Mitch and his daughter, Erin, who is a sophomore at UT Austin in the College of Natural Sciences.
Mitch Kreindler, BHP ’84, JD ’87, is the founder of Kreindler & Associates, a Houston law firm representing whistle blowers pursuing the recovery of taxpayer dollars from fraud perpetrated against the government. Mitch practiced law for several high profile firms before starting his own. He serves on the BHP Alumni Advisory Board.
How did your business degree prepare you for law school?
I knew early on that I wanted to go to law school. My BHP degree helped with law school and law in two ways. First, it gave me an understanding of basic business concepts and how business works, which is a lot of the law. It is important to understand all the business components of cases. In law school, there were students who had no business background and felt lost in classes like contracts and corporations. Having a business background helped me feel comfortable with principles that underlie the law. Second, BHP helped me develop a lot of basic skills in terms of analytical thinking that apply throughout life, but especially when practicing law.
Describe what you do.
I represent whistle blowers who are trying to stop companies and individuals from ripping off the government and return money to the federal or state treasury. There are federal and state statutes that create a public-private partnership between the government and private parties. Through that partnership an individual and an attorney can file a lawsuit on behalf of the government, asserting that someone has committed fraud against the government. We work with the government to investigate these allegations with the hope they will join our suit and obtain a recovery. If the government doesn’t join the case, the whistleblower can pursue the case on their own, and we engage in litigation with the bad guys. These are very unique statutes. There are really no other statutes like them.
The statutes provides that the whistleblower will be rewarded for their efforts with a bounty that is a percentage of what the government recovers, historically around 17-18 percent. The lawyers, working on a contingent fee, take a percentage of that percentage. These cases take 3-7 years to resolve. Whistleblowers really have to believe in the mission of what they are doing. In my twenty years of doing this, I only have had one client who came to me saying he was motivated by money. Every other client has been concerned about the public harm, fraud or retaliation for complaining about the fraud.
What is it that you have enjoyed most about practicing law?
I am always representing the underdog who is trying to do what is right against strong, powerful, corporate resources that are doing what is wrong. It is in the public good and it is feel-good work. Most people won’t think of being a lawyer as a helping profession, but it really is because you are helping clients fix a problem, and I like that. Students who are considering law school need to think why they want to be a lawyer. What is it that really is interesting to you? It is important to pursue your passions and interests, but don’t pursue them blindly and close yourself off to other opportunities that present themselves.
Why the decision to start your own firm and focus on whistleblowers?
I had always thought about starting my own thing. My father always said make sure by the time you are 40, you are controlling your own destiny. That was his mantra. When I started doing this whistleblower work, there were a lot of small firms engaged in this area of the law, so it was easy to have my own small shop and was a good fit for me.
Is there any case that really stands out to you?
The cases that stand out most in my mind are the ones where I have been most able to help the client. They might not be the ones where we recovered the most money, but the ones where the clients were really serious about their claims and by filing those claims, we were able to put a company out of business or stop a fraud and obtain a righteous result. The client put themselves on the line in a significant way. They did what was right and because of it, they did something that was for the public good.
It takes a special person to be a whistleblower. We all know the difference between right and wrong, but not everyone will stand up to do what is right. It is a difficult path. They decide they need to do the right thing, not the easy thing. They have a strong moral compass and are willing to do what is right, even though it subjects them to a lot pain. It is a part of our culture that we value loyalty, sometimes more than honesty, so whistleblowers are frequently ostracized and in a lonely place. It amazes me that people want to do this, but thankfully there are people who have a strong moral compass because there is a lot of fraud that would not be stopped without them.
Empowering whistleblowers has become government policy in the last 15 years in a big way as a result of Enron and the mortgage fiasco in the late 2000s. The Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd Frank legislation greatly advanced the cause of the whistleblower. We now have an SEC whistleblower office. They are now recognizing that it’s the people on the inside who know what is going on and who we need to stop the fraud that is occurring. There are now more tools and protections provided for individuals who report their companies.
You were student body president at UT and president for the Business Student Council. Why have you remained involved with campus, particularly the BHP Advisory Board?
Since I was young, I have had a sense of wanting to get involved so I could help get things done. I am interested in policy-related issues and governance types of organization. Nothing gets done unless someone does it, so I wanted to help make things happen. You have to pick your niche. After you get out of college, it is hard to get involved in organizations. Pick what is important to you and where you want to spend your volunteer time, which is why I am still involved in BHP, because it has always been important in my life.
Do you have a favorite memory from your time at UT?
I have a lot of favorite memories and most involve experiences with people. It really does come down to relationships and not just relationships with fellow students. My fondest memories are in the dealings I had with professors, particularly a business law professor and math professor I kept in touch long past graduation, as well as a few key administrators. I sat on the committee that chose Bill Cunningham as dean of the business school, then again on the committee that selected him as president. I joked with him that he owed his success to me since I was the common element in the selection processes, which obviously wasn’t true, but I had a great relationship with him. I keep in touch with many fellow BHP students and have really valued those relationships.
For students interested in law after BHP, what advice would you have for them?
If they stay at UT, they should immerse themselves in the law school as though it was at an entirely different university.