About D.J.

D.J. O’Brien’s practice is constantly evolving to advise and represent employers and individuals in commercial litigation, employment law, and regulatory enforcement actions. He has deep experience in all levels of federal and state appellate and trial courts in North Carolina, including the N.C. Business Court. D.J. represents executives and companies who are under criminal or regulatory scrutiny concerning their business practices. He has extensive experience conducting sensitive internal investigations for companies, big and small, in an array of practice areas, including banking, health care, and securities. As part of his criminal and civil litigation practice, D.J. regularly represents individuals and corporations from a variety of industries, including the health care, construction, defense, transportation, and technology sectors, in claims asserted under the False Claims Act. Recently, D.J.’s experience has included matters involving medical research grant fraud, including representing a whistleblower in a lawsuit against Duke University, who alleged that university researchers were committing grant fraud by relying on falsified experiment results. The case settled in 2019 for what is believed to be the largest recovery for research grant fraud in the history of the False Claims Act. D.J. also represents businesses in a variety of employment-related litigation cases, including class and collective actions and discrimination and wage-and-hour claims, before state and federal agencies and courts. He has worked with companies in a broad variety of industries, including technology companies and franchises.

Practice Areas

Education

• Wake Forest University, J.D., graduated 2006
• Vanderbilt University, B.A., graduated 1998

Bar Admissions

• North Carolina, North Carolina

Languages