About

Number of years practice: 18

Principal practice areas: Anti-Corruption and International Risk; Government Enforcement/White-collar Criminal Defense

Bar admissions: Massachusetts

Languages spoken: English

A member of Ropes & Gray’s litigation and enforcement practice group, and co-coordinator of the firm’s anti-corruption and international risk department, Jim Dowden’s practice is focused on advising clients ranging from international pharmaceutical and medical device companies to major investment banks and global financial institutions across a wide variety of investigations and enforcement proceedings brought by federal, state and foreign government agencies. He previously spent five years as a federal prosecutor in the economic crimes and public corruption unit at the US Attorney’s office for the District of Massachusetts. Today his practice focuses on white-collar criminal, as well as civil and administrative matters involving the regulation of the commercial banking, securities, life sciences, health care, and pharmaceutical sectors; this includes advising clients on the growing number of fraud, FCPA compliance and other enforcement matters, particularly in Latin America. Of late, he has had increasing involvement in Mexico, including, for example, assisting international private equity clients to establish a standardized due diligence approaches to anti-corruption and international risk issues for numerous transactions; implementing global anti-corruption compliance programs, and advising global companies on investigations. He recently led the initiative to create Ropes & Gray’s anti-corruption Risk Matrix, a web-based econometric tool that allows clients to evaluate and visualize corruption risk throughout their international operations.