Martha Boersch Leaves Senior Position at U.S. Attorney's Office to Join Jones Day in San Francisco

Business Wire, Sept 7, 2004

SAN FRANCISCO -- Top Prosecutor at Department of Justice is Second Major Addition in Past Month to Firm's White-Collar Criminal Defense Practice in California

Martha Boersch, an Assistant U.S. attorney and Chief of the Organized Crime Strike Force in San Francisco, has left the Department of Justice to join Jones Day as a partner and will be resident in the firm's San Francisco office.

Boersch brings more than a decade of federal trial experience to Jones Day, including a recent lengthy trial in which she secured the conviction of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko. During her 12-year career with the government, she tried more than a dozen federal jury trials and argued numerous cases in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. These cases involved a wide range of federal law violations, including securities fraud, mail and wire fraud, money laundering, corruption and organized crime.

Boersch also previously served as Chief of the Securities Fraud Unit and, in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, was the San Francisco Office's anti-terrorism coordinator.

Boersch is the second high-profile attorney to join Jones Day's white-collar criminal defense practice as a partner resident in the San Francisco office within the past 30 days. Last month, the firm announced that John Cline, an experienced litigator who has defended clients such as Oliver North and Wen Ho Lee, was coming on board in the San Francisco office.

Jones Day's rapidly growing presence in the Bay Area now includes 31 attorneys in its San Francisco office, which opened in May 2003, and 20 attorneys in the firm's Menlo Park office that opened in March 2002.

"Thanks to her exceptional career as a U.S. attorney, Martha had many options from which to choose when she decided to enter private practice and we're delighted that she chose to join Jones Day," said Elwood Lui, partner in charge of Jones Day's San Francisco office. "As with the addition of John Cline last month, Martha's significant experience handling corporate criminal investigations and litigation is a real boon to our capabilities in California, which were already significant under the leadership of nationally recognized attorneys Brian Sun and Brian O'Neill in our Los Angeles office."

According to Lui, Boersch is particularly well-versed in international and national issues that arise in white-collar criminal matters, including disputes that involve prominent treaties such as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, Classified Information Procedures Act and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Boersch speaks Russian and has extensive training in Russian culture.

Boersch received her law degree from Boalt Hall at the University of California, Berkeley, where she graduated as a member of the Order of the Coif, and her bachelor of arts degree from the University of Oregon, where she graduated phi beta kappa. Prior to joining the Department of Justice, she was a law clerk for the Hon. James M. Fitzgerald, the Chief Judge of the Federal District Court in Alaska, and an associate in the San Francisco office of Sideman & Bancroft.

Jones Day is an international law firm with 30 locations in centers of business and finance throughout the world. With more than 2,200 lawyers, it ranks among the world's largest law firms. For more information, please go to www.jonesday.com.