Adding depth to its white-collar practice on both the East Coast and West Coast, Duane Morris announced the hire of two former assistant U.S. attorneys on Monday.

Eric A. Boden, who served as an assistant U.S. attorney in both New Jersey and Pennsylvania over the past decade and most recently was appointed attorney-in-charge of the Trenton, New Jersey, branch office of the U.S. Attorney's Office, will be joining the firm's trial group in New York. Garth Hire, who worked as a federal prosecutor since 2021 in the northern and central districts of California and served as chief of the Oakland U.S. Attorney's Office, will be joining the firm's San Francisco office.

The moves come amid a fair amount of turnover in the Department of Justice. As appointees of former President Joseph Biden resign to make room for current President Donald Trump's appointees, with some of those resignations coming in protest of decisions made under the new administration, a significant number of career prosecutors are also leaving the public sector. However, both Boden and Hire indicated that their moves have been in the works for around a year.

"Over the last year, I was looking to join a firm like Duane Morris, and it quickly became clear that Duane Morris was the right match for me," Boden said in an interview. "I'm hoping to bring all of my expertise and background into what I can do to help the white-collar practice at the firm." Hire added, "This was really an unparalleled opportunity to operate across all of the firm's California offices in the white-collar space."

According to Duane Morris white-collar co-chairs Mary P. Hansen and William M. McSwain, himself a former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, now is the perfect time to expand the firm's white-collar investigations presence given the uncertainty under the new presidential administration.

"Clients are feeling like they really want to talk to people who know what's going on, who can see around corners, predict what's going to happen, and help them do the things they need to do to strengthen their business," McSwain said, predicting that despite a focus on immigration and the pausing of operations at the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, enforcement actions will increase under the Trump administration.

"I expect in the next year we're going to see U.S. attorneys appointed over the year who want to make their mark, who will come in and make their offices more productive," McSwain explained. "We're ready for that with the depth of our bench and geographic coverage."

Hansen agreed, expecting to see more action under the Securities and Exchange Commission and describing a shift from "gotcha-type actions" to more big fraud investigations.

"The SEC isn't going to become a sleepy regulatory agency that doesn't fulfill its mission of protecting the financial markets," she said.

Geographically, McSwain pointed to New York and California as two key markets for the white-collar practice's expansion; Boden's connections to New Jersey and Philadelphia are also a bonus, given the number of health care and pharmaceutical companies operating in the region as well as the insular nature of the New Jersey bar.

"With Garth, California traditionally has a lot of activity, and he also has a lot of technical knowledge and background in northern California, which will serve our tech-based clients particularly well," McSwain said.

"We knew Eric from my time working with him [in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania]," he continued. "He has deep, meaningful relationships with the white-collar bar in New Jersey, which is a bar that is pretty tight knit."

McSwain added that both New York and Northern California are key markets for the firm. And looking ahead, he indicated that the firm was looking to expand its white-collar presence in other markets, including Chicago and Miami, although the firm plans to remain opportunistic when bringing on talent.

"Chicago is a great market and an important market to our firm," McSwain said. "There's a lot of economic activity and enforcement activity, in Florida particularly, and we have a vibrant Miami office. That's an area where we see growth in the firm and where our clients need us."

Reprinted with permission from The Legal Intelligencer, © ALM Media Properties LLC. All rights reserved.