Stephen M. Byers is a partner in the firm's White Collar & Regulatory Enforcement Group and serves on the group's steering committee. He is also a member of the firm's Government Contracts Group and E-Discovery & Information Management Group. Mr. Byers's practice involves counseling and representation of corporate and individual clients in all phases of white collar criminal and related civil matters, including: internal corporate investigations; federal grand jury, inspector general, civil enforcement and congressional investigations; and trials and appeals.
Mr. Byers's practice focuses on matters involving procurement fraud, health care fraud and abuse, trade secrets theft, foreign bribery, computer crimes and cybersecurity, and antitrust conspiracies. He has extensive experience with the federal False Claims Act and qui tam litigation, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the Economic Espionage Act, and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. In addition to defense of government investigations and prosecutions, Mr. Byers has represented corporate victims of trade secrets theft, cybercrime, and other offenses. For example, he represented a Fortune 100 U.S. company in parallel civil and criminal proceedings that resulted in a $275 million criminal restitution order against a foreign competitor upon its conviction for trade secrets theft.
Mr. Byers's trial experience includes the acquittal of a major transportation company accused of filing false reports with a federal agency; and the acquittal of a senior executive of a major pharmaceutical company charged with conspiracy, obstruction, and other crimes.
Mr. Byers's experience in e-discovery includes counseling clients on electronic discovery issues in the context of internal and government investigations, including the use of technology-assisted review and computer forensics as investigative tools, and negotiating with government investigators concerning the preservation, processing, and production of electronically stored information. Mr. Byers has written and spoken widely on e-discovery issues in the context of criminal investigations, and previously served as the chair of the ABA Criminal Justice Section's Task Force on Criminal E-Discovery.
Mr. Byers received his law degree in 1992 from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he served on the editorial board of the Virginia Law Review.
Mr. Byers is a member of the bar of the District of Columbia, the bars of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and other federal courts, and the American Bar Association Sections on Criminal Justice and Public Contract Law.
Education
- Wake Forest University, B.A. (1987) cum laude
- University of Virginia School of Law, J.D. (1992)
Affiliations
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