About Liles Parker

Liles Parker attorneys have the litigation experience, statutory/regulatory understanding, and counseling skills necessary to effectively analyze and appeal complex Medicare audit cases. A number of our attorneys have served as Federal and State prosecutors and have the skills needed to represents your interests.

Notably, several of our attorneys have held significant positions in the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), including serving as the first and third “National Health Care Fraud Coordinators” for the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys.  There, our attorneys were instrumental in implementing DOJ’s guidance on the use of the False Claims Act (FCA) and litigation FCA cases.  They now represents health care providers accused of FCA violations.

We aggressively work to represent your interests and present your case. We strive to provide quality, innovative representation. Martindale-Hubbell has rated our firm as “AV.” This honor is “limited to only the most distinguished law practices; those that have achieved the AV rating. The ‘A’ signifies the highest level of legal ability, while the ‘V’ denotes ‘very high’ adherence to professional standards of conduct, ethics, reliability, and diligence.”

Meet Our Health Care Attorneys

Robert W. Liles, Esq.
Office: (202) 298-8750
Facsimile: (202) 337-5804
rliles@lilesparker.com

Robert Liles focuses his practice on Medicare audit / overpayment cases, fraud defense matters, internal reviews / investigations, compliance and regulatory matters. Mr. Liles has represented a wide variety of clients in civil and criminal proceedings and complex civil litigation cases. Before entering private practice, Mr. Liles served as Deputy Director for Legal Programs at the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), Executive Office for United States Attorneys (EOUSA). Prior to serving in Washington, D.C., he worked as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of Texas, Houston office, where he primarily handled False Claims Act matters and cases. In 1997, Mr. Liles was detailed to the EOUSA in Washington, D.C. as its first National Health Care Fraud Coordinator. In this capacity, he advised Assistant United States Attorneys around the country on civil and criminal health fraud statutes, schemes, investigative tools, privacy concerns, and compliance issues. Mr. Liles has taught and lectured at more than 80 national conferences and seminars to DOJ prosecutors, investigators, auditors, and industry representatives on a variety of civil and criminal fraud and regulatory issues. He has served as faculty for the Georgetown University / National Institute of Trial Advocacy.   While at DOJ, Mr. Liles received a Director’s Award (Executive Office for United States Attorney’s highest award). Mr. Liles’ management background provides a firm understanding of the real-life operational and regulatory problems faced by corporations.

Michael Cook
Office: (202) 298-8750
Fax: (202) 337-5804
mcook@lilesparker.com

Michael Cook has more than 35 years experience successfully representing a wide variety of health care related clients in regulatory, compliance, reimbursement and business matters.  This experience includes managing the health care practices in the Washington, DC offices of several large national law firms.  Additionally, Mr. Cook began his career representing the Federal regulators of the Medicare and Medicaid programs as an attorney with the Office of General Counsel of the United States Department of Health and Human Services – often on significant matters of the highest profile and sensitivity, and during his tenure at the Department, as a Special United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.  He has extensive experience representing clients before the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and numerous State regulatory agencies. Mr. Cook has lectured extensively to groups on health care related matters, has published extensively on issues of interest to the health care community, currently serves on the Editorial Board of the American Health Lawyers Association Journal of Health and Life Sciences Law, and has served as co-chair of a subgroup of the Health Care Transition Team and as a member of the Long Term Care Work Group for a former Governor of Virginia.  He also has counseled candidates for state office on the health care reform legislation.  Mr. Cook’s biography is listed in Who’s Who in American Law and Who’s Who in America, and he has attained the highest peer review rating in legal ability and ethical standards from Martindale Hubbell.

Paul Weidenfeld
Office: (202) 292-8750
Fax: (202) 337-5804
pweidenfeld@lilesparker.com

Paul Weidenfeld focuses his practice on defending providers and individuals in False Claims Act (or whistleblower) cases, and criminal health care fraud investigations. Prior to joining Liles Parker, Mr. Weidenfeld spent over a decade prosecuting healthcare and procurement fraud cases for the Department of Justice, including two years as the National Health Care Fraud Coordinator for the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, and he was also a partner in a prestigious healthcare firm. In addition to his subject matter expertise in healthcare and procurement fraud, Mr. Weidenfeld is a litigator in every sense of the word.  He has tried more than 50 cases to verdict, made more than 25 appellate arguments, and appeared before virtually every court in this country – including the United States Supreme Court.  Mr. Weidenfeld’s rare combination of subject matter expertise and extensive hands-on litigation experience is the perfect combination for managing the defense in complex fraud investigations.

Jennifer Papapanagiotou
Office: (832) 220-3191
Fax: (832) 220-3307
jpapa@lilesparker.com

Jennifer Papapanagiotou focuses her practice on corporate and regulatory matters for healthcare providers. Before joining Liles Parker,  Ms. Papapanagiotou was in private practice where she assisted hospitals, physicians and physician groups, skilled nursing facilities, home health agencies, independent diagnostic testing facilities, and health insurers, among others, with a variety of transactions, fraud and abuse analyses, and Medicare and Medicaid program questions. In her work, Ms. Papapanagiotou has conducted analyses of proposed and existing business arrangements for compliance with federal and state fraud and abuse laws, drafted a wide variety of agreements, including employment contracts, professional services and medical director agreements, partnership and joint venture agreements, and real property and equipment leases, and responded to day-to-day issues and legal questions faced by healthcare providers. Further, she has addressed numerous Medicare and Medicaid program coverage and reimbursement issues raised by her clients. In addition to her experience in transactional and regulatory matters, Ms. Papapanagiotou has supplied substantive support for healthcare investigations and litigation. Her work has included representing hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, physicians and others being investigated for potential violations of federal and state healthcare laws. She has also served as the healthcare subject matter expert in representation of clients being sued over alleged violations of contractual relationships.

