Michael J. Tuteur is a partner with Foley & Lardner LLP and chair of the firm’s Litigation Department and Business Litigation & Dispute Resolution Practice. He is a member of the Government Enforcement, Compliance & White Collar Defense; Securities, Enforcement & Litigation; and Privacy, Security & Information Management Practices. He is also a member of the Health Care and Food & Beverage Industry Teams.
Mr. Tuteur was recently named a BTI Client Service 2-Year MVP, one of only 26 attorneys in the United States that has earned the status of BTI Client Service All-Star for two years or more as a result of unprompted positive feedback from BTI's interviews with nearly 300 corporate counsel from Fortune 1000 companies. He has been selected by his peers for inclusion in the 2006-2013 editions of The Best Lawyers in America® in the fields of bet-the-company litigation, commercial litigation and criminal defense: white collar, and has been recognized as one of the nation’s leading business litigators by Chambers USA’s America’s Leading Lawyers for Business. Mr. Tuteur has also been selected for inclusion in the Top 100 Massachusetts Super Lawyers® lists every year since its inception in 2004 and has been recognized as a "Local Litigation Star" by Benchmark Litigation. Finally, Mr. Tuteur has been Peer Review Rated as AV® Preeminent™, the highest performance rating in Martindale-Hubbell's peer review rating system.
Mr. Tuteur has also been elected a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation. The Fellows is an honorary organization of attorneys, judges, law faculty, and legal scholars who have been elected by their peers.
Mr. Tuteur represents clients in a broad range of industries, including healthcare, software, biotechnology, insurance, education, advertising, banking and mutual funds. His litigation experience is similarly diverse, and includes ERISA and RICO class actions, securities and syndicated debt disputes, licensing and copyright actions, contract and shareholder suits, and defense of civil false claims actions.
Mr. Tuteur also represents organizations and corporate officers and directors in connection with criminal and regulatory investigations involving alleged health care fraud, securities fraud, mutual fund regulatory violations and banking infractions.
Among the numerous cases he has successfully handled, Mr. Tuteur has:
- Won a $200,000,000 judgment after six years of litigation in a complex federal action arising out of an alleged reinsurance contract
- Won summary judgment, and a subsequent appeal, in a $100,000,000 federal False Claims Act case which alleged fraudulent billing to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
- Obtained dismissals and denials of class certification in a national RICO and ERISA class action brought by chiropractors and other medical providers against a large number of health insurance plans
- Litigated and prevailed in an action by a Canadian surgical supply company against a Fortune 50 pharmaceutical firm for breach of an exclusive licensing agreement and bad faith termination
- Won summary judgment for a global advertising company after persuading the court that Ukrainian law governed the action and precluded recovery on the plaintiff’s claims
- Favorably settled claims of grant fraud brought by the Department of Justice and the National Institutes of Health against a Boston area university and medical school
- Prevailed in the U.S. Court of Appeals on a claim of ownership and license rights for a patented bio-insecticide Defended various broker/dealers, health care executives, bank directors and a defense department contractor in investigations launched by the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Mr. Tuteur’s reported decisions include:
- Glenn v. Healthlink HMO, Inc., ---S.W.3d ---, 2012 WL 9675 (Mo.App. E.D. Jan. 3, 2012)
- Penn. Chiropractic Assoc. v. Blue Cross Blue Shield Assoc., 2011 WL 6819081 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 28, 2011)
- E.D. v. Newburyport Pub. Schools, 654 F.3d 140 (1st Cir. 2011) (Souter, J.)
- U.S. ex rel. Greabe v. Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (D.Mass. Jan. 27, 2010)
- Invitrogen Corporation v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 68396 (D.Mass. August 12, 2008)
- U.S. ex rel. K&R Limited Ptp. v. Mass. Housing Finance Agency, 530 F.3d 980 (D.C. Cir. 2008)
- Atlantic Group Ltd. v. The Interpublic Group of Companies, 2007 WL 2049728 (S.D.N.Y. July 16, 2007)
- Hart Surgical v. Ultracision, 244 F.3d 231 (1st Cir. 2001)
- Wright v. U.S., 164 F.3d 267 (5th Cir. 1999)
- Hinchey v. NYNEX, 144 F.3d 134 (1st Cir. 1998)
- Alliance/AFSCME v. Commonwealth, 427 Mass. 546 (1998)
- Alliance/AFSCME v. Commonwealth, 425 Mass. 534 (1997)
- U.S. v. Lebon, 4 F.3d 1 (1st Cir. 1993)
- In re Grand Jury, 988 F.2d 211 (1st Cir. 1992)
Earlier, Mr. Tuteur was appointed special assistant attorney general to represent then-Massachusetts Governors William F. Weld and A. Paul Cellucci in four constitutional cases involving the scope and effect of the governor's veto power. Mr. Tuteur was also named special master by a United States District Court to investigate allegations of document destruction and attorney misconduct. In addition, Mr. Tuteur was appointed an expert witness to the Royal Court of Justice in London, England, to give opinion evidence on the application of U.S. law to the Latin American syndicated debt market.
Before returning to private practice, Mr. Tuteur served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, practicing in the Major Crimes Unit and Organized Crime Strike Force.
Mr. Tuteur is a trial adviser in Harvard Law School's Trial Advocacy Workshop and has taught at the Harvard School of Public Health's Continuing Education Program on Corporate Compliance.
Mr. Tuteur’s J.D. was conferred magna cum laude from Harvard Law School (1984). He also holds an A.B. from Harvard College (summa cum laude, 1980), where he was named to Phi Beta Kappa.
Mr. Tuteur is admitted to practice in the state of Massachusetts and before the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the First, Second, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, D.C. and Federal Circuits, and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Articles and Presentations:
- Co-author, "Privacy Litigation Part Two: Class Action," Privacy Tracker, Vol. 2, No. 5, May 2009
- Co-author, "Tenure Decisions and Academic Freedom," Chapter 2, College and University Law (Robert W. Iuliano)
- Presenter, Association of Corporate Counsel’s 2008 Annual Meeting: "Hot Topics in E-Discovery: Are There Any Other Kinds?" October 21, 2008