About Attorney Joel Hesch
Mr. Hesch's Department of Justice experience translates into over 25,000 hours directly analyzing and pursuing alleged fraud against 20 different federal agencies. Mr. Hesch personally worked on fraud cases resulting in over a billion dollars ($1,000,000,000.00) in judgments and recoveries, and which paid a quarter of a billion dollars in rewards to citizens.
Mr. Hesch understands the DOJ reward program very well. At the time Mr. Hesch was hired by DOJ in the Civil Fraud Section in Washington, D.C., which is the office overseeing the national whistleblower reward program, the government had paid out just $10 million in rewards. By the time he left, DOJ had paid out nearly $2 billion in rewards to citizens.
When the then largest whistleblower case in history was being pursued, the Director of the Civil Fraud Section turned to Mr. Hesch to join a team of select DOJ attorneys. They recovered a staggering $641 million from one company. For his effort, Mr. Hesch received a Special Commendation Award for outstanding service. During his career, Mr. Hesch also received a Meritorious Award and was twice bestowed the Special Achievement Award for sustained and superior performance of duty in combating fraud. In addition, NASA gave Mr. Hesch an accomodation for combatting fraud against the Space Shuttle Program. Mr. Hesch was also selected to be part of the national "Pharmaceutical Fraud Team" at DOJ. While at DOJ, he was also appointed to provide testimony on behalf of DOJ in a court proceeding as to the meaning and application of the False Claims Act's "Public Disclosure Bar" and "Original Source Exception."
The Director of the Civil Frauds Section made these statements in Mr. Hesch's DOJ work appraisals:
As has been true for many years, Mr. Hesch continues to show dedication to the office's mission of combating fraud and to working selflessly on whatever cases can best utilize his talents. We recognize and appreciate his fine efforts. . . . Mr. Hesch is a delightful colleague and has the ability to work well on a team as well as independently. . . . Joel has significantly exceeded expectations.
Mr. Hesch left a rewarding 15 year career with DOJ to become a law school professor, and he now represents whistleblowers who file for rewards for reporting fraud.
In 2008, he filed a legal brief before the United States Supreme Court supporting the claims of a whistleblower. Click here to read that brief. In 2007, he published a scholarly law review article regarding the DOJ reward program, which was cited five times in a brief to the United States Supreme Court click here to read his article.