Goodwin Adds Former Prosecutor to Expanding Washington Office

Goodwin Procter is bringing aboard former federal prosecutor Ilene Albala to handle the increasing False Claims Act scrutiny by the Biden administration.

Albala, a former assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, is part of the firm’s expansion of the complex litigation and dispute resolution and healthcare practices as a partner in Washington.

In the Eastern District, Albala was lead counsel for the federal government in False Claims Act qui tam litigation and supervised federal agents and collaborating FBI and FDA offices, among others. She led investigations of medical device manufacturers, hospital systems, clinical laboratories, diagnostic testing facilities and private equity investors in healthcare.

She joins Goodwin at a time of increased False Claims Act enforcement. In 2021 alone, the Justice Department obtained more than $5.6 billion in judgments and settlements involving fraud and false claims against the government, the second largest annual total in the statute’s history.

The healthcare industry accounted for about $5 billion of the total, and that trend that will likely continue under the Biden administration, Albala said. “This administration has made clear that this is just the beginning,” she said.

Albala, a former Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe associate, first joined the Eastern District in 2018 from the Justice Department, where she served as a trial attorney for several years.

Though she wasn’t looking to leave Justice, she said she couldn’t turn down the opportunity to work alongside former deputy chief and Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer partner Kirk Ogrosky, who joined Goodwin in March.

Ogrosky now serves as co-chair of Goodwin’s healthcare government enforcement and False Claims Act defense group. The pair will build on Goodwin’s existing benches to grow life sciences in the white collar and False Claims Act defense area, Albala said.

The administration’s plans coupled with Goodwin’s client base that includes a bevy of life sciences and healthcare companies “creates room and space for someone like Kirk and myself and the rest of the team in the healthcare government investigations group to partner,” she said.