Alicia Villarreal

Partner

Alicia Villarreal is a partner in Morgan Lewis's Litigation Practice. Ms. Villarreal handles internal corporate investigations and the development and assessment of compliance programs for private and publicly traded companies across a wide range of sectors, including technology, government contracting, banking and finance, retail, and food services, among others. She also represents clients in civil and criminal law enforcement matters before the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the World Bank, and various other federal and state agencies.

In-house counsel, boards of directors, and audit committees retain Ms. Villarreal for representation in government investigations and advice on state and federal statutes targeting corporate misconduct. Recent representations include matters involving the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), false claims in the government procurement process, healthcare fraud, and securities fraud. She also conducts evaluations of existing corporate practices and counsels clients on prevention of breaches of business ethics or law. Ms. Villarreal's trial experience includes serving as lead counsel in 18 federal jury trials and two federal bench trials, most of which lasted several weeks or months.

Prior to joining Morgan Lewis, Ms. Villarreal served as an assistant U.S. attorney in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California for 14 years, where she investigated and prosecuted federal criminal cases involving public corruption, government procurement fraud, corporate fraud, bank fraud, tax fraud, healthcare fraud, and breaches of national security and espionage. Ms. Villarreal also handled parallel proceedings with the Civil Division of the U.S. Attorney's Office and the SEC, as well as numerous appeals and oral arguments before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

From 2001 to 2004, as deputy chief of the Public Corruption & Government Fraud Section, Ms. Villarreal supervised and trained federal prosecutors on grand jury investigations, plea negotiations, and complex fraud trials. Later, she was elevated to the position of senior litigation counsel, a direct report to the chief of the Criminal Division, and was responsible for handling some of the office's most sensitive and complex matters.

Ms. Villarreal received her J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law in 1989, her M.P.A. from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin in 1989, and her B.S.W. from the University of Texas at Austin in 1985.

Dedicated to community service, Ms. Villarreal is the founding president of the Mexican American Bar Foundation (MABF), a nonprofit charitable organization she established in 1991 to increase diversity in the legal profession. MABF has awarded more than $500,000 in scholarships to more than 150 law students of Latino heritage in Los Angeles. Ms. Villarreal also serves on the board of the Constitutional Rights Foundation, a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to teaching junior high and high school students about our Constitution and the importance of civic participation. She also frequently participates on panels before minority and women's bar associations and legal conferences on topics ranging from trial practice and corporate compliance to diversity.

Ms. Villarreal is admitted to practice in California.