© 2013 The Texas Lawbook.
By Mark Curriden
Senior Writer for The Texas Lawbook
(May 28) – Ed Tomko, a prominent former prosecutor and senior official with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, is joining the Dallas office of Dykema.
Tomko and Jason Ross, both former partners at the now-defunct boutique law firm Curran Tomko, will lead Dykema’s white-collar practice in Texas. Dykema now has more than 20 lawyers in Dallas.
“We were too small to do what we needed to do, so we decided to close up shop,” said Tomko. “We needed a broader platform to have a successful white-collar practice.
“Dykema presented us with an amazing opportunity because the firm wants to aggressively grow its Texas operations,” he said.
Tomko, who is widely regarded as one of the deans of the white-collar criminal and securities law practice in Texas, started his career in Pittsburgh as a state prosecutor. He later served as special counsel and deputy chief to the Chief of the Fraud Section at the U.S. Department of Justice.
In Texas, Tomko headed the Houston office of the SEC in 1980s. He has openly called for the SEC to reopen its Houston office, which closed in 1990.
“Healthcare is going to continue to be the hot area of white-collar criminal prosecutions in Texas,” he said. “Federal task forces are fully funded and staffed to pursue hospitals, doctors, nursing homes, home health operations – all aspects of healthcare where there are suspicions of fraud.”
Tomko also predicts that whistleblower provisions in Dodd Frank and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act also will generate lots of cases for the SEC’s Fort Worth Regional Office.
While Tomko has the name and the lengthy resume, legal industry insiders say that Jason Ross, who joins Detroit-based Dykema as a partner, is one of the brightest young white-collar defense attorneys in Texas. He is a 2000 graduate of the University of Texas School of Law and previously worked in the litigation section at Haynes and Boone.
“Everyone knows Ed and his reputation as a great lawyer, but Jason also is truly a great addition for this law firm,” said Darrell Jordan, a senior counsel at Dykema who helped open the firm’s Dallas office. “Convincing Ed and Jason was a no-brainer for us. They are excellent lawyers.”
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