Mike’s practice focuses on trying complex civil cases, federal criminal defense, energy and environmental cases, administrative and licensure proceedings, and internal investigations. Mike is mostly known as a trial lawyer, having tried 21 cases since 2012. Mike has tried – and won – cases in multiple state and federal courts on behalf of companies, doctors, business executives, elected officials, the State of West Virginia, and individual plaintiffs. In just the last three years, Mike has successfully tried nine cases. In the healthcare arena, Mike’s representation of a health system wrongly accused of False Claims Act violations has resulted in a multimillion-dollar recovery for his client.

 

Before returning to private practice in 2012, Mike was an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia. As a federal prosecutor, Mike focused on white-collar and public corruption investigations. The grandson of a former coal miner and state mine inspector, Mike was privileged to work on the criminal investigation of the Upper Big Branch coal mining accident in which 29 miners lost their lives. That investigation resulted in a $209 million corporate settlement – the largest resolution of a mining case in history.

 

Previously, Mike served as a law clerk to the Hon. Robert B. King of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and the Hon. Joseph R. Goodwin of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia.

 

A native of Parkersburg, West Virginia, Mike graduated from The Ohio State University and The George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C. Following law school, Mike practiced at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Washington, focusing on labor and employment, white-collar criminal defense, and government contracts litigation.