Jim Martin, a former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, is a member of the firm’s Business Litigation practice group. He concentrates in the areas of white collar criminal defense, corporate governance and compliance and complex business litigation.

During his five years with Armstrong Teasdale, Jim has been lead defense counsel in numerous class action and other major civil litigation matters including those brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission. He has also played a leading defense role in extensive white collar criminal litigation.

A number of these cases have drawn national attention. For example, in 2010 Jim won the dismissal of a controversial Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit that charged his client in a stock option backdating scheme. A federal judge threw out the civil suit after the SEC presented its side of the case to the jury. He also obtained the dismissal of two different class action lawsuits prior to any expense being incurred for discovery, saving his clients hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Also in 2010, Jim convinced the Department of Justice to end a highly publicized criminal investigation of a member of President's Bush's cabinet without bringing charges or taking any other adverse action.