After Enron, Arthur Andersen and the passage of Sarbanes-Oxley, in-house lawyers quickly realized they were more than fair game for civil and criminal actions for alleged corporate misdeeds. In November, the Justice Department filed an indictment that could mark a new direction in their focus on corporate counsel, and it’s a direction that should have lawyers reassessing how they handle government investigations.
The Nov. 9, 2010, indictment shows that Lauren Stevens faced a not unfamiliar scenario for an in-house lawyer. The FDA had launched an investigation into possible off-label marketing at the pharmaceutical company where she was vice president and associate general counsel, and Stevens was the point person. Then she became a target herself.
