Directory of Phillips & Cohen Attorneys
The National Law Journal named Eric R. Havian one of its Top 10 Winning attorneys for 2008 for his work representing whistleblowers.
His experience as a former Assistant U.S. Attorney combined with nearly 15 years of specializing in cases involving fraud against the government make him a valuable advocate for whistleblowers. He handles cases for whistleblowers who have provided the Internal Revenue Service with information alleging significant tax evasion by businesses as well as “qui tam” cases involving other types of fraud against the government.
Mr. Havian was the lead attorney on a whistleblower case that Northrop Grumman Inc. recently paid $325 million to settle. He also handled a separate whistleblower case against Northrop that the company paid $111 million to settle. Another one of his successes involved fraud in the federal “E-rate” program, which funds high-speed Internet connections for schools in poor neighborhoods. The case launched a nationwide investigation of bid-rigging and fraud in the E-rate program.
Mr. Havian has worked with numerous local governments, including the County of Los Angeles and the City of San Francisco, to pursue state False Claims Act cases against companies for fraud. One of his more prominent wins was serving as lead counsel representing Los Angeles County agencies in a trial that won a $223 million verdict against an electric utility for overcharging its government customers.
Based on surveys of lawyers and other information, Mr. Havian was named one of the "500 Leading Lawyers in America" by LawDragon and has been included in Super Lawyers' annual list of the Top 5 percent of the lawyers in northern California for the past five years.
He is a frequent speaker at conferences on whistleblowers and qui tam lawsuits. He also has published articles about whistleblowing and government contract fraud as well as how the False Claims Act applies to fraud in the environmental field.
Mr. Havian graduated cum laude in 1981 from Harvard Law School, where he won the Ames Moot Court Competition.
He was an Assistant United States Attorney in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Francisco from 1987 through 1994 and was the lead prosecutor for defense procurement fraud cases. During his tenure, Mr. Havian prosecuted numerous multi-million dollar cases of fraud against the federal government.
Before joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Mr. Havian was a litigation associate at the San Francisco office of Heller, Ehrman, White & McAuliffe, where he practiced complex litigation.
Mr. Havian has taught courses on fraud at Stanford Law School and at the University of California School of Law (Boalt Hall). He has been a guest lecturer at Hastings College of the Law and has taught various seminars to assistant U.S. attorneys at the Attorney General's Advocacy Institute in Washington, D.C. He is a former co-chair of the American Bar Association Health Law Litigation Committee.