Bill Nettles

“When people cheat the government, that results in less services and aid for everyone. At the end of the day, whistleblowers just want to right a wrong. And that propels me to want to help them.”

Bill Nettles has a well-deserved reputation as being a highly-skilled advocate you can turn to in the Carolinas if you suspect that your employer may be defrauding the government. He cares deeply about his clients and has a proven track record of helping individuals who want to expose corporate misconduct.¹ He even teaches other attorneys how to handle these types of cases.

Bill believes corporate greed can cripple a society and is outraged when organizations divert government funds intended to help the general public. He understands that when a company falsifies records or makes fraudulent claims when dealing with the U.S. government, it is actually stealing from the government. And that theft makes less available for us all – in services that people depend on, as well as in payments to organizations who are playing by the rules. So, Bill has made it his mission to help the individuals brave enough to come forward with their whistleblower/qui tam claims.

The near-death experience & inmate who started it all

Shortly after college, Bill was involved in a terrible car accident. While in recovery, he felt an overwhelming need to “do something meaningful with my life.” So he enrolled in a program to teach inmates how to read. One day, an inmate came to the session elated with the work his public defender had done on his behalf, and Bill was intrigued. He realized how much good he would be able to do as a public defender and decided to enroll in law school. He attended Widener University Law School in Harrisburg, PA, took back-to-back bar exams within a week in Pennsylvania and South Carolina. He then accepted a job as a Richland County Public Defender in Columbia, SC. After three years, he went into private practice where he focused on civil and criminal trial work.

In 2008, Bill provided legal advice to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, and in 2010, he was selected by President Obama to become the United States Attorney for the District of South Carolina. In this position, Bill identified the opportunity to make a significant impact on whistleblower cases and redirected resources to the false claims division of the office. Bill’s revitalized team cracked down on companies attempting to defraud the government and brought the state from a near bottom ranking to the top four in the country for whistleblower recoveries.¹

Bill first became interested in whistleblower work after his involvement in the well-known “robo-signing” case. It opened his eyes to how he could help whistleblowers speak out against fraudulent and abusive practices, and often simultaneously help the general public – in this case, normal families struggling to stay in their homes. The landmark case involved Bill’s team negotiating a $95 million settlement¹ in 2012 with four of the nation’s largest mortgage servicers – Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup – for allegedly failing to obtain the required mortgage assignments to transfer ownership of loans and pursuing faulty foreclosures by using defective or fraudulent documents. He credits the outcome of this case with allowing some of the victims to remain in their homes longer and protecting future homeowners from dishonest foreclosures. Results like these mean a lot to Bill.¹

After serving six years as a U.S. Attorney, Bill returned to private practice where he uses his extensive knowledge and experience to help whistleblowers try to bring organizations to account for their fraudulent actions.

“My clients continually restore my faith in humanity”

Bill views his clients as modern day heroes who want to right a wrong. He and his team (which includes one of the attorneys from his U.S. Attorney’s office) understand whistleblower cases from both the government’s perspective and the whistleblower’s perspective.

Bill recognizes the risks his clients are taking, and he fights to protect them when they come forward with their claims. He uses his years of experience to identify those whistleblower/qui tam cases which he feels have the greatest possibility of recovery and which he feels confident that he can make a difference for the client. And he’s made a big difference for a lot of clients.¹

Charisma, plus so much more

Meeting Bill is an experience in itself. He’s wide open and unabashed in his respect for his whistleblower clients. And he is adamant in his belief that his team has the experience and knowledge to find those facts in a case that the government might not have the time and attention to follow up on. He enjoys the interaction with the government on these cases – and calls it a “public-private partnership” where the ultimate goal is to stop fraud that ultimately hurts the public.

He’s a man of action who loves his job, and it shows.

⁵For information regarding the standards for inclusion in Martindale-Hubbell peer review ratings, visit www.martindale.com. For information regarding the standards for inclusion for the South Carolina “Super Lawyers” magazine’s ‘Super Lawyers’ list, visit www.superlawyers.com.