Quarles & Brady Nabs Veteran SDNY Assistant Atty
Quarles & Brady LLP has brought on a career government lawyer who spent more than 15 years as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York as a partner in its health and life sciences practice, the firm said Tuesday.
The move for Kirti V. Reddy represents her first stint in the private sector, following two decades in the SDNY and a stretch as a trial attorney at the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service at the start of her legal career, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Reddy, who joins the Washington, D.C., office but will be based remotely in New Jersey, told Law360 on Wednesday that her focus at Quarles & Brady will be in the areas of healthcare compliance and fraud investigations. She said that she wanted to work in this area in the private sector in order to advise "entities that are vital to the community" and to help them "avoid issues with the government."
She anticipates advising clients on regulations enforced by agencies such as the U.S. Health and Human Services, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the various state Medicaid offices.
During her time in the SDNY's civil division, Reddy focused on government investigations dealing with the False Claims Act and the Anti-Kickback Statute, among other statutes. She handled matters in areas including employment, civil defense and customs and healthcare fraud.
Among the cases she led included a government action against a substance abuse treatment center that fraudulently enrolled Medicaid beneficiaries into its inpatient treatment program. The SDNY in December 2020 announced a settlement in which the center agreed to pay $6 million and admit to the misconduct, which included charges that its scheme targeted homeless individuals.
Healthcare and life sciences practices have seen increasing activity in recent years, attorneys have told Law360, as the importance of healthcare and healthcare-related technologies take on greater importance during the pandemic. Reddy noted that this has also coincided with increased government scrutiny.
"It's obvious that the government is spending a lot of financial resources during the pandemic," she said. "The government wants to ensure that its money is being well spent and that's when they need to make sure to ramp up their investigative resources."
Amy Cotton Peterson, national chair of Quarles & Brady's health and life sciences group, noted in a statement that Reddy served as lead counsel in hundreds of cases during her time with the SDNY.
"Kirti stands out for her detail-oriented approach to conducting compliance investigations and the ability to successfully litigate all types of matters," she said.