Championing a Whistleblower—and the Integrity of Sport
Through her work with a former Russian official, Avni Patel (’10) has helped expose large-scale doping schemes in Olympic competitions and pass promising new anti-doping legislation.

Photo by Shinnosuke Ando via Unsplash
Championing a Whistleblower—and the Integrity of Sport
Through her work with a former Russian official, Avni Patel (’10) has helped expose large-scale doping schemes in Olympic competitions and pass promising new anti-doping legislation.
In Brief
- Patel represents Grigory Rodchenkov, the former head of Russia’s national anti-doping laboratory who, under pressure from the Russian government, spent years helping Russian athletes get away with taking drugs to boost their performance.
Back in 2016, Avni Patel—then a newly hired associate at Walden Macht & Haran—was working late in her Manhattan office one night when the firm’s managing partner, Jim Walden, stepped through her door. He asked if Patel (’10) had time to help him with an interesting new case, guessing it wouldn’t take more than 15 hours.

Five and a half years and thousands of working hours later, Patel is still involved in the case—one that has made her an unexpected expert in the chemistry of detecting performance-enhancing drugs and led to her being named to the National Law Journal’s list of 2021 “Sports, Gaming & Entertainment Trailblazers,” in recognition of her work in the sports anti-doping sphere.
The client Patel agreed to help represent was Grigory Rodchenkov, who had recently resigned as head of Russia’s national anti-doping laboratory. Months earlier, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the watchdog tasked with keeping performance-enhancing drugs out of international sports, had accused Rodchenkov of covering up positive drug tests for elite Russian athletes. Fearing the Russian government would resort to violence to keep him from exposing the full extent of Russia’s doping schemes, Rodchenkov fled to the United States. (Weeks after he left Russia, two of Rodchenkov’s former associates at the Russian Anti-Doping Agency unexpectedly died.)
Soon after his arrival, Rodchenkov was subpoenaed by the US Department of Justice. He and the American filmmakers sheltering him knew he needed legal counsel, so—after a false start with another attorney—they turned to Walden, a respected specialist in white-collar investigation and defense. In a scene in Icarus, a Netflix documentary that captured Rodchenkov’s whistleblowing experience, the filmmaker assures Rodchenkov that his new lawyer is “the big one—the top of the top of the top.”
Bringing the Truth to Light
Patel describes her first interaction with Rodchenkov as a surreal experience. She accompanied Walden to a meeting in a darkened room, she says, and listened as Rodchenkov relayed a farfetched-sounding tale of corruption that reached all the way to the Kremlin. Over time, Patel came to fully grasp Rodchenkov’s complicated narrative: Under pressure from the highest ranks of the Russian government, he spent years helping Russian athletes get away with taking drugs to boost their performance. In 2014, he participated in an elaborate plot that involved swapping urine samples in the dark of night to cover up doping among Russian athletes at the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Now that he was safely on US soil—and in possession of terabytes of data to corroborate his accusations—he wanted to share what he knew with anti-doping authorities.
“We wanted to get all that information out there,” says Patel, “but the first task was establishing the credibility of our client.”
She and Walden spent weeks with Rodchenkov, interviewing him, reviewing data from his computer hard drives, and helping him figure out how to believably present his story. They supported him through days of interviews with WADA, which eventually recommended the suspension of Russia’s Olympic team based on information Rodchenkov supplied. Russia’s suspension lasts through 2022, but Russian athletes who are cleared of doping have been allowed to compete in Olympic games under the banner of the Russian Olympic Committee, rather than under the Russian flag.
Rodchenkov’s revelations set off a flurry of investigations at sports federations around the world ahead of the 2018 Winter Olympics—and new investigations continue to arise as implicated athletes request participation in international competitions. These investigations usually require Rodchenkov’s involvement, and Patel, now a partner at Walden Macht & Haran, remains his primary legal support in preparing testimony, affidavits, and witness statements. Some federations help cover legal costs for key witnesses, but most of Patel’s work with Rodchenkov is pro bono.
“We’ve developed a relationship with the client and very much care about him,” she says, “but also really care about the story and want to make sure this is seen through.”
A New Law to Combat Doping
Working with Rodchenkov made clear to Walden and Patel that athletic doping involves far more than a few dishonest athletes. Doctors and trainers supply drugs, government officials oversee doping systems, regulators accept bribes—and their actions affect an industry that generates billions of dollars in broadcasting licenses and corporate sponsorships. The attorneys also concluded that the regulatory bodies overseeing sporting competitions don’t have the power to curb this level of corruption.
“If someone violates the WADA code, they’re not going to jail,” says Patel. “They’re suspended from future Olympics.” While that might deter an individual athlete who wants to compete, she says, it’s not enough to stop high-level politicians from orchestrating doping schemes that benefit their countries.
Walden saw an opportunity for a long-arm statute that would give US law enforcement the power to prosecute international doping fraud. Working with members of Congress and fair-sport organizations, he drafted the first iteration of the Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act (RADA). Patel helped with subsequent revisions, and the act became law in December 2020.
Federal prosecutors announced their first indictment under the new law in January, accusing a Texas man of providing performance-enhancing drugs to two athletes.
Patel says the indictment is gratifying. “There’s always a fear” she says, “that you’re going to help pass a law that ends up sitting in the books for decades, getting dusty.” She’s pleased that the FBI has dedicated considerable resources to enforcing RADA, developing a specific unit to oversee sports-integrity investigations.
“The fact that they are prosecuting somebody who is providing the substances to an athlete is very exciting to me,” she adds, “because it’s a sign that law enforcement recognizes what a widespread system this is.”
Patel, who began her career as an assistant district attorney in the Bronx DA’s Office, enjoys working on complicated investigations. The Rodchenkov case is a perfect example, she says, of a complex investigation that requires attention to myriad legal issues and the interplay among them. It’s also an example of a case where it pays to take the time to truly understand a client’s needs and goals.
“The more complex and high stakes the matter,” she says, “the more important building and maintaining relationships with the client and key players becomes—regardless of whether the client is an individual or a corporation.”