Lucia, Antonia T

Laura Wertheimer is a partner in the firm's Securities Department, and a member of the Securities Litigation and Enforcement Practice Group. She joined the firm in 2003. She frequently counsels issuers, boards of directors, and board committees on disclosure, insider trading and other securities law issues, fiduciary duties and corporate governance, and in connection with confidential internal and governmental investigations and cross-border regulatory proceedings. She has also represented a wide range of clients in federal and state jury trials nationwide, and developed and implemented litigation strategies for clients facing potential exposure to multi-million dollar liabilities in high-profile, complex civil proceedings.

Practice

Ms. Wertheimer has led numerous confidential internal investigations on behalf of corporations involving accounting errors and restatements, claims made by whistleblowers, media organizations, and unions, and inquiries by regulatory and criminal authorities. Recent representative engagements include serving as co-lead counsel in audit committee investigation for Nortel Networks involving multi-billion dollar issues relating to revenue recognition and reserve manipulation; lead counsel in audit committee investigation for Sunterra Corporation involving multi-million dollar issues relating to alleged improper payments to employees and reserve practices; and co-lead counsel to independent committee of directors investigation for Sunrise Senior Living involving multi-million dollar issues relating to revenue recognition, reserve practices, options backdating, insider trading and expense recognition. She has a proven record of handling complex, high stakes public company matters focusing on securities enforcement and disclosure and corporate governance and corporate compliance. She advises large corporations and their constituencies—executive officers, boards, audit committees, other independent committees and investors—on SEC enforcement proceedings, white collar securities investigations, internal investigations, assessing and responding to shareholder derivative litigation and compliance matters. She has also represented corporations and individuals in defense of Securities and Exchange Commission and other governmental investigations. She has counseled law firms, accounting firms and individual professionals on professional responsibility issues and represented individuals in state licensing proceedings and in litigation alleging malpractice.

Professional Activities

Ms. Wertheimer is a frequent speaker at conferences on a variety of topics involving the securities laws, internal investigations, corporate governance, and cross-border and professional responsibility issues for the American Bar Association, the Practising Law Institute, the US Sentencing Commission and other organizations. She has written numerous articles for publication on issues related to enforcement of the securities laws.

She has served on the D.C. Bar Rules of Professional Responsibility Committee and District of Columbia District Court Committee on Grievances. She taught professional responsibility and corporate governance at the Washington College of Law at American University from 2002 through 2005.

Honors and Awards

• Ms. Wertheimer was selected by Washingtonian magazine as one of the top lawyers in Washington DC in the area of securities law, 2007, 2009 and 2011.
• She has been selected by her peers for inclusion in every edition of The Best Lawyers in America since 2002.