Robert M. Thomas
Lecturer
Co-Founder and Co-Managing Member of the Whistleblower Law Collaborative LLC, a Boston law firm.
BA, Princeton University
JD, Harvard Law School
Biography
Bob Thomas has been teaching at BU Law as an adjunct since 2011. He has created and taught three different courses during that time: Health Care Fraud and Abuse, Whistleblower Law and Practice, and Contemporary Issues of Constitutional Law. He has also taught Criminal Law to BU’s LLM students. He has consistently received outstanding evaluations from his students, who appreciate the ways in which he blends the practical and the doctrinal and uses his many professional contacts and resources to enliven class discussions. In May 2022 he received the Part-Time Faculty Teaching Award.
Bob is the Co-Founder and Managing Member of the Boston-based Whistleblower Law Collaborative LLC, a law firm of six attorneys representing whistleblowers nationwide in cases involving the False Claims Act, as well as the SEC, IRS, and CFTC whistleblower programs. Bob and his partner Suzanne Durrell have been representing whistleblowers since 2003 and have been involved in some of the largest FCA settlements in history, including AmerisourceBergen ($885 million recovered), Amgen ($762 million recovered), Serono ($704 million recovered), Mylan, Inc. ($465 million recovered) and Mallincrodt ($234 million recovered). Bob and Suzanne were named Whistleblower Lawyers of the Year in 2017 by Taxpayers Against Fraud, in recognition of their cumulative body of work in this field. And their firm, the Whistleblower Law Collaborative LLC, was named a Law360 Health Care Practice Group of the Year for 2022, in recognition of the firm’s having “successfully steered a host of high-stakes whistleblower suits in the health care field.”
Bob is a graduate of Princeton University (1980) and Harvard Law School (1985). After a clerkship with federal district judge in Maryland, Bob started his career at Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C. Three years later he was hired to be an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland, a position he held for eight years (1989-97). As an Assistant U.S. Attorney, Bob worked primarily on white collar criminal matters and was lead trial counsel in dozens of criminal trials. After leaving government service for private practice, he was engaged by the Laborers’ International Union of North America (“LIUNA”) as part of a team of lawyers hired pursuant to a DOJ consent decree that was imposed to eradicate mob influence over the union. Over the next ten years, Bob tried dozens of racketeering cases and labor law arbitrations before the union’s Hearing Officer as part of the union’s internal code of conduct procedures.
In addition to his teaching and law practice, since 2015 Bob has served on the Boards of the ACLU of Massachusetts and the ACLU of Massachusetts Foundation. He is married and has two adult daughters.
- Profile Types
- Faculty, JD Program, Lecturers & Adjunct Professors, and Part-Time Faculty
- Areas of Interest
- Civil Rights, Criminal Law, Healthcare Fraud and Abuse, and Whistleblower Law
Stories from The Record
Activities & Engagements
No upcoming activities or engagements.
Courses
Contemporary Issues of Constitutional Law: LAW JD 955
Having taken the 1L Constitutional Law course (a pre-requisite for this seminar), students taking this course will do a deeper dive into the issues where the Constitution comes alive in our daily lives -- the ways in which citizens in general and lawyers in particular need to understand the role the Constitution plays in political and social debates over free speech, voting rights, reproductive rights and so much more. The course will cover several issues currently on the Supreme Court's docket, and the course topics will intersect with developments in the news on a regular basis. There is no exam. Students will be required to write a paper on an issue of their choice. Grades are determined by the quality of the paper and class participation. UPPER-CLASS WRITING REQUIREMENT: This class may be used to satisfy the requirement either partially or in full. ** A student who fails to attend the initial meeting of a seminar (designated by an (S) in the title), or to obtain permission to be absent from either the instructor or the Registrar, may be administratively dropped from the seminar. Students who are on a wait list for a seminar are required to attend the first seminar meeting to be considered for enrollment.
FALL 2024: LAW JD 955 A1 , Sep 3rd to Dec 5th 2024| Days | Start | End | Credits | Instructors | Bldg | Room |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wed | 4:20 pm | 6:20 pm | 3 | Robert M. Thomas Jr. | LAW | 418 |
WHISTLEBLOWER LAW: LAW JD 919
Whistleblowing has become a frequent topic in the news around law and politics. What exactly is it, and what laws govern it? Who represents whistleblowers, and what is there to know about lawyering in this space? This course will examine federal (and some state) laws that protect and incentivize whistleblowers to provide information and assist in the enforcement of laws prohibiting fraud and misfeasance in both the public and private sectors. It will cover both the substantive law as well as the practical aspects of lawyering in this field. There are two types of whistleblower laws, and the seminar will cover both: 1) laws which protect whistleblowers inside and outside of government from retaliation by their employers for having engaged in protected activity, and 2) laws which provide financial incentives to whistleblowers for reporting fraud against the government, or fraud in the securities and commodities markets. Each student will write a paper based on a whistleblower case and will be encouraged to interview one or more whistleblowers who have gone through the experience and/or whistleblower attorneys who have a substantial practice in this area. Alternatively, students who express a particular interest in an area relevant to the course may get permission to explore that topic in their paper. There is no examination in this course; the grade is based on the paper and the students' participation in the class discussions UPPER-CLASS WRITING REQUIREMENT: A limited number of students may use this class to satisfy the requirement. **A student who fails to attend the initial meeting of a seminar (designated by an (S) in the title), or to obtain permission to be absent from either the instructor or the Registrar, may be administratively dropped from the seminar. Students who are on a wait list for a seminar are required to attend the first seminar meeting to be considered for enrollment.
FALL 2024: LAW JD 919 A1 , Sep 3rd to Dec 5th 2024| Days | Start | End | Credits | Instructors | Bldg | Room |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tue | 4:20 pm | 6:20 pm | 3 | Robert M. Thomas Jr. | LAW | 417 |