© 2015 The Texas Lawbook.
By Mark Curriden
(Feb. 15) – Former federal prosecutor Bill Mateja left Fish & Richardson last week after nearly a dozen years to join Polsinelli, a Kansas City-based law firm that specializes in representing healthcare clients.
A 1986 graduate of Texas Tech University School of Law, Mateja has been involved in several significant cases, but none are as high-profile as his current representation of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is under indictment for allegations that he violated state securities laws. Mateja is an equity partner at his new firm.
“Polsinelli has the largest stable of healthcare clients in the country,” he said. “This opportunity was too good to pass up.”
Mateja said former Fish partner Steve Fox, a labor and employment lawyer who joined Polsinelli in 2014, is the reason he is making the move.
“Steve gave me a unique window into the Polsinelli firm and I liked what I saw,” he said.
Polsinelli has 750 lawyers in 17 offices across the U.S. The firm opened its Dallas outpost in 2011 with just a handful of lawyers, but has grown to more than 40 attorneys.
“Bill’s career path, between his experience at the DOJ to private practice, is extraordinary,” said Jon Henderson, managing partner of Polsinelli’s Dallas office. “He adds valuable skills and relationships to benefit our clients and colleagues and will positively impact our growing health care practice in Texas and beyond.”
Mateja spent 14 years at the U.S. Department of Justice in various positions. He served as an assistant U.S. Attorney in North Texas and he served as special counsel to then-U.S. attorneys general Larry Thompson and James Comey, who is now the director of the FBI.
For three years, Mateja led the DOJ’s Corporate Fraud Task Force, which oversaw the Enron and Martha Stewart prosecutions.
In 2004, he served as special counsel for the DOJ’s Health Care Fraud unit, which oversaw the federal government’s civil and criminal health care fraud efforts.
While the Paxton case is Mateja’s highest profile, he also represents Austin-based Defense Distributor and its owner, Cody Wilson, in a legal battle that combines First and Second amendment issues with the U.S. State Department.
Wilson, a 27-year-old University of Texas law school dropout, developed a program that developed 3D firearms and then he posted those instructions on the Internet, where it was downloaded more than 100,000 times.
The State Department asked Wilson to remove the instructions, saying it violated the International Traffic in Arms treaty, which is designed to slow the proliferation of military-style weapons around the globe.
Mateja filed a First Amendment challenge in federal court in Austin claiming that the State Department’s actions are illegally limiting Wilson’s right to free speech. The case is pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
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