Ann St. Peter-Griffith

White Collar Crime;  Commercial Litigation; Antitrust Litigation; Employment Practices and Litigation; Plaintiffs' Litigation

Ann M. St. Peter-Griffith has a national practice that focuses on all aspects of complex commercial litigation, including health care, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, False Claims Act, product liability, constitutional, and employment discrimination cases in federal and state trial and appellate courts.  Ann has substantive first chair jury and bench trial experience, having tried a number of cases in federal and state courts.  Ann has served as first chair trial counsel representing Liggett Group in several extended multi-week, multi-defendant Engle progeny tobacco product liability jury trials, where she secured complete defense verdicts.

Ann also represents health care clients in civil and criminal matters throughout the United States.  She frequently consults on significant health care matters including, qui tam, False Claims Act, Medicare fraud, pricing, Stark, Anti-kickback, HIPAA, and HITECH.

Ann also has experience with ERISA litigation defending plans.  On behalf of employers and major insurers, she has litigated numerous cases in U.S. District courts brought by both individual and class plaintiffs challenging various types of ERISA plans.  She has strategized and engaged in extensive dispositive motion practice to successfully defeat a range of assaults on coverage limits and plan management asserted on ERISA administrative records, and thwarted plaintiffs’ attempts to seek discovery outside of ERISA’s statutory limits.

In addition, Ann lectures on health care and Medicare fraud topics.  Prior to joining the firm, Ann was an Assistant United States Attorney (“AUSA”) for the Southern District of Florida, where she was responsible for a major multi-district litigation relating to hundreds of millions of dollars of Medicare and Medicaid pharmaceutical pricing fraud.  Ann received the United States Attorney’s Team Award for Exceptional Performance in Civil Health Care Fraud, as well as two United States Attorney’s Special Service Awards.  In addition, as an AUSA, she represented the United States through jury trials in complex employment discrimination cases.  She successfully defended the constitutionality of a federal enforcement statute, and Department of Justice employees against constitutional challenges brought by a notorious drug kingpin.

Ann devotes a significant amount of time to pro bono matters.  She was a member of the litigation team that received the Florida Supreme Court’s Voluntary Bar Association Pro Bono Service award for its representation of 34,000 Cuban detainees held at the Guantanamo Naval Base.  She has also represented guardians ad litem and served as a guardian ad litem for numerous severely abused and neglected children.

Ann has been recognized by The Legal 500, by Best Lawyers, and with an AV Preeminent Peer Review Rating by Martindale-Hubbell for her legal ability and ethical standards.

University of Miami School of Law (J.D., cum laude, 1994); Bowdoin College (A.B., magna cum laude, 1989)