Frederick M. Morgan, Jr.

Rick worked in the Cincinnati U.S. Attorney’s Office during law school, an experience that set the course of his career. After serving for two years as a law clerk for the Hon. David S. Porter (Senior Judge, Southern District of Ohio), he was selected into the highly-competitive Attorney General’s Honors Program, serving as a Trial Attorney in the Civil Division of the United States Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. In that position, Rick routinely appeared in courts throughout the country on behalf of the United States. He returned to Cincinnati in 1990 and has represented whistleblowers continuously since 1996 (and has exclusively represented whistleblowers since Morgan Verkamp was formed in 2005).

As an attorney for whistleblowers, Rick has served as lead or co-lead counsel in more than 50 False Claims Act cases, including matters against Boeing, HCA Healthcare, General Electric, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Dyncorp, and Solvay Pharmaceuticals. His notable achievements include: representing a whistleblower whose information recovered more than $100 million from a prime food vendor for troops in Afghanistan; working closely with the Justice Department in case against The Boeing Company that resulted in the replacement of hundreds of defective Chinook helicopter transmission gears and a $61.5 million settlement; and helping to recoup more than $300 million in unlawful oil royalties. His settlements include resolution of False Claims Act allegations against: a long-term care company for $10 million; Lockheed Martin for $6.5 million; General Dynamics for $13.2 million; and General Electric for $10.5 million. More than 80 opinions have been published in Rick’s cases, and his work has resulted in the return of nearly a billion dollars to the taxpayers.

Rick is an active speaker, author, and advocate on False Claims Act issues. He is co-chair of the planning committee for the American Bar Association’s biennial Civil False Claims Act and Qui Tam Enforcement National Institute and, for several years, co-chaired the Taxpayers Against Fraud Education Fund’s Annual Conference Committee. He has also provided opinion and testimony as an expert on the False Claims Act, including appearing before the Joint Congressional Commission on Wartime Contracting, traveling to Australia to consult with the government on a potential qui tam law for that nation, and participating in False Claims Act seminars at several law schools.

Rick has also drafted amicus curiae briefs in three Supreme Court cases concerning the False Claims Act, including a brief on behalf of Senator Charles Grassley in support of the whistleblowers in Allison Engine Company, Inc. v. U.S. ex rel. Sanders, et al., a 2008 case on appeal from the Sixth Circuit. In 2020, he co-authored the amicus curiae brief submitted on behalf of Taxpayers Against Fraud Education Fund in U.S. ex rel. Rahimi v. Rite Aid Corp. on appeal to the Sixth Circuit.

Rick has served as a mediator in False Claims Act cases and other disputes and, in 2021, completed the 40-hour mediation and dispute resolution course under Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation. He is peer-rated “AV-Preeminent” by Martindale Hubbell and has been selected as an Ohio Superlawyer since 2014, most recently in 2022.