Michelle Nasser joined Dowd Bennett after over 13 years as a federal prosecutor in Chicago, where she gained extensive first chair trial and investigation experience. Michelle focuses her practice on white collar defense and internal and government investigations, including defense of healthcare and government contract fraud, public corruption, accounting and securities fraud, FCPA, and mail and wire fraud. Michelle is an experienced healthcare litigation and compliance attorney, with an emphasis in False Claims Act litigation—she regularly represents a large healthcare corporation in responding to federal CIDs issued across the country, leads a variety of internal investigations related to government inquiries of healthcare companies, and defends companies and medical providers in FCA litigation. Michelle also routinely represents corporations and individuals in complex civil commercial litigation and employment matters, including both the defense and prosecution of claims involving breach of contract, fraud, unjust enrichment, and employment discrimination.
As a lead trial counsel, Michelle has tried to verdict 14 federal district court jury trials and one federal district court bench trial. In addition, she was a lead trial counsel in a state court matter that was dismissed by opposing counsel after four days of jury selection. She has questioned scores of witnesses in court and has taken and defended depositions of both fact and expert witnesses. She also has argued countless contested hearings involving constitutional, statutory, evidentiary and sentencing issues.
As appellate counsel, Michelle has briefed and personally argued 11 appeals in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
Before joining Dowd Bennett, Michelle served for more than 13 years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Major Case, Financial Crimes, General Crimes, and Violent Crimes sections of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago. She led and supervised government investigations, prosecutions, trials and appeals involving various criminal offenses, ranging from complex financial, tax and healthcare fraud, to embezzlement, identity theft, money laundering, cybercrime, racketeering, violent crime, civil rights violations, extortion, human trafficking and public corruption. From 2010-2016, in addition to her other responsibilities at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Michelle led the office’s Human Trafficking Program, which entailed supervision of all federal human trafficking investigations and cases in the Northern District of Illinois.
Before joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Michelle was an associate at a large law firm in Chicago, and a law clerk for a federal judge in Chicago.