Whistleblower attorney Erika
Kelton, of Phillips & Cohen LLP, was named the 2012 “Whistleblower
Lawyer of the Year” by a leading national whistleblower organization last
week.
Kelton was awarded the honor by Taxpayers Against Fraud (TAF)
for representing two whistleblowers in a qui tam lawsuit against
GlaxoSmithKline, a case that contributed significantly to GlaxoSmithKline’s record-setting $3 billion settlement with the U.S. government in July.
Kelton has represented whistleblowers in two of the largest
health care fraud settlements in U.S. history: the Glaxo settlement, and Pfizer’s
$2.3 billion settlement in 2009, which covered
civil and criminal charges for the “off-label” marketing of the drug Bextra.
In addition to her work on these monumental whistleblower
cases, TAF also lauded Kelton’s work in helping to create and set up whistleblower
reward programs at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Internal Revenue Service.
