Crowell & Moring has added two partners in Washington, D.C., and is in talks with many more, amid an expected surge in investigations and litigation over the government's coronavirus relief efforts, the firm said.

Crowell's new partners, who joined in the last week, are Preston Pugh, a former federal prosecutor who was at Miller & Chevalier, and Michael Shaheen, most recently a Department of Justice trial attorney in the commercial litigation branch's fraud section.

Crowell, well known for its government contracts practice, regularly advises on matters tied to the False Claims Act, which imposes liability for defrauding the government. But with the level of government spending over the Paycheck Protection Program and the CARES Act, "there undoubtedly will be" rising FCA investigations and litigation, said Philip Inglima, chairman of Crowell's management board. Already reports are coming in of "widespread potential fraud" from a Small Business Administration government grant program, according to a report last week from the agency's inspector general.