Laura Carwile Recognized as 2023 Law360 Rising Star

RJLF trial attorney Laura Carwile was recognized among Law360’s 2023 Rising Stars in white collar litigation. As one of only five lawyers recognized in the white collar category, the honor features attorneys under 40 whose legal accomplishments belie their age.

Laura is a seasoned trial attorney with nearly a decade of experience, who focuses on criminal defense and complex commercial litigation as well as intellectual property disputes. From public service to private practice, Laura has already first-chaired over 30 jury trials to verdict and handled thousands of in-court hearings in her career. Notably, Laura was part of the winning trial team to secure a complete defense verdict in an ultra-rare price-fixing trial against the Department of Justice (DOJ). The case stemmed from a high-profile grand jury indictment by the DOJ that charged 10 executives with criminal violations of the Sherman Act, alleging a price-fixing scheme in the $28 billion-per-year broiler chicken industry.

Law360’s Rising Stars series received more than 1,300 submissions, resulting in a select list of Rising Stars who hail from 94 law firms and span 38 practice areas. Winners were selected based on their career accomplishments in their respective disciplines. Read the full list of honorees here.

Law360 Interview with Laura Carwile

Her biggest case:

Carwile said the chicken industry price-fixing case, which spanned nearly three years, was the biggest of her career. The fact that it went to trial three times — with two mistrials and a clean acquittal on the third trial — was "extremely rare," Carwile said.

"I worked with a group of 40 to 50 white collar defense lawyers, none of whom had had that experience before," Carwile said of the case. "And we basically lived in Denver for a year and tried the case three separate times, finally resulting in an acquittal across the board for all of our clients, which was just so gratifying and so vindicating for our clients and for us."

The Justice Department claimed executives from the country's largest poultry producers, including Pilgrim's Pride, had conspired to rig bids for chicken sold in restaurants and grocery stores. Carwile represented Pilgrim's Pride sales executive Roger Austin, who had been charged with unlawful restraint of interstate trade and commerce.

Austin had worked in the chicken industry his whole professional life, "dedicated his career" to Pilgrim's Pride, and had retired by the time he was charged in relation to the alleged scheme, according to Carwile. Austin maintained his innocence from the case's inception, and Carwile said there was "never a discussion" about pleading out of the case or making a deal with the government. Discovery involved sifting through more than 16 million documents and taking hundreds of witness interviews, Carwile said.

Her proudest moments as an attorney:

Carwile also cited her role in the chicken industry case as the proudest moment of her legal career, saying she was one of the attorneys who cross-examined some of the government's main witnesses.

Another moment of pride for Carwile was her pro bono defense of Jordan Shreeve, who she said was falsely accused of murdering his 2-year-old stepdaughter in 2018 in Arkansas. The case went to trial in 2021, and Carwile joined the defense team with her brother, Chris Carwile, and law partner Chad L. Atwell — both of The Atwell Law Firm — to secure what Laura Carwile described as a fast acquittal because Shreeve was "so obviously innocent."

"He was looking at spending his life in prison for something he hadn't done, and I'm really proud of my work on that case making sure there wasn't an injustice done," she said.

What brought her to white collar work:

Carwile spent six years as a prosecutor in San Francisco after graduating from Harvard Law School, at which time she decided to transition away from the role. Still having a "passion for the criminal justice system," she joined Reichman Jorgensen around the same time as seasoned white collar attorney Michael Feldberg joined the firm as a partner, she said.

Feldberg reached out to Carwile as she was joining the firm, said she was one of the few associates who had experience in criminal cases, and asked if she wanted to join the team working on the chicken case defense.

"I jumped at the chance, of course. I was so interested in being able to transition my skills as a trial attorney and as a prosecutor into working on this white collar case," Carwile said. "In doing so, I learned so much about the white collar space and I realized that my talents and my abilities could be used in this realm."

Carwile found the practice area interesting in an intellectual way, and said that between the evidentiary issues, the legal questions and the human aspect, it "really combined everything I want to do as a lawyer into one realm."

How she sees white collar changing over the next decade:

Carwile believes the white collar area will trend toward fighting allegations more often over the next 10 years. She remarked that in some ways, trial defense is becoming "a little bit of a lost art." But recent history has shown that "when you do hold the government to its burden, when you do stand up and fight a case for which you have a righteous defense," the outcome can be better than simply settling or ending the case quickly, she said.

"The way the system is set up can be very unfair for people that are accused of crimes," Carwile said. "But the jury system is the best one I can think of, and I think people should use it more. I think that in a lot of cases there is an opportunity to prove that the government has overstepped."