Charles R. Work is a partner in the law firm of McDermott Will & Emery LLP and is based in the Washington, D.C. office. Chuck is the former head of the Firm’s Litigation Department, the former head of the Firm's Regulation and Government Affairs Department and was the Partner-In-Charge of the Washington, D.C. office from 1983 to 1997. Chuck is the former chairman of the Forum on Crime and Justice Advisory Board of the University of Pennsylvania Jerry Lee Center of Criminology. He is the former general counsel of the AeA, formerly known as the American Electronics Association. He is also the former general counsel of the Intellectual Property Owners Association.
Chuck has handled civil and criminal matters in state and federal courts as well as matters before various federal agencies, including the International Trade Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Office of the Independent Counsel. Chuck has on a number of occasions represented former government officials, business executives and trade association executives with respect to employment contract and compensation issues. Chuck has also been involved in arbitrations both as counsel and as an arbitrator.
Chuck is a former president of the D.C. Bar, a former deputy administrator of the Law Enforcement Assistant Administration (nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate) and a former Assistant U.S. Attorney in the District of Columbia. In the U.S. Attorney’s office, where he served for seven years, he concluded his career as chief of the Superior Court Division, the division responsible for prosecuting all local crime in the District of Columbia. In 1978, he received the Rockefeller Public Service Award for Administering Justice and Reducing Crime. Chuck served as the president’s appointee to the D.C. Commission on Judicial Tenure and Disabilities, the body that reappoints and disciplines the judges of the District of Columbia, from 1985 to 1999. Chuck has appeared in Best Lawyers in America in all editions since 1995.
Representative Experience
- Co-head of a team which prevailed and received national media attention in a patent trial in the U.S. District Court in Delaware involving contact lenses, Wesley Jessen Corporation v. Bausch & Lomb, Inc.
- Lead trial counsel in United States of America v. Quorum, a significant health care fraud case in the U.S. District Court in Tampa, Florida
- Lead counsel in the case of Aristotle Publishing, Inc. v. CDB Infotech, a case involving data rights, which also received national media attention
- Co-lead counsel in the case of Inslaw, Inc., et al. v. The United States, a case involving intellectual property rights to computer software
- Recognized as one of 30 “visionaries” featured in the Legal Times 30th Anniversary Issue who have “stretched practices and built firms and companies…and helped turn Washington’s legal and lobbying community into an international powerhouse.”
- Recognized by Washington, D.C. Super Lawyers in 2008 as one of the top business litigation attorneys in the Washington, D.C. metro area
- Appointed by the United States District Court as guardian ad litem of the Vietnamese orphans who survived a plane crash in Saigon in 1975
Education
- University of Chicago Law School, J.D., 1965
- Georgetown University Law Center, LL.M., 1966
- Wesleyan University, B.A., 1962
