Jeffrey E. McFadden

Partner

• jmcfadden@steptoe.com
• vCard
• Washington Office

Jeffrey E. McFadden is a partner in the Washington office of Steptoe & Johnson LLP, where he is a member of the Litigation Department. Mr. McFadden focuses his representation on securities litigation and enforcement, white-collar crime, corporate internal investigations, and mass tort and complex commercial litigation. His experience includes civil, administrative, and criminal first-chair trial and appellate litigation of federal and state cases in bank fraud; securities fraud; commodities fraud; private and commercial contracts; broker-dealer, investment adviser, and exchange regulation and enforcement; mergers and acquisitions; and mass tort.

Mr. McFadden has extensive securities class action and shareholder derivative suit experience, along with wide-ranging SEC and FINRA enforcement and arbitration defense experience in proxy disclosure, insider trading, sales practice, touting, internet fraud, and accounting fraud cases.

Bringing his extensive briefing and oral advocacy experience to bear, Mr. McFadden is a senior supervisory partner for the firm’s service as national coordinating counsel for a major client's asbestos litigation, and heads that team’s motions practice, briefing and arguing dispositive motions and appeals across the country. In 2006, he received a Burton Award for an article he co-authored on mass tort liability.

Mr. McFadden’s practice also includes a wealth of corporate internal investigation experience, including service to the Special Investigative Committee of the Board of Directors of Enron Corp. He also represented a former senior government official before the Iran-Contra prosecutor and served as counsel to the Honor Review Committee of the US Naval Academy Board of Visitors, drafting the final report submitted to the Secretary of the Navy. He also has a long history of representing veterans pro bono before the Department of Veterans Affairs and the US Court of Appeals for Veterans’ Claims.

Prior to joining Steptoe, Mr. McFadden practiced at a large Washington, DC law firm. He previously served as a lecturer in English at the US Naval Academy at Annapolis, MD; as a Special Assistant and Speechwriter for the Secretary of the Navy; as a systems engineer at General Electric Co.; and as a nuclear engineer in the US Navy. 

Noteworthy

• Burton Award for Legal Achievement, 2006

Select News & Events

• Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Quotes Jeffrey McFadden on Regulation FD
• Steptoe Obtains Federal Securities Fraud Class Action Dismissal
• “A Sub-Primer;” Panel Presentation at the Association of Corporate Counsel annual meeting
  October 2008
• Steptoe Congratulates Burton Award Winners
• In-House Attorneys as Gatekeepers
• Kevin Mayer, Jeff McFadden, Ana Voss Receive Burton Award for Legal Achievement
• Steptoe Promotes 13 Attorneys in 2006
• “Agent Orange and the Derivative Morality of the Political-Military Decision Maker.” Paper presented at the Joint Academy Conference on the Constitutional Responsibilities of Military Officers, National Defense University
  January 11, 1989

Selected Publications

• The Nuances of Securities Reform
  March 30, 2009, New York Law Journal
• Mass Tort Cases: Debunking the Expansion of Defendants Theory
  Defense Research Institute
  October 2005, For the Defense
• When ‘No Comment’ is Not Enough
  Global Counsel, Vol. VI, No. 4, with Andrew Parnell, David Lynn, David Taylor, and Phillip von Hoyenberg
  May 2001
• A Second Opportunity to Set the Appropriate Discretionary Standard in Cease-and-Desist Proceedings
  PLI/32nd Annual Institute on Securities Regulation (with William R. McLucas)
  January 2000
• Recent Developments in Criminal Money Laundering Law
  ABA/ABA Money Laundering Enforcement Seminar
  October 27, 1994, Washington, DC
• We Need Leaders, Not Technocrats, United States Naval Institute Proceedings
  January 1990

Professional Affiliations

• Member, International Association of Defense Counsel
• Vice Chair for CLE, Appellate Committee
• District of Columbia Bar
• Maryland Bar
• Florida Bar
• Permanent Member, Judicial Conference of the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit