About Our Qui Tam Attorneys
For thirty years, Baron & Budd has protected individuals and governmental entities from corporate wrongdoing in a variety of settings. The firm, which exclusively represents plaintiffs, currently has over 50 lawyers in offices in Dallas, Austin, Baton Rouge and Beverly Hills. The firm’s Qui Tam Litigation Section represents whistleblowers who stand up to end corporate fraud against federal and state governments.
Laura Baughman is the managing shareholder of the firm's Qui Tam litigation team as well as the firm's litigation against online travel companies. Laura also has extensive experience with the law firm's toxic tort litigation group and has has handled cases throughout the country involving exposure to mercury, lead, chromium, dioxin, PCBs, TCE and water contaminated with MTBE, benzene and toluene. Currently, Laura is lead counsel for the firm's clients on several major qui tam cases."(Read more in Laura's biography)
Pat O’Connell is well known nationally for his work leading the Texas Attorney General's Civil Medicaid Fraud Section to recover, on behalf of taxpayers, money stolen from Medicaid by hospitals, doctors, pharmaceutical manufacturers and others. Pat used the Texas False Claim Act, known as the Texas Medicaid Fraud Prevention Act, to build a powerful coalition of individual Qui Tam whistleblowers, the counsel representing them and the dedicated attorneys in the Texas Attorney General's office under his leadership. Together, the united forces worked time and again to expose and put a stop to the rampant fraud engaged in by the health care industry. (Read more in Pat’s biography)
Jan Soifer, who has joined Pat in the Qui Tam section, has more than 25 years of trial experience, a focus on federal and state Qui Tam litigation and a history of successfully litigating on behalf of taxpayers, consumers, nonprofit and governmental entities to protect them from the effects of fraud. Jan formerly served as the Texas Attorney General's Chief of the Charitable Trusts Section and Deputy Chief of the Consumer Protection Division. She also served as co-counsel for the whistleblower, Ven-A-Care of the Florida Keys, Inc., in multiple pending lawsuits brought by Ven-A-Care under the federal False Claim Act, Texas Medicaid Fraud Prevention Act and other state statutes. This litigation, known as the “AWP” or drug-pricing litigation, has been joined by the United States and the States of Texas, California and Florida, as well as others, against some of the largest pharmaceutical manufacturers in the country. (Read more in Jan's biography)
Kevin Colquitt joined Baron & Budd with a very personal understanding of whistleblower because he has been one. While in law school, Kevin filed a whistleblower lawsuit under the False Claims Act. He devoted himself to studying Qui Tam law, but he also learned what the law means from the inside in his role as a “relator”—or whistleblower. Kevin's first-hard experience, along with his legal skills, make Kevin a great asset to the firm's clients. (Read more in Kevin’s biography)
