Freshfields Hires Ex-DOJ Official Eric Bruce From Kobre & Kim

Freshfields has picked up former Department of Justice attorney Eric B. Bruce from Kobre & Kim to serve as a partner in Freshfields’ Washington office.

Bruce joins the firm after nine years at the helm of Kobre & Kim’s white collar practice.

He previously spent more than a decade at the DOJ, where he served as a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York. He was also counselor to the attorney general and counsel to the assistant attorney general for the criminal division during the George W. Bush administration.

The newly-minted Freshfields partner, who specializes in representing individuals and multinational corporations in investigations, including high-profile criminal probes, didn’t seek out the new firm.

Rather, he says he was courted by two former DOJ colleagues at Freshfields and ultimately made the switch because of the chance to grow the Washington component of the firm’s global investigations practice.

“These days, with a lot of these global corporate investigations, even if the conduct is elsewhere and even if a regulatory or prosecutorial authority in some other country is leading it, there is still going to be a U.S. component,” he told Bloomberg Law. “Even if the DOJ lets another country take the lead, DOJ is still going to be involved.”

Bruce is the latest addition to the growing Freshfields global investigations and litigation practice.

The London-based firm recently hired Eric Mahr and Daniel Braun from the DOJ. Mahr has served as the director of litigation for the department’s antitrust division and Braun was a deputy chief of litigation in the fraud section of DOJ’s criminal division.

The firm has also picked up Ben Morgan from the Serious Fraud Office in London, and German white collar attorney Simone Kämpfer.

“Companies face increased scrutiny in light of the global trend toward criminalizing types of corporate conduct,” David Scott, Freshfields’ head of dispute resolution, said in a statement. “Major investigations are increasingly triggered by investigations of a regulatory or enforcement agency, a public prosecutor, a tax authority or by internal whistle-blowing. The insights and experience that Eric brings as a former prosecutor and as a seasoned defense lawyer are exactly what clients need and are looking for.”