Meet Mary Inman, a founding partner of Whistleblower Partners LLC
Meet Mary Inman, a founding partner of Whistleblower Partners LLP, a boutique law firm specializing in the representation of whistleblowers under the various U.S. whistleblower reward programs. Inman grew up in rural Maine, where she quickly developed a keen interest in women’s rights. After graduating cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, Inman served as a law clerk to the Honorable D. Brock Hornby in the District of Maine and the Honorable Norman H. Stahl on the First Circuit Court of Appeals.
After a year as an associate at O’Melveny & Myers LLP, one of Inman’s good friends pointed her to a unique job opportunity that brought Inman into the world of whistleblowers. Phillips & Cohen, a boutique law firm specializing in representing whistleblowers under the False Claims Act, had an opening for an associate in its San Francisco office. Although Inman was not familiar with this type of law, she courageously took a chance and never looked back.
After 17 years at P&C as an associate and later a partner, she joined the whistleblower practice group at Constantine Cannon and helped open its San Francisco office. After two years in San Francisco, Inman seized the opportunity to move to Constantine Cannon’s London office to launch the firm’s international whistleblower practice where she recruited international whistleblowers to provide tips to the increasing array of U.S. whistleblower reward programs. Inman found early success encouraging international whistleblowers to come forward and worked in London for three years from 2017 to 2020.
Over the course of her almost 30-year career, Inman has represented some of the most prominent American whistleblowers, many of whom have become household names, including Tyler Shultz (Theranos), Frances Haugen (Facebook) and Mark MacGann (Uber). The most interesting aspect of her work with whistleblowers is the unique story that follows every case. Whistleblower work also dovetails nicely with Inman’s strong interest in psychology, allowing her to examine what causes a corporation to commit fraud and a whistleblower to choose to speak out against it. She is fascinated by the temerity and courage it takes for her whistleblower clients to speak up against a powerful adversary in the face of incredible personal and professional risk. All of this makes Inman “jump out of bed every morning excited to do my job,” something that most lawyers are probably not fortunate enough to be able to say. Inman is extremely dedicated and passionate about her line of work. Her ongoing goal is to educate corporate leaders on the role whistleblowers play in their organizations as risk management tools and forces for good. And, in times when corporations ignore whistleblowers’ warnings and engage in illegal behavior, to help whistleblowers provide information to regulators and ensure they are accountable.
Q: As your legal practice is so specialized, can you provide insight into how you have attracted clients in the past, and how you plan to do so in the future?
A: This is a topic I'm quite passionate about. In attracting whistleblower clients, success begets success. Prospective clients want to see somebody who has been successful in representing other whistleblowers, particularly in the same substantive area where they are looking to bring their case. Therefore, where possible, we try and broadly publicize our successes.
Successful whistleblowers are magnets for other whistleblowers. Prospective whistleblowers want to hear from other successful whistleblowers and frequently seek their advice on referrals for potential lawyers to hire. Our former whistleblower clients are one of our best referral sources. We are also paired with prospective whistleblower clients via plaintiffs’ side employment lawyers. Whistleblowers are frequently retaliated against by their employers for speaking up. Educating employment lawyers about the existence of the various whistleblower reward programs allows them to spot potential whistleblower reward claims and hopefully send them our way.
I also speak at conferences in the industries where we are seeking to attract whistleblower clients and write for publications in that industry, including trade magazines. Probably the singular success of my career thus far was in identifying what turned out to be an industry-wide fraud while attending a series of industry conferences geared to Medicare Advantage Organizations (MAOs). What started with one successful whistleblower who exposed a practice by MAOs known as risk adjustment fraud has turned into my representation of three other prominent whistleblowers in this space.
My advice for new attorneys is to identify who their target clients will be, figure out the types of conferences they attend, publications they read and meet them where they are.
Q: What do you enjoy most about being a whistleblower attorney?
A: I love that at its core my job is largely that of a matchmaker. I pair well-placed whistleblower insiders with explosive information about wrongdoing with the government agencies and departments charged with deploying that information to hold powerful people and corporations accountable and paying the whistleblowers for that information, much like that of any confidential informant. I also love helping to give voice to my clients’ stories of uncovering and exposing wrongdoing and documenting the fraud in a whistleblower tip or complaint.
For law students considering different parts of the legal profession, I also want to underscore the joys of being a plaintiffs’ lawyer who works on a contingency fee basis. The fact that we do not get paid hourly regardless of outcome like most defense counsel but instead are only paid if we’re successful in helping our clients receive a whistleblower reward is a game changer. It allows us to represent individuals who otherwise would not be able to afford a lawyer and provides them access to justice. From day one, our clients see us as collaborators in a joint venture and appreciate that we have invested our firm’s time and money in the case and believe in its likelihood of success. That’s a great dynamic and good feeling.
Q: How do you deal with safety for yourself and your clients?
A: Research studies show that whistleblowing can exact a large physical and psychological toll on people. For instance, a study of pharmaceutical industry whistleblowers published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that the whistleblowers studied had higher incidences of divorce, anxiety, depression and substance abuse. I try and prepare my clients for the retaliation, gaslighting and other tactics their employers may deploy once they speak up. That way, they know what to expect, we can devise strategies to minimize the impact and create strong support systems around the whistleblower.
Lawyers need to understand what it is like to be a whistleblower. Frequently, the whistleblower is the only one in an organization who is sounding the alarm while everybody else is silent. When the employer inevitably retaliates, the whistleblower’s colleagues and peers distance themselves because they don’t want to suffer the same fate and the whistleblower becomes isolated, oftentimes doubting themselves and questioning why everyone else believes the issue that they are exposing is okay. We seek to connect our clients with organizations with expertise working with whistleblowers who can provide tailored psychosocial support.
In a small subset of our cases, our whistleblower clients can face physical danger. For instance, they may be exposing dangerous individuals known to resort to violence. In those situations, we are typically working with individuals in the Justice Department and law enforcement agencies who are skilled at protecting sources and can help to minimize the risks.
This interview has been written and transcribed by Elly Bycoskie, and Keith Al-Chokhacy, both 3L students at the Widener University Delaware School of Law.