WASHINGTON, DC, June 11, 2026 — Five Phillips & Cohen partners — Mary Louise Cohen, Erika Kelton, Peter Chatfield, Colette Matzzie, and Sean McKessy – have been selected to Super Lawyers 2026 list for Washington, DC, for their work representing whistleblowers and other contributions to the legal field.
Super Lawyers bases its lists of exceptional attorneys on peer nominations, independent research, and peer evaluations. Only 5 percent of lawyers in Washington, DC are selected for the distinction. Phillips & Cohen attorneys are repeat honorees, selected to Super Lawyers’ lists every year since 2019.
- Mary Louise Cohen, a founding partner of Phillips & Cohen, was instrumental in building the modern qui tam practice. Her work representing whistleblowers has earned her the title “the queen of qui tam” as well as the Lifetime Achievement Award from Taxpayers against Fraud Education Fund.
- Erika Kelton, an internationally recognized whistleblower attorney, has won record-setting cases brought under the False Claims Act and under the whistleblower programs of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Her cases have yielded a $3 billion healthcare fraud settlement by GlaxoSmithKline and earned whistleblower clients a combined $40 million award from the SEC, one of the largest SEC awards to date. Kelton has won the most awards for her clients under the SEC and CFTC whistleblower programs for exposing financial frauds.
- Peter Chatfield (retired) has represented whistleblowers in significant qui tam lawsuits taking on major healthcare companies. His whistleblower cases have been important pieces of an $881 million settlement by HCA, a $425 million settlement by Cephalon and a $118.7 million by Adventist Health Systems.
- Colette Matzzie’s groundbreaking case against electronic health records vendor eClinicalWorks is an important industry first. It yielded a $155 million settlement and was prominently featured in the CBS series “Whistleblower.” Ms. Matzzie regularly represents whistleblowers in healthcare fraud, defense contractor fraud and other government procurement fraud cases.
- Sean X. McKessy founding former Chief of the SEC’s Office of the Whistleblower. He is considered one of the top authorities on corporate and securities whistleblower law and represents whistleblowers before the SEC and CFTC. In 2022, McKessy secured a $20 million award for his client from the SEC, and in 2023, McKessy helped secure a $9 million reward for an SEC whistleblower client.
If you are aware of fraud against the government or corporate wrongdoing that violates securities or commodities laws and would like to discuss your case with an experienced whistleblower lawyer, contact Phillips & Cohen for a free, confidential review.
ABOUT PHILLIPS & COHEN
Phillips & Cohen is the most successful law firm representing whistleblowers, with recoveries from cases totaling over $13 billion. Phillips & Cohen’s roster includes former federal prosecutors, the first head of the SEC Office of the Whistleblower, the former head of the CFTC Whistleblower Program, the attorney with the most awards under the SEC and CFTC whistleblower programs, the author of a leading treatise on the False Claims Act, and attorneys with decades of experience representing whistleblowers. Contact us.