Neil V. Getnick

Neil V. Getnick is the managing partner of Getnick Law. He has led the development of the law firm’s dedicated anti-fraud litigation and business integrity practice. He has coordinated numerous groundbreaking civil RICO, whistleblower and other civil prosecution investigations and litigations, as well as corporate monitoring and Independent Private Sector Inspector General (IPSIG) projects.

Mr. Getnick leads one of the nation’s most prominent False Claims Act qui tam, IRS, SEC/CFTC, and Anti-Money Laundering & Kleptocracy whistleblower practices. He and his firm have won many of the nation’s biggest whistleblower cases over the past 30 years. For example, the firm’s internal private crime unit aimed at fighting healthcare fraud has filed numerous successful healthcare qui tam actions that include a $600 million Medicaid recovery (part of a $750 million civil and criminal global resolution), resulting in the then-largest reward to a single whistleblower in U.S. history. His many other successful whistleblower cases include a $70 million tax whistleblower recovery, which at the time was the largest ever tax whistleblower recovery in New York State.

Mr. Getnick’s civil RICO litigations have included the first filed civil RICO class action, as well as the “Alliance” case heralded by Forbes for its “get-tough attitude” on an insurance fraud ring of corrupt lawyers, and the celebrated Tandem Computers mainframe computer parts theft case, described by The New York Times as a “real life ‘Mission Impossible’ in the heart of Silicon Valley.” Civil RICO cases filed by Mr. Getnick and his law firm since the firm’s founding in 1983 have resulted in parallel criminal convictions of the principal named defendants, in addition to the securing of civil judgments.

Mr. Getnick pioneered the concept of independent investigations. He served as the Chairman and President of the International Association of Independent Private Sector Inspectors General (“IAIPSIG”). The National Law Journal formally endorsed the IAIPSIG Code of Conduct saying that it “defines independence” and the IPSIG mechanism became the principal monitoring means employed by New York City in its citywide anti-corruption programs.

Mr. Getnick and his firm have undertaken monitoring projects in the school construction, plumbing, elevator, and waste disposal industries, and after 9/11 were appointed to serve in the role of an integrity monitor for the World Trade Center disaster clean-up. In 2004, they were appointed by the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York as the Monitor of the New York Racing Association pursuant to the terms of a deferred prosecution agreement. Upon the conclusion, the Comptroller of the State of New York extolled the Getnick team “for their unfailing integrity, expertise, dedication and business acumen during the course of this monitorship.”

After graduating law school, Mr. Getnick began his career at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office as an Assistant District Attorney serving first in the Trial Division and later in the Frauds Bureau.

Mr. Getnick is active in many programs at Cornell University. He and his wife, Margaret Finerty, created the Business Integrity Fund at Cornell Law School, which led to the development, in 2013, of a course on “Whistleblower Law: Involving Private Citizens in Public Law Enforcement,” the first of its kind in the country. Mr. Getnick was appointed an adjunct professor and taught the course for several years with Stewart Schwab, who at the time was the dean of the law school.

Mr. Getnick also has a long history of working on projects in Africa. He currently is helping to lead a program for the African Leadership Academy, a secondary educational institution dedicated to developing Africa’s next generation of leaders.

Mr. Getnick is an active leader in the legal community. His positions include serving as a:

Member of the Executive Committee of the New York State Bar Association Commercial and Federal Litigation Section (1989-2023) and chair of the section’s Civil Prosecution Committee (1991-2023) Chairman and President of IAIPSIG Chairman of the Board of Taxpayers Against Fraud, a Washington, D.C. based non-partisan public interest organization supporting the Federal and state False Claims Acts and other whistleblower laws (2005-2021) Member of the President’s Council of The Anti-Fraud Coalition (formerly Taxpayers Against Fraud) (2022 – present) Member of Cornell Law School’s Dean Advisory Council