Three years after taking charge of the white-collar criminal defense group at Norton Rose Fulbright, Michael Edney has stepped down to rejoin his former firm, Steptoe & Johnson LLP, where he will lead a litigation team focused on challenging government regulations.

With his return to Steptoe, Edney, 43, becomes the latest in a string of Norton Rose Fulbright partners who have defected from the firm in recent years.

Last year, Abbe Lowell, a criminal defense lawyer who successfully defended U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez and former U.S. Sen. John Edwards in criminal trials, left Norton Rose Fulbright to join Winston & Strawn. Earlier in 2018, Winston & Strawn poached eight lawyers from Norton Rose Fulbright's energy and infrastructure group. Norton Rose Fulbright also saw the leader of its health care practice, Rick Robinson, decamp for Reed Smith with a half dozen other lawyers in 2018.

Michael Edney Michael Edney/courtesy photo

In his three years at Norton Rose Fulbright, Edney has led various challenges to regulations and other moves by federal agencies, including the U.S. Treasury Department's labeling of a Moscow-born American businessman as a Russian oligarch. Edney sued the Treasury Department in 2018, alleging that it had failed to take up a "serious inquiry" before including the businessman, Dr. Valentin Gapontsev, on a list of purported cronies of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Trump administration in September disavowed the decision to include him on that list, resolving a case in which the Treasury Department was accused of copying a roster of Russian billionaires that Forbes magazine published in 2017.