With Rising State AG Action, BigLaw Responds by Beefing Up

Litigation attorney William Shepherd was mentioned in a Law360 article about the increasing trend of large law firms formalizing and expanding their state attorney general (AG) practices in response to the rising level of enforcement actions and investigations initiated by state AGs. As a result, firms like Holland & Knight, where Mr. Shepherd leads the state AG practice, are proactively assembling teams with specific experience in this area to better serve clients facing state-level scrutiny across various industries and legal issues, such as consumer protection, antitrust, election law and Medicaid fraud. The article also highlights the trend of outside law firms litigating cases on behalf of state AG offices on a contingency fee basis, which has shifted the focus of some cases toward payouts instead of injunctive relief.

"We'd been doing the work before the group was formalized, but the clients and the industries were thinking about it as an area that they needed legal guidance and help on, so they didn't just want to talk to their litigators, they wanted people with attorney general experience, whether that means they worked in an attorney general office for years or deal in that area regularly," Mr. Shepherd said.

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