Lester “Les” Johnson
Office: (225) 244-9400
Facsimile: (210) 745-4645
ljohnson@lilesparker.com

Lester W. Johnson, Jr., “Les,” is a partner in the Baton Rouge office of Liles Parker PLLC. Mr. Johnson helps clients navigate the myriad of regulatory, compliance and business issues facing today’s health care providers and practitioners. Core areas of Mr. Johnson’s practice include handling Medicare & Medicaid appeals; Medicare and Medicaid participation and compliance; Stark and Anti-kickback law compliance, state self-referral prohibitions and any other regulatory issues a client may face. He also assists clients with operational and business issues involving hospital/medical staff relations, practitioner credentialing, health care contracting issues, mergers and acquisitions, antitrust hurdles, joint ventures, and practice formation and restructuring. Les is a frequent presenter on regulatory compliance, fraud & abuse, and business issues facing health care providers and practitioners. He was named a Health Care Hero by New Orleans City Business Magazine, and was also recognized by the Gillis Long Poverty Law Center for his work to help open the Lower 9th Ward Health Clinic, a free clinic opened in early 2006 in New Orleans’ flood ravaged Lower 9th Ward neighborhood.

David Parker
Office: (202) 298-8750
Fax: (202) 337-5804
dparker@lilesparker.com

David Parker practices in the business transaction area, handling private debt and equity financings and the purchase and sale of businesses, with an emphasis on health care organizations. He represents buyers and sellers in the purchase or sale of business operations and entities. His equity finance practice includes venture capital and similar early-stage transactions, and many forms of later stage equity capital formation. He also provides advice on general corporate matters. From 1995 until 2006, Mr. Parker was a partner with Dickstein Shapiro LLP in Washington, DC. From 1979 to 1995, Mr. Parker was the general counsel of Allied Capital, a publicly traded Business Development Company headquartered in Washington, DC, principally handling its transaction work, and managing both in-house and outside counsel engaged in regulatory and corporate governance matters.

Richard Pecore
Office: (713) 432-4747
Facsimile: (713) 456-2079
rpecore@lilesparker.com

Richard Pecore is a licensed Texas attorney and has worked on a variety of health care related matters and cases over the years.  He has extensive civil litigation experience and will be representing Firm clients in “big-box” overpayment cases brought by Recovery Audit Contractors (RACs), Zone Program Integrity Contractors (ZPICs) and Program Safeguard Contractors (PSCs).  In recent years, Mr. Pecore has represented virtually hundreds of clients in health care related cases, conducting legal research, handling depositions and representing clients in contentious hearings.

Adam Bird
Office: (202) 298-8750
Facsimile: (202) 337-5804
abird@lilesparker.com

Adam Bird is an associate attorney with Liles Parker, where he focuses his practice principally on health law and regulatory compliance. Mr. Bird represents a wide variety of clients- including skilled nursing facilities, home health agencies, durable medical equipment suppliers, and community mental health centers- in Medicare overpayment audits where the amounts in controversy routinely exceed several million dollars. Mr. Bird also works with providers and suppliers to achieve regulatory compliance by designing and implementing effective compliance plans, conducting mock audits, and performing comprehensive risk assessments and gap analyses.

Before you engage counsel, you should consider asking the following questions:

Has the attorney ever handled large, complex contractor audits before? Some firms will happily take you case, despite the fact that they have little or no experience in this area of health law. Don’t pay for your attorneys to learn how to handle this type of case. While every case is different, an experienced firm will have developed a number of tried and true arguments and defenses — available for  ready use in your case, without having to conduct costly, extensive, basic legal research.

Can the firm provide client references who are willing to speak with you about the quality of work performed on their Medicare statistical extrapolation case?

Who will be working on your case — an inexperienced Associate attorney or one of the partners who has actually fought and won a multitude of Medicare overpayment claims and cases where the damages have been extrapolated by the contractors?

What are credentials of the attorneys and paralegals who will be working on your case? Have they ever worked on the side of the government? One of our attorneys served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for many years, ultimately being selected to serve as the first National Health Care Fraud Coordinator for the Department of Justice, Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys.  In addition to a law degree, he also holds a Master’s in Health Care Administration and has worked in hospital administration. To fully appreciate the challenges faced by health care providers, you need an attorney who understands both the legal constraints and the practical business risks faced by health care providers.

Our attorneys represent health care providers in connection with a full range of health care audits, investigations and prosecutions. As the chart below reflects, providers are now under the scrutiny of a multitude of government agencies and their contractors. Liles Parker represents health care providers in connection with Civil, Criminal and Administrative proceedings. Should you receive notice of an audit or investigation, please feel free to give us a call. There is no charge for an initial evaluation of your audit or case.

In addition to handling large, complex Medicare statistical extrapolation cases, our attorneys have also recently handled a number of other health law matters and cases. We have extensive compliance experience. Our staff has directed the internal audit of corporate operations, policies and procedures, and conducted internal investigations of alleged malfeasance by corporate employees.

Over the years, our attorneys have represented a wide variety of specialty health care providers in the areas of partial hospitalization, E/M claims, oncology, pain management, urology, rehabilitation medicine, ambulance services, cardiology, physical / occupational / speech therapy, and durable medical equipment, in Medicare overpayment, fraud defense and compliance matters.  Our attorneys have extensive experience handling Medicare post-payment audit appeals.  We look forward to answering any questions that you have regarding our services.  Call us for a complimentary initial consultation.  We can reached at: 1 (800) 475-1906.