, usually stated in terms of a percentage of funds
recovered. The specific amount of a reward within that range is almost always based on the quantity and quality of the whistleblowers’ information and assistance. In terms of physically receiving the reward, normally the government pays either the whistleblower lawyer or whistleblower by check or electronic transfer after the government has received a recovery from the person or company charged with committing the misconduct.
Do whistleblower lawyers work on a contingency fee basis?
The short answer is yes. Most do. Typically whistleblower lawyers get paid a percentage of the whistleblowers’ rewards from the government. In most instances, the lawyers also advance any out of pocket expenses, such as court filing fees and expert witness costs. If there is a related employment retaliation claim (such as, for wrongful termination of one’s employment because of whistleblowing activities) in addition to the underlying government fraud claim, the attorney may charge a percentage of the employment claim recovery, an hourly-fee, a fixed price fee or some combination of these.
