Former DOJ Deputy Assistant AG Molly Boast Joins WilmerHale

NEW YORK, Oct. 19, 2011 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- WilmerHale is pleased to announce that former Department of Justice Deputy Assistant Attorney General Molly Boast has joined the firm's New York office as a partner in the Antitrust and Competition Practice. Boast joins the firm with more than 30 years of litigation experience in the public and private sector, including leadership positions at the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and in private practice. Boast will be an integral member of the firm's New York office and its global Antitrust and Competition Practice, and will lead high-profile antitrust regulatory and litigation matters for the firm's clients.

Boast served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the DOJ's Antitrust Division from May 2009 to February 2011. As the senior official responsible for civil enforcement, she oversaw all merger and conduct investigations, leading to several significant merger and civil non-merger resolutions, including the NBC/Comcast and Oracle/Sun Microsystems ventures. She managed 150 legal professionals in the Antitrust Division and was one of three division authors of the 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines.

From 1999-2001, Boast served first as Senior Deputy Director and then as Director of the Bureau of Competition at the FTC. During the "merger wave" of those years, she was responsible for many significant competition investigations and enforcement actions and served as the bureau's Capitol Hill spokesperson on energy and pharmaceutical industry matters.

Michelle Miller and Thomas Mueller, co-chairs of WilmerHale's Antitrust and Competition Practice, expect Boast "to bring a depth of experience from her years of government service and private practice that will be of tremendous benefit to the firm's clients."

"Molly Boast is one of the top antitrust litigators in the field," said William Perlstein, co-managing partner at the firm. "Her extensive experience at the senior levels of two government agencies and in leading complex litigation matters is a unique combination that will serve not only our antitrust and competition clients, but also our entire firm."

Boast is well known in the New York litigation community and was previously a partner at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, and before that at LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae LLP. She has handled major antitrust litigation and governmental investigation matters, including a seminal antitrust case before the US Supreme Court. At Debevoise, Boast was the chair of the antitrust group, and at LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae, she chaired the litigation department.

WilmerHale has one of the leading antitrust and competition practices in the United States and Europe. With decades of experience and more than 70 competition lawyers in the US, Europe and China, the firm has secured antitrust clearance for hundreds of complex mergers and joint ventures, helped clients avoid fines and prison terms in many cartel investigations, and won numerous victories for clients in private and government litigation. The practice is consistently ranked in the top tiers of major legal directories such as Chambers USA, Chambers Global, Legal 500, Global Competition Review and PLC Which Lawyer. In 2010, Law360 selected WilmerHale as one of five "Competition Groups of the Year," marking the second year in a row the practice has received this recognition.

Boast has served on the governing bodies of the litigation and antitrust sections of the American Bar Association and the New York State Bar Association; she was also the first woman to chair the federal courts committees of both the Federal Bar Council and the New York City Bar Association. Boast received her JD from Columbia University School of Law, where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and received the Jane Marks Murphy Prize for public interest contributions. She received her MS from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and her BA from the College of William and Mary.

About Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP

WilmerHale provides legal representation across a comprehensive range of practice areas that are critical to the success of its clients. The law firm's leading intellectual property, litigation/controversy, regulatory and government affairs, securities, and corporate and transactional groups participate in some of the highest-profile legal and policy matters. With a staunch commitment to public service, the firm is renowned as a leader in pro bono representation. WilmerHale is 1,000 lawyers strong with offices in 12 cities in the United States, Europe and Asia. For more information, please visit www.wilmerhale.com.

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