David K. Colapinto is a nationally recognized advocate for whistleblowers specializing in Qui Tam False Claims Act cases and whistleblower reward claims before the SEC, CFTC, and IRS. For more than 30 years he has successfully represented whistleblowers in state and federal courts and before numerous agencies.
Among his many accomplishments, Mr. Colapinto was lead counsel for one of the whistleblowers in a major qui tam/False Claims action against the drug maker Bristol-Myers Squibb, helping to recover more than $500 million for U.S. taxpayers and the government, and he was co-counsel for Bradley Birkenfeld helping to recover the largest ever tax whistleblower award ($104 million) for Mr. Birkenfeld in 2012. He has also successfully handled many other qui tam cases under the False Claims Act and other whistleblower award laws resulting in millions of dollars in recoveries for taxpayers and whistleblowers.
Mr. Colapinto also helped secure whistleblower protections for FBI and Intelligence Community employees. For example, he successfully represented Dr. Fredric Whitehurst, the FBI lab forensics expert who suffered retaliation after reporting serious misconduct and poor lab practices at the FBI. As a result of the Whitehurst v. FBI case, President Clinton ordered the Attorney General to implement the FBI whistleblower statute, but after the Attorney General failed to issue regulations Mr. Colapinto sued the Department of Justice on behalf of other FBI employees to secure their whistleblower rights.
He has also established important precedent under the Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act. For example, Mr. Colapinto served as co-counsel in Linda Tripp’s successful lawsuit citing Privacy Act violations by the Department of Defense regarding the unauthorized leak of information from Ms. Tripp’s security clearance file following her testimony to the Independent Counsel. In another case, the D.C. Circuit ruled in favor of a different client granting the request for expedited processing under FOIA.
Mr. Colapinto is a co-founder of the National Whistleblower Center where he serves as General Counsel in a pro bono capacity, and a Trustee of the National Whistleblower Legal Defense & Education Fund.
Promoting International Qui Tam Whistleblowing
Kohn, Kohn and Colapinto has played an instrumental role in advancing whistleblower rights worldwide. Currently the partners represent whistleblowers from every continent on earth (except Antarctica) in pursuing whistleblower reward cases under U.S. laws.
Steve Kohn has been sponsored by the U.S. Department of State to promote whistleblowing on a world-wide scale, including special seminars and programs in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Bosnia, Serbia and Thailand. He has given major keynote addresses in Peru and Greece and presented in numerous international conferences and has testified on behalf of whistleblowers before the European Parliament and the Danish Parliament. Mike Kohn has made major international presentations in Poland, South Korea and Israel. The firm filed extensive comments supporting greater whistleblower protections in the now-approved European Directive on Whistleblowing.
Whistleblower attorney Stephen M. Kohn and partners of Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto regularly advise congress on crafting whistleblower laws. And play an instrumental role in drafting whistleblower protection laws, such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), The Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act, and the Dodd-Frank Act.
SEC & IRS Rulemaking
During the Dodd-Frank rulemaking process, our partners worked closely with the SEC to create an effective whistleblower program. Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto’s partners met personally with each of the five SEC Commissioners. They presented them with detailed reports and proposals setting forth rules that were essential to make the law work for Dodd-Frank whistleblowers as intended by Congress. Furthermore, Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto’s whistleblower attorneys seek to protect and enhance legal protections for tax fraud whistleblowers. Our firm has filed numerous internal revenue service rulemaking petitions, filed extensive briefs to the IRS and testified at IRS rulemaking hearsing to strengthen the tax whistleblower program.
[Read More]In recognition of the growing importance of whistleblower litigation, The National Law Journal named the whistleblower attorney and advocacy law firm of Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto as one of top fifty plaintiff’s law firms in the United States. The firm’s partners were officially named as among “America’s Elite Trial Lawyers.” In its September 29, 2014 article, “Elite Trial Lawyers: The 50 Leading Plaintiff’s Firms in America,” the National Law Journal named Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto as one of the firm’s “doing the most creative and most important work in the courtroom.”
- 2019 – 2022 - LawDragon 500 Leading Plaintiff Financial Lawyers
- 2007, 2009, 2011-2022 – Washingtonian Top Lawyers
- 2013-2020 – A-V Preeminent, Martindale-Hubbell®
- 2014 – “Elite Trial Lawyers” Designation, National Law Journal (Awarded to KKC LLP)
- 2014 – America’s Most Honored Professionals, American Registry (Awarded to KKC LLP)
- 2009 – Top Attorneys, Washington DC Super Lawyers (Awarded to KKC LLP)
- 2008 – Friend of the IEEE Award
- 2003 – “Hot List” of Plantiff’s Law Firms, National Law Journal
Media Appearances
BBC, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, C-SPAN, MSNBC, FOX, RT, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Atlanta Constitution, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Time Magazine, National Law Journal, and Vanity Fair.
