Gary Grindler Joins King & Spalding

On Monday, Washington D.C.-based law firm King & Spalding announced that Gary Grindler, former acting deputy U.S. attorney general and chief of staff to Attorney General Eric Holder, has returned to King & Spalding as a partner. Grindler, 62, will be focusing on financial fraud, healthcare, and cases under the False Claims Act, the same areas where he formerly used to work in King & Spalding as a partner from 2000 to 2009.

Wick Sollers, managing partner of King & Spalding’s Washington office said about Grindler’s return, “Having spent a large part of his career at the Justice Department, Gary has worked on a wide variety of issues relating to white-collar investigations and prosecutions, law enforcement, national security, money laundering and computer crimes. Our clients will benefit greatly from the breadth of experience he has gathered.”

Grindler, besides being the 2^nd top man in the DOJ, as long as he was there, has also been recognized as a Washington D.C., Super Lawyer by Best Lawyers in America. From the Department of Justice, Grindler received the J. Edmund Randolph Award, the highest award presented by the DOJ to its lawyers.

Speaking on the occasion, Grindler said, “I am excited to rejoin King & Spalding and look forward to … working proactively with them (clients) early on to adopt the proper compliance policies and business practices – thereby ensuring both their government compliance and business success.”

Grindler would be handling internal investigations for corporations and audit of special board committees of public companies, as well as defense of corporations and individuals in white-collar criminal, civil fraud. He would also be handling government agency investigations in securities laws, FCPA, tax laws, import/export, health care regulation, and other related areas like false claims and financial fraud.

While in the Department of Justice, Grindler had been criticized by congressional Republicans with respect to his involvement in the Operation Fast and Furious.

A report from the Justice Department’s inspector general also mentioned that Grindler delayed in alerting Attorney General Eric Holder about problems with the operation Fast and Furious. The report noted, “We believe that he (Grindler) should have informed the attorney general as well as made an appropriate inquiry of ATF or the U.S. Attorney’s Office about the connection” of two out of 2000 guns from Fast and Furious being found at the death scene of a U.S. border agent.