Brian Baldrate is a senior associate in the Washington D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. He practices in the firm’s Litigation Department where he is a member of the White Collar Defense and Investigations, Class Actions, Securities Litigation, Government and Commercial Contracts, Environmental and Mass Torts, and Antitrust and Trade Regulation Practice Groups. Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Baldrate spent several years as federal prosecutor for the Army, and as Special Assistant United States Attorney.
Mr. Baldrate has a national complex litigation practice with extensive federal trial courtroom experience. He regularly represents companies and senior executives in conducting internal investigations, defending government investigations, and in litigating complex civil and commercial matters. He has represented clients in a wide-range of areas, including government procurement fraud and false claims act litigation, criminal antitrust violations, national security litigation, public corruption and Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”) investigations, securities fraud, complex business and mass tort litigation, and labor and employment litigation.
Prior to joining Gibson Dunn, while working as a federal prosecutor for the Army and as a Special Assistant United States Attorney, Mr. Baldrate led numerous criminal investigations and prosecutions, including over forty bench and jury trials. Mr. Baldrate deployed to Iraq where he led sensitive criminal investigations and prosecutions involving war crimes, fratricide, and detainee abuse. In Iraq, Mr. Baldrate was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for his efforts in restoring the Iraqi judicial system and helped bring the first-ever trial before the Central Criminal Court of Iraq.
Mr. Baldrate also previously worked as a Special Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Columbia and a Special Trial Attorney for the Department of Justice’s Civil Division. In that capacity, he successfully defended whistleblower actions relating to the award of an Iraqi oil contract, secured dismissal of a multi-million dollar tort action following a manufacturing plant explosion, secured a verdict on behalf of a client defending an employment discrimination action, and defended the release of contractor data under the Trade Secrets Act. He has also argued several appeals before the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
A sample of Mr. Baldrate’s recent litigation experience includes the following representations:
- a Fortune 500 company in defending a DOJ investigation relating to public corruption allegations;
- an insurer in a multi-million dollar coverage dispute concerning home mortgage insurance claims denials;
- an international construction company in defending a U.S. Attorney’s Office investigation involving alleged labor law violations;
- a major defense contractor in a suit alleging breach of contract against NASA before the Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals;
- the former Portfolio Manager of a Hedge Fund in an SEC investigation involving alleged insider trading allegations;
- the former COO of a Fortune 100 Company in defending a DOJ and SEC investigation involving alleged bribery violations;
- a CEO of a financial services company in defending an SEC investigation involving alleged securities law violations;
- the former senior executive of an international freight forwarder in defending a DOJ and EU investigation involving price-fixing and alleged antitrust violations;
- a COO of a health care provider in defending a U.S. Attorney’s Office and State Attorney General investigation involving alleged Medicare fraud;
- a member of the DOJ- and SEC-appointed monitorship team overseeing the largest Foreign Corrupt Practices Act settlement in U.S. history.
Mr. Baldrate earned his B.S. from the United States Military Academy at West Point where he graduated on the dean's list as a distinguished cadet. Following graduation from West Point, Mr. Baldrate served as a cavalry officer where he commanded a scout platoon in helping defend and secure the Kuwaiti border. Later, he attended law school under the Army's Funded Legal Education Program, earning his J.D. as the valedictorian of the University of Connecticut School of Law and serving as Editor-in-Chief of the Connecticut Law Review. He simultaneously earned an M.P.A., where he was named the University of Connecticut’s most outstanding graduate student. Subsequently, Mr. Baldrate earned an LL.M in international and military law and completed his coursework and general exams for a PH. D in Political Science.
Mr. Baldrate serves as an adjunct professor at George Mason School of Law teaching criminal procedure. He is also a major in the U. S. Army Reserves where he teaches criminal law at the Army Judge Advocate General's School.
Mr. Baldrate is a member of the bars of the District of Columbia and the State of Connecticut. He is admitted to practice in the U. S. Supreme Court, the U. S. Court of Federal Claims and has appeared in various federal district courts including the Districts of Colorado, Hawaii, New Jersey, Oregon, Virginia and the District of Columbia.
Publications:
The Expanding Role of Deferred and Nonprosecution Agreements: The New Normal in Handling Corporate Misconduct, BNA White Collar Crime Report (2011)
The Department of Justice's New Guidance on the Production of Exculpatory and Impeachment Evidence: A Piecemeal Approach to the Problem of Prosecutorial Misconduct, Bloomberg Law Reports, April 2010
Recent Hedge Fund Enforcement Actions and Developments, Practicing Law Institute, (with Barry R. Goldsmith), September 2008
Uncle Sam Wants You…Again, (Chapter) in The Veterans’ Survival Guide (2007)
Law and Order, (Chapter) in Letters from the Front Lines: Iraq and Afghanistan (2006)
The Supreme Court’s Role in Defining the Jurisdiction of Military Tribunals: A Study, Critique, & Proposal for Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 186 Military Law Review 1 (2005)
Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror (Review), The Army Lawyer, (Feb. 2005)
Agency Law and the Supreme Court’s Compromise on Hostile Environment Sexual Harassment, 31 Connecticut Law Review 1149 (1999)
Speaking Engagements:
Speaker, Resolving Corporate Investigations with DPAs and NPAs (Webcast) hosted by Securities Docket (September 2011)
Speaker,
When Things Go Wrong: How To Handle a Potential FCPA Violation, FCPA: National Security, Corruption, and Contingency Contracting Conference hosted by The ISOA (September 2010)