Eric H. Jaso

Eric H. Jaso, a former federal prosecutor and official of the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education, draws on his extensive previous experience in government and private practice in representing whistleblowers who report fraud against the government. Eric has participated in cases that have recovered billions of dollars of taxpayer money to the federal and state governments. Eric files lawsuits under the federal False Claims Act (“qui tam” cases), and brings claims under the Securities and Exchange Commission, Internal Revenue Service, and state and local whistleblower provisions. Eric also handles white collar criminal matters and appeals, as well as a variety of complex litigation.

Prior to joining Seeger Weiss LLP, Eric was a counsel at Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, and subsequently a partner at its “spinoff” firm of Stone & Magnanini LLP, where he handled numerous whistleblower cases as well as complex commercial and criminal matters. His work has included successful settlements in qui tam cases against GlaxoSmithKline PLC ($3 billion), McKesson Corp. ($190 million) and Forest Labs ($313 million). Eric successfully appealed a federal criminal conviction in United States v. Curley, 639 F.3d 50 (2d Cir. 2011) and the defendant went on to win acquittal at his retrial. Eric represented 15 proposed amici curiae in Abbott v. Burke, a controversial school funding case before the New Jersey Supreme Court. 

From 2003 to 2008, Eric worked as an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey within the U.S. Department of Justice, serving in the Securities & Health Care Fraud Unit as well as the Appeals Division. Among Eric’s most notable cases were U.S. v. Cocchiola & Venechanos, a securities and bank fraud jury trial in which both defendants (the CEO and CFO of a publicly-traded company) were convicted and U.S. v. Newbury, in which Eric obtained the conviction of a person who had defrauded the 9/11 victim compensation fund. During the first term of President George W. Bush, Eric was appointed Counselor to Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff at the U.S. Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, where he was responsible for policy and legislation, and as a Deputy General Counsel at the U.S. Department of Education, where Eric advised in the areas of postsecondary education and regulatory affairs. During the mid-Nineties, Eric served as an Associate Independent Counsel in the “Whitewater” investigation under Kenneth W. Starr.

Eric was nominated by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and confirmed by the State Senate, as a Public Member of the New Jersey Urban Enterprise Zone Authority, and was appointed by the late Assemblyman Alex DeCroce as a member of the New Jersey Congressional Redistricting Commission. Eric also serves in the leadership of the Hispanic National Bar Association and the Hispanic Bar Association of New Jersey, the New Jersey Lawyers’ Chapter of the Federalist Society, and the John C. Lifland American Inn of Court. He has taught Appellate Advocacy as an Adjunct Professor at Seton Hall University Law School. Eric has appeared as a commentator on legal affairs on television, radio, and in print media.

After graduating Harvard College cum laude with an A.B. in Government, Eric obtained his J.D. from the University of Chicago and clerked for the Hon. Alice M. Batchelder of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.