Kasowitz Benson Torres LLP

Partner

Antitrust Litigation; Commercial Litigation; Employment Practices and Litigation; Plaintiffs' Litigation

Ann M. St. Peter-Griffith’s national practice includes all aspects of complex commercial litigation, including health care, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, False Claims Act, product liability, constitutional, and employment discrimination cases in federal and state trial and appellate courts.

Ann has substantive first chair jury and bench trial experience, having tried a number of cases in federal and state courts. Ann has served as first chair trial counsel representing Liggett Group LLC in several extended multi-week, multi-defendant Engle progeny tobacco product liability jury trials, where she secured complete defense verdicts.

Ann also represents health care clients in civil and criminal matters throughout the United States. She frequently consults clients on significant health care matters including, qui tam, False Claims Act, Medicare fraud, pricing, Stark, Anti-kickback, HIPAA, and HITECH. Ann also lectures on health care and Medicare fraud topics across the nation.

Prior to joining the firm, Ann was an Assistant United States Attorney (“AUSA”) for the Southern District of Florida, where she was responsible for a major multi-district litigation relating to hundreds of millions of dollars of Medicare and Medicaid pharmaceutical pricing fraud. Ann received the United States Attorney’s Team Award for Exceptional Performance in Civil Health Care Fraud for 2008-09, as well as two United States Attorney’s Special Service Awards. In addition, as an AUSA, she represented the United States through jury trials in complex employment discrimination cases. She successfully defended the constitutionality of a federal enforcement statute, and Department of Justice employees against constitutional challenges brought by a notorious drug kingpin.

Ann devotes a significant amount of time to pro bono matters. She was a member of the litigation team that received the Florida Supreme Court’s Voluntary Bar Association Pro Bono Service award for its representation of 34,000 Cuban detainees held at the Guantanamo Naval Base. She has also represented guardians ad litem and served as a guardian ad litem for numerous severely abused and neglected children. Ann defended several clients on a pro bono basis in a complex constitutional and defamation case brought by a convicted child abuser and former church deacon, against the families of his victims and the church they attended.

Ann has engaged in public service to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, serving as a member of the Civil Justice Advisory Committee (CJA). As part of a federal effort mandated by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, the CJA conducted an extensive evaluation of the case flow and operations of all aspects of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

She has been recognized with an AV® Preeminent™ Peer Review Rating—the highest peer review rating—by Martindale-Hubbell.

Florida; Maine; U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida; U.S. District Court, District of Maine

University of Miami School of Law (J.D., cum laude, 1994); Bowdoin College (A.B., magna cum laude, 1989)

Assistant United States Attorney, Southern District of Florida, 2003-2010