- Whistleblower Law: A Guide to Legal Protections for Corporate Employees (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004) (co-authored with Michael Kohn and Stephen M, Kohn). The Guide was highly praised by the two principle co-sponsors of the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate whistleblower law.
- Environmental Whistleblowers and the Eleventh Amendment: Employee Protection or State Immunity, 15 Tulane Environmental Law Journal 43 (Winter, 2001) (co-author).
- Numerous national and international media and public speaking appearances, including formal Congressional testimony and other presentations.
What Clients are Saying
“Among the most experienced and skilled attorneys practicing in the specialization of whistleblower law”
“I couldn’t have navigated the shark invested waters whistleblower face without the passion, dedication, determination, and brilliance of my incredible attorneys.”
“…the three co-founders of the National Whistleblower Center, these are important names, Stephen Kohn, Michael Kohn and David Colapinto, thank you so much for all that you do, they broke the mold with these visionaries and we are all better for it.” – National Whistleblower Day, 2018
David's Latest Thinking
New House Whistleblower Rule Sends A Strong Message
As a new Congress convenes, the House of Representatives will have in place a new rule to protect the identity of whistleblowers who anonymously report wrongdoing to the House. While the new rule was announced by Speaker Nancy Pelosi in response to efforts to unmask the identity of the Intelligence Community whistleblower, whose disclosures led to the impeachment of President Trump over the Ukraine scandal, it will actually strengthen bipartisan Congressional oversight. The new whistleblower rule will follow federal laws providing for whistleblower confidentiality and prohibit House Members from disclosing the identity of whistleblowers who fall under the protection of any federal whistleblower law. The rule would make the disclosure of a federal whistleblower’s identity a violation of the House’s Official Code of Conduct. When House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer proposed the new whistleblower rule in November of 2020, he stated that the purpose of the rule was to promote ...
Qui Tam Whistleblower Action Gets Boost as State Medicaid Program Halts Payments to Clinic Over Medicaid Fraud Allegations
The Medicaid program in Massachusetts has halted Medicaid payments to a Lawrence, Mass. clinic over fraud allegations that were first raised in a leading False Claims Act qui tam whistleblower action that is pending in federal court in Boston, according to a Boston Globe report. The Lawrence counseling clinic is accused of fraud for submitting Medicaid claims for payment of fees for licensed doctors and supervised therapists when in fact patients were treated by unlicensed and unsupervised nurses. The Medicaid fraud allegations were raised by a family whose daughter died while a patient undergoing treatment at the Lawrence clinic. The family filed a qui tam whistleblower action naming as defendants the clinic and its parent company, Universal Health Services, Inc., a publicly traded company that is in the Fortune 500. In June 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Universal Health Services v. U.S. ex rel. Escobar that the family ...
Senator Grassley Goes to the Senate Floor to Blast Court Decisions that Place “Bogus Restrictions” on False Claims Act Whistleblower Cases
Senator Chuck Grassley today gave a 15-minute floor speech defending the whistleblower provisions of the False Claims Act and he said that recent court decisions are weakening “the most effective tool to combat government fraud” by “piling on bogus restrictions that are not the law.” Sen. Grassley pointed out that since 1986 the False Claims Act, which was originally enacted under Abraham Lincoln, has enabled the federal government to collect over $56 billion from unscrupulous contractors that have defrauded taxpayers. Last year alone, the government collected $3.7 billion of which $3.4 billion was the direct result of False Claims Act cases filed by whistleblowers. Grassley stated that some False Claims Act defendants are “tying in knots” the lower courts following a Supreme Court ruling last year in Universal Health Services v. U.S. ex rel. Escobar and said defendants and lower courts are misconstruing Justice Thomas’ holding that false claims must be material to the government’s ...
Our Client Received the Largest Whistleblower Reward in World History of $104 Million
Bradley Birkenfeld broke the back of Swiss bank secrecy. He was the first Swiss banker to file a case under the IRS whistleblower law. The results were unprecedented. UBS bank (at the time the largest bank in the world) had to pay a fine of $780 million. They also had to close all known U.S. accounts, and for the first time in history, the bank turned over the names of 4450 U.S. taxpayers for prosecution in the United States. Mr. Birkenfeld obtained the largest ever individual qui tam whistleblower award in history, $104 million.
