About AEL

Our Mission

AEL is different. We are proudly a boutique law firm with a specialized and focused practice. It is our mission to provide truly excellent, partner-driven legal services in a direct and cost-effective manner. In every engagement, we provide expert, responsive, practical, no-nonsense, and creative legal representation that gets results. We will answer your most difficult questions, provide counsel you can trust, and we will never stop advocating for your best interests.

What We Do

AEL is a boutique law firm that specializes in complex white-collar criminal and civil fraud investigations and prosecutions, civil False Claims Act and qui tam cases, and healthcare regulatory advising and transactions. Unlike many small boutique law firms, our specialization is not a limitation. AEL has experience handling almost every type of complex fraud and white-collar case on both the criminal and civil sides; cases involving allegations of healthcare fraud, kickback violations, corruption and bribery, wire fraud, bank fraud, securities fraud, computer fraud and hacking, tax fraud and money laundering. We defend and prosecute civil False Claims Act and whistleblower / qui tam actions. We conduct sensitive internal investigations on behalf of corporations and boards, represent c-suite executives, and routinely counsel clients on civil, criminal, regulatory, compliance and transactional matters, especially within the healthcare industry. As former federal prosecutors who handled significant headline-making criminal and civil cases, we are particularly suited to high-stakes criminal and civil matters and are comfortable fighting for our clients both in and out of the courtroom. And as a small law firm with flexible pricing and fee structures, we represent clients of all sizes, from large publicly-traded companies to individuals beset by government investigations and criminal prosecutions. We work cases opposite U.S. Attorney’s Offices all over the country, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC), state Attorneys General, and private insurance companies. And we treat our clients like family: with respect, responsiveness, dignity, honesty and compassion.

Who We Are

All of AEL’s partners are former federal prosecutors with unique backgrounds and expertise. We have worked in all three of the region’s top U.S. Attorney’s Offices – the Eastern District of New York, the Southern District of New York, and the District of New Jersey – providing broad reach well beyond our small size. As prosecutors, AEL’s partners served in both the Criminal and Civil Divisions of their respective U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, bringing into private practice unrivaled expertise in parallel matters involving criminal, civil and administrative exposure. AEL has experience as outside counsel, government attorneys, and in-house lawyers, drawing upon an unmatched breadth of experience in every engagement. And we don’t just specialize in government enforcement work and investigations; we are trusted and thorough regulatory and transactional advisors and zealous commercial litigators that help steer our clients out of trouble before it arises.

Real Results

Our unique and refreshing approach to legal representation and our comfort in and knowledge of both the criminal and civil worlds have led to a string of incredible real-world successes, including outright dismissals of charged cases, civil-only resolutions, and non-prosecution and deferred prosecution agreements. And we have earned deserved praise. Chambers USA has ranked us alongside some of the nation’s largest and most prestigious law firms. In 2023, AEL was the only top-ranked boutique in the Healthcare category with less than 80 lawyers and only one of two law firms with less than 200 lawyers, making AEL a true “unicorn” within its areas of expertise. Chambers noted AEL’s “meteoric rise” and our team has been described as having “terrific experience and a real understanding of how the government works.” AEL is made up of “lawyers’ lawyers” with a “very strong, smart, and strategic” approach. Our clients have described us as “an outstanding boutique with deeply knowledgeable attorneys” and “an amazing boutique specialty firm” that is “very responsive, aggressive but diplomatic and overall, extremely effective.”