Gregory J. Wallance

At the firm, Mr. Wallance has represented numerous individuals and companies in state and federal criminal and regulatory proceedings, in internal investigations, and in implementing corporate compliance programs. Most recently, he represented companies and individuals in such high-profile criminal matters as the UN Oil-for-Food bribery scandal, the KPMG tax-shelter investigation, the stock-options-backdating scandal, and the food additive, liquid chemical shipping, DRAM products, LCD (liquid crystal display), and automotive supply industry international cartel investigations and prosecutions by the DOJ. He served as a member of the Ad Hoc Advisory Group to the US Sentencing Commission on the Organizational Sentencing Guidelines, and has testified before the Sentencing Commission and Congress as an expert on corporate governance issues. He is the principal editor of the firm’s Deskbook on Internal Investigations, Corporate Compliance and White Collar Issues (Practising Law Institute).

On the civil side, from 1995–2001, Mr. Wallance served as Chief Litigation Counsel (while remaining a Partner at the firm) at Kidder, Peabody & Co. Incorporated, where he both supervised and tried securities litigations. He recently concluded a fourteen-year accounting fraud and malpractice litigation in federal court on behalf of a bankrupt pharmaceutical wholesale distributor against a major accounting firm that resulted in a substantial recovery for creditors, and represented a leading liquor company in a derivative lawsuit in Delaware Chancery Court arising from the multibillion-dollar sale of Grey Goose vodka.

In the product liability area, on behalf of foreign companies sued in the highly publicized Chinese drywall litigation, Mr. Wallance resolved thousands of homeowner claims for defective drywall board by negotiating and supervising a “pilot remediation program” that remediated, or is remediating, more than 2,500 homes. MDL Drywall Litigation Judge Eldon E. Fallon (E.D. La.) called the pilot program “very successful” and stated that “I have been mentioning [the pilot program] to my colleagues around the country as a potential method of trying to resolve these [mass tort] cases.” He has tried numerous criminal and civil cases and arbitrations, and argued appeals in multiple state and federal appellate courts.

As pro bono counsel, he has filed amicus curiae briefs in the Supreme Court on behalf of the National Alliance on Mental Illness and other leading mental health organizations in a case involving excessive police force against persons with mental disorders; in the Eleventh Circuit on behalf of Autism Speaks in a challenge to the Florida Medicaid agency’s denial of effective therapy for impoverished children with autism spectrum disorders; and in the Second Circuit on behalf of a leading social scientist and child justice organizations in a case arising under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.