Michael D. Kohn, a founding partner of the Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

 law firm Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto

Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto

Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto, a Washington, D.C. law firm specializing in employment law, represents whistleblowers in the United States. Washingtonian Magazine, in its December 2004 issue, named the firm the top whistleblower within the Beltway. The three partners are brothers Stephen M. Kohn, Michael...

, is one of the top litigators specializing in whistleblower

Whistleblower

A whistleblower is a person who tells the public or someone in authority about alleged dishonest or illegal activities occurring in a government department, a public or private organization, or a company...

 protection law. A graduate of Rutgers University

Rutgers University

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American...

 (B.S. in biology), he received his law degree from the Antioch School of Law

David A. Clarke School of Law

The David A. Clarke School of Law is the law school of the University of the District of Columbia . It is Washington, D.C.'s only public law school.-History:...

. After graduating from Antioch, he served as Director of Legal Ethics for the Government Accountability Project. Kohn co-founded the law firm now known as Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto with his brother Stephen

Stephen M. Kohn

Stephen M. Kohn is an attorney for Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto, a Washington, D.C., law firm specializing in employment law. The author of the first legal treatise on whistleblowing, Kohn is recognized as one of the top experts in whistleblower protection law...

 in 1988.

The original focus of the law firm was on defending [nuclear power] industry employees who blew the whistle on their employers over nuclear safety

Nuclear safety

Nuclear safety covers the actions taken to prevent nuclear and radiation accidents or to limit their consequences. This covers nuclear power plants as well as all other nuclear facilities, the transportation of nuclear materials, and the use and storage of nuclear materials for medical, power,...

 issues; eventually, Kohn and the firm have branched out into defending whistleblowers in all areas of industry and government employees blowing the whistle on government corruption and fraud. KKC's most famous client was Linda Tripp

Linda Tripp

Linda Rose Tripp was a central figure in the Lewinsky scandal of 1998 and 1999 that led to the impeachment and subsequent acquittal of U.S. President Bill Clinton.-Early life and government employment:...

, one of the most famous whistleblowers in history, for whom they successfully sued the federal government Executive Branch on the grounds that the Clinton Administration violated the Privacy Act

Privacy Act of 1974

The Privacy Act of 1974, 5 U.S.C. § 552a, Public Law No. 93-579, establishes a Code of Fair Information Practice that governs the collection, maintenance, use, and dissemination of personally identifiable information about individuals that is maintained in systems of records by federal agencies...

 while retaliating against her for blowing the whistle on Monica Lewinsky

Monica Lewinsky

Monica Samille Lewinsky is an American woman with whom United States President Bill Clinton admitted to having had an "improper relationship" while she worked at the White House in 1995 and 1996...

's own brand of executively privileged

Executive privilege

In the United States government, executive privilege is the power claimed by the President of the United States and other members of the executive branch to resist certain subpoenas and other interventions by the legislative and judicial branches of government...

 whistleblowing, which nearly derailed both the presidency of Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

 and the political ambitions of his First Lady, Hillary. For defending the legal rights of Lewinsky, Kohn and his partners, brother Stephen and David K. Colapinto, endured the wrath of centrist liberals, despite the fact that they are dedicated political progressives.

As a litigator, Michael Kohn has won whistleblower cases in the private sector against such business behemoths as Ashland Inc., Brown & Root and Georgia Power

Georgia Power

Georgia Power is an electric utility headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It is the largest of the four electric utilities that are owned and operated by Southern Company....

; he has also litigated successfully against federal, state and local governments.

Michael Kohn serves as President and General Counsel for the National Whistleblower Center

National Whistleblower Center

The National Whistleblower Center is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, tax exempt, educational and advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C....

and is an attorney-trustee for the National Whistleblower Legal Defense and Education Fund.

Publications

• Whistleblower Law: A Guide to Legal Protections for Corporate Employees (Praeger, 2004)
• The Labor Lawyers Guide to the Rights and Responsibilities of Employee Whistleblowers (Quorum, 1988)