California

Mark I. Labaton
Member

As a former federal prosecutor, Mark Labaton is a long-standing advocate for corporate responsibility and financial accountability. For many years, Mark has litigated complex securities fraud, whistleblower, shareholder rights, corporate governance, insurance, financial fraud and consumer fraud cases. He currently serves as managing partner of the firm's Los Angeles office, Motley Rice LLP, and leads its qui tam whistleblower litigation team.

Mark has been instrumental in securing multiple settlements and judgments for his clients totaling close to $1 billion. He has served as lead attorney or played an integral role in prosecuting (and defending) high-profile cases against a broad range of Fortune 500 and other large public and private companies, as well as prominent corporate officers and directors. A number of these cases have resulted in important legal precedents.

Early in his career, Mark served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, where he prosecuted white-collar fraud cases against officers, directors and senior execu­tives of federally-insured financial institutions and False Claims Act actions against health­care providers, defense contractors and other government contractors. He received awards and commendations from the U.S. Attorney General, several U.S. Attorneys, the FDIC, the FDIC's Office of the Inspector General, the Fed­eral Bureau of Investigation, the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Small Business Administration. Mark also served as legal counsel to a mayoral transition team and, subsequently, as a special counsel to the District. He worked directly with the Director of the D.C. Department of Health, Vincent Gray, to develop a comprehensive ten-year plan for the District's healthcare system.

Mark's passion for writing has led to numerous published non-legal com­mentary, features and articles for daily, national and local newspapers and regional magazines. Awarded funding from the Ford Foundation, he wrote a series of articles on human rights issues for several international newspapers. Additionally, he has published more than two dozen legally-related commentary articles in publications that include: Los Angeles Real Estate Journal, Los Angeles Lawyer, San Francisco Daily Journal, the Duke Law Journal, the Banking Law Review, Practising Law Institute's Securities Law Handbook, the Consumer Lawyers Advocate magazine, Legal Times, Texas Lawyer, New Jersey Lawyer, Manhattan Lawyer and Irish Times.  For years, he has written as a featured business law columnist for the Los Angeles Daily Journal. He also appeared in published symposia and was featured on the cover of Los Angeles Lawyer magazine in connection with a lead article on credit default swaps, which that magazine's editors solicited from him based on his work as an advocate for securities and consumer fraud victims. 

At Duke University School of Law, Mark served as a staff and editorial board member of the Duke Law Journal and received the Hervey M. Johnson Writing Prize for the best law review article. The article was later cited in court opinions and other law review articles that led to an amendment of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

Both national and local media frequently quote Mark, and he has been named for five consecutive years to the Southern California Su­per Lawyers® list. He has also been a featured speaker, panelist and moderator at legal conferences hosted by Duke University School of Law, Taxpayers Against Fraud, the Institute of Law and Economic Policy, the Rand Institute, the Claremont University Drucker and Ito Business School, the U.S. Department of Justice, the FDIC, the U.S. Department of Education, the Beverly Hills Bar Association and the National Association of Legal Professionals.

Mark is an elected member of the American Law Institute, serves as Vice President of the Institute of Law and Economic Policy, and is an appointed member of the Appellate Courts Committee of the Los Angeles Bar Association and its Antitrust and Unfair Business Practice section. He served on the Board of Governors of the Association of Business Trial Lawyers from 2008 to 2012. He is also a member of Taxpayers Against Fraud and its Dodd-Frank SEC Working Group, the American Association for Justice, the Association of Former U.S. Attorneys and Assistant U.S. Attorneys for the Central District of California, the National Association of Shareholder and Consumer Attorneys, and the American Bar Association White Collar Crime Committee.

* Please remember that every case is different. Any result we achieve for one client in one matter does not necessarily indicate similar results can be obtained for other clients.