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Seeger Weiss LLP is proud to announce that Shauna Itri, a partner at the firm since 2019, has been recognized as a “Distinguished Leader” by The Legal Intelligencer’s 2020 Professional Excellence Awards. “I’m honored to be placed in a category with lawyers who are icons in the industry,” Itri said.
The award recognizes Itri’s work on several notable cases. In one, medical device company Covidien agreed to pay $13 million to resolve a False Claims Act lawsuit filed by Itri on behalf of her client, a former Covidien employee, who blew the whistle on a kickback scheme designed to defraud Medicare programs. In another False Claims Act lawsuit, genetics testing company Renaissance RX (or RenRX) agreed to pay $42.6 million to resolve six different whistleblower lawsuits that contained allegations of payments to providers in exchange for their ordering RenRX’s genetic tests, inappropriate payments to independent sales representatives which violated the anti-kickback statute, and lack of medical necessity of the genetic testing. Notably, RenRX also consented to a 25-year exclusion from all federal healthcare programs. “It’s pretty significant,” Itri said. “This is always an option CMS [Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services] has in its arsenal but, in my experience, it’s rarely used. That said, it’s effective because exclusion from Medicare [represents] a significant loss of revenue.”
First published in 1843, The Legal Intelligencer is the oldest daily law journal in the country. Their Professional Excellence Awards, given annually since 2014, highlight “the great work and achievements across the full breadth of the Pennsylvania legal community.”
“I’m an avid reader of The Legal Intelligencer,” Itri shared. “I read it pretty much every weekday, and I get a lot of my legal news — both national and in Philadelphia — from them.”
For well over a decade, Itri has been leading litigation teams in complex fraud cases in both state and federal courts. Itri’s nationwide practice has focused on representing plaintiffs in various settings — including securities and consumer class actions; antitrust; and cases involving patient harm. Itri also has extensive experience representing whistleblowers in False Claims Act lawsuits and other whistleblower programs throughout the United States. She received a B.A. and M.A. from Stanford University, where she currently serves as cochair of the Alumni Undergraduate Admissions Volunteer Interview Program in Pennsylvania. Itri was also the 2019–2020 President of the Junior League of Philadelphia and a board member of the Public Interest Law Center.
Seeger Weiss LLP has successfully represented relators in many qui tam proceedings. The firm served as relator counsel in United States ex rel. Alexander, et al. v. Warner Chilcott plc, et al., in which $125 million was recovered in connection with a sprawling healthcare scheme. The firm also was counsel to the whistleblower in People of the State of New York, ex rel. Vijay Tharwani v. Mohanbhai Ramchandani and Mohan’s Custom Tailors, Inc., which resulted in the recovery of $5.5 million in connection with a decade — long tax evasion scheme. With offices in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, Seeger Weiss LLP represents plaintiffs in a variety of practice areas, including qui tam, pharmaceutical injury, securities and investment fraud, consumer protection, environmental and asbestos exposures, personal injury and medical malpractice, product defect, antitrust, and commercial disputes.