Mythili Raman is co-chair of Covington’s White Collar Defense and Investigations Practice Group, and a leading practitioner in the areas of white collar defense and government investigations. She joined Covington after serving for 18 years at the Department of Justice in a variety of high-level leadership roles in several Administrations, including most recently as the head of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. Her practice focuses on representing corporate entities and executives in a wide range of criminal and regulatory investigations. She has been widely recognized for her expertise in white collar defense work, including being recognized as a “White Collar Crime Trailblazer” by The National Law Journal, which noted that “[o]ver her years at both the Justice Department and now as a partner in Covington & Burling’s white collar practice, Raman has developed a deep expertise in and passion for conducting complex investigations and making difficult decisions on thorny questions of law.”
As Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division from 2013-2014, and before then, as the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division from 2009-2013, Ms. Raman oversaw the work of more than 600 prosecutors and led the Justice Department’s national and international criminal law enforcement initiatives, including investigations of complex financial fraud and market manipulation; money laundering, Bank Secrecy Act violations, and financial sanctions violations; foreign and public corruption, including violations of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act; health care fraud; intellectual property theft; and cybercrime. At the Criminal Division, Ms. Raman oversaw some of the largest global financial investigations conducted by the Justice Department, including of the alleged manipulation of foreign exchange rates and benchmark interest rates. She also oversaw some of the largest foreign bribery cases ever brought by the Justice Department. Ms. Raman has testified before both the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives on a variety of criminal enforcement issues, including financial fraud enforcement, cybercrime, campaign finance enforcement, and the Bank Secrecy Act as applied to virtual currencies.
For her work as head of the Criminal Division, Ms. Raman received the Edmund J. Randolph Award in 2014 for outstanding service, the highest award that the Attorney General can bestow. Additionally, in 2014, after she left the Justice Department, Ms. Raman received the Henry E. Petersen Memorial Award, the highest award given by the Criminal Division of the Justice Department, for making lasting contributions to the Criminal Division and for leaving “an indelible mark” on the Department. In awarding that recognition to Ms. Raman, the Criminal Division said that “few within the Department have rivaled Ms. Raman's work ethic, analytical skills, and commitment to the mission.”
Ms. Raman began her 18-year career with the Justice Department in 1996. Ms. Raman first served as a federal prosecutor both in the Criminal Division and at the U.S. Attorney's Office in Maryland, where she did extensive trial and appellate work, trying more than 20 jury trials and arguing several appeals before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Additionally, at the Maryland U.S. Attorney's Office, Ms. Raman held a variety of supervisory and leadership roles, including serving as the Appellate Chief and as the Chief of the Southern Division Branch Office. In 2006, Ms. Raman moved to the Justice Department's headquarters as Senior Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General. She later held a series of high-level leadership positions in the Criminal Division during the Bush and Obama administrations, including Acting Chief of Staff from 2008 to 2009, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General and Chief of Staff from 2009 to 2013, and Acting Assistant Attorney General from 2013 to 2014.