Overview

To defend health care, financial services, and other companies under government investigation, attorney Melissa Jampol uses strategic insights gained from her many years as a federal and New York state prosecutor. A fierce, trial-proven advocate, Melissa prepares clients for complex civil and criminal investigations and litigation in a shifting regulatory environment.

Her clients include a wide range of health care providers: clinical laboratories, pharmacies, nursing homes, drug treatment centers, adult day care providers, telehealth providers, hospital systems, and physicians. Her clients also include numerous other kinds of entities, such as public and private schools, credit unions, tech companies, dietary supplement makers, and retailers. Melissa routinely represents individuals, officers, directors, and boards of directors.

Melissa’s prior immersion in the prosecutorial mindset helps clients anticipate and resolve investigations, inquiries, litigation, and charges. To keep clients out of authorities’ crosshairs, Melissa advises proactively on self-remediation and enhanced compliance protocols and assists clients with managing risk in mergers and acquisitions. Her clients appreciate her empathy and clear communication with judges, juries, experts, corporate leaders, government regulators, and others. Clients also value her ability to resolve tough allegations—health care fraud, False Claims Act (FCA) (including qui tam litigation), financial crimes, and criminal antitrust, among other claims—with decisions of nonintervention, declination of charges, reduced penalties, and no criminal referral. Melissa understands the reputational risk that accompanies even the hint that an individual or a company is under government investigation.

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Sexual assault, sexual harassment, and issues involving children are also part of Melissa’s practice background. Her experience prosecuting sex crimes and violent crimes while at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office supports her handling of internal investigations for clients as well as claims of negligent hiring, retention, and supervision of teachers and employees.

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Focus Areas

Experience

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Results may vary depending on your particular facts and legal circumstances.

  • Served as lead defense trial counsel in a case brought under New York’s Child Victims Act (CVA), where the jury returned a verdict in favor of her client in only the second contested CVA trial in the state.
  • Defends clients undergoing investigation for health care fraud by the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General, and other state and federal governmental authorities.
  • Defends various corporations and individuals in white-collar criminal matters, and performs internal investigations for entities facing potential action by state and federal governments, including the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS), various state attorney general offices, and the National Credit Union Administration, including advising a pharmacy benefit manager in a high-profile investigation conducted by DFS.
  • Regularly counsels clients across industries on federal and state health care fraud and abuse laws, including the Stark Law and the Anti-Kickback Statute, state licensure requirements, enforcement trends, regulatory issues, and voluntary disclosures.
  • Conducts employment investigations into allegations of sexual harassment and sexual assault, as well as whistleblower and retaliation complaints.
  • Defended a highly regulated financial industry client in responding to multiple government-issued criminal and civil subpoenas from various enforcement agencies, and conducted an internal investigation into the highest level of employees and board members relating to fraud against the client. An internal investigation and cooperation with government prosecution led to multiple former employees and affiliates of the client being sentenced to time in prison and owing substantial sums (over $10 million) of restitution to the client and a declination of a criminal investigation into the client.
  • Represented an individual who pled guilty in federal court in New Jersey on two counts of bank fraud. Although the individual was looking at an advisory guidelines sentence of 21-27 months of incarceration, because of Melissa’s advocacy, the client received only five years of probation and eight months of home confinement.
  • Represented a national hospital staffing firm in three FCA investigations involving dozens of merger and acquisition (M&A) transactions and emergency room Medicare coding/billing issues for a health care staffing company, all of which resulted in nonintervention decisions and closure of the investigations.
  • Represented lenders of a bankrupt mobile diagnostic and imaging services company involved in an FCA investigation of that company and was successful in convincing OIG that no corporate integrity agreement was warranted as part of the settlement, enabling the company to emerge from bankruptcy.
  • Represented the same mobile diagnostic and imaging services company in an FCA investigation into Medicare billing/coding of a line of services, which resulted in a favorable settlement for the client without a DOJ press release.
  • Serves as lead counsel for a series of clinical laboratories that performed PGx and CGx testing, whose alleged owner was criminally charged with health care fraud, violations of the Anti-Kickback Statute, and money laundering.
  • Represented a large East Coast academic medical center with respect to an FCA government investigation involving a number of complex billing, medical necessity, and anti-kickback issues stemming from two qui tam One resulted in a nonintervention decision and closure of that investigation, and the other resulted in a favorable settlement for the client.
  • Represents a physician who has pled guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud in federal court in New Jersey for prescribing durable medical equipment in violation of the Anti-Kickback Statute.
  • Represented a religious organization facing allegations of sexual assault of participants by staff members, and oversaw an internal investigation of the same.
  • Defended a hospital client in its response to a subpoena issued by the Criminal Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, including in conducting an internal investigation involving multiple hospital campuses, technology vendors, and their executives, and assisting in overseeing a compliance review of the existing compliance program at the institution.

Recognition

  • Listed in The Best Lawyers in America: Criminal Defense: White Collar (2020 to 2025); Health Care Law (2024, 2025). This award is conferred by Best Lawyers. A description of the selection methodology is available here. No aspect of this advertisement has been approved by the Supreme Court of New Jersey.
  • Selected to Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business: New Jersey—Litigation: White-Collar Crime & Government Investigations, "Leader in Their Field" (2020 to 2024).

Melissa Jampol acts for corporations and individuals facing a wide range of allegations, such as fraud and money laundering. She is also adept at handling internal investigations. According to a source, "Melissa straddles the criminal and civil world incredibly well. She is a terrific attorney who is sharp and astute when faced with the substance of matters." Another source says, "She ensures her clients don't have to see the inside of a courtroom."
— Chambers USA (2023)

This award is conferred by Chambers and Partners. A description of the selection methodology is available here. No aspect of this advertisement has been approved by the Supreme Court of New Jersey.

  • Listed in The Legal 500 United States: Healthcare: Health Insurers; Healthcare: Service Providers (2017). This award is conferred by The Legal 500. A description of the selection methodology is available here. No aspect of this advertisement has been approved by the Supreme Court of New Jersey.
  • Received the New Jersey Women in Law Enforcement's Meritorious Achievement Award (2016). This award is conferred by the New Jersey Women in Law Enforcement. A description of the selection methodology is available here. No aspect of this advertisement has been approved by the Supreme Court of New Jersey.
  • Received the U.S. Department of Justice, Criminal Division, Assistant Attorney General’s Distinguished Service Award (2015).

Credentials

Education

  • Northwestern Pritzker School of Law (J.D., cum laude, 1998)
    • Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology
  • Yale University (B.A., with distinction, 1993)

Bar Admissions

  • New Jersey
  • New York

Court Admissions

  • U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
  • U.S. District Court, District of New Jersey
  • U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Michigan
  • U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York
  • U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York

Professional & Community Involvement

  • American Bar Association: Health Law Section, Criminal Justice Section
  • American Health Lawyers Association
  • City Bar of New York: Criminal Advocacy Committee; Women in the Legal Profession – White Collar Crime Subcommittee
  • Law360 White Collar Editorial Advisory Board (2017 and 2019 to 2022)
  • National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers
  • Women’s White Collar Defense Association (New Jersey and New York)

Media

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