Freedom Counsel 2024 Whistleblower Panel with Jeremy Friedman, Warner Mendenhall and Robert Barnes, Pfizer Lawsuit Attorneys
Jeremy Friedman is a sole practitioner in Oakland, California, with a focus on False Claims Act, civil rights and attorneys’ fees litigation. In his 35 years of private practice, Mr. Friedman has extensive experience under the False Claims Act at the trial and appellate levels, with primary responsibility in more than two dozen qui tam cases, and he has served as fees counsel and/
or consultant in dozens of other such cases around the country. He is currently co-counsel in an employment class action challenging the University of California mandatory injection policy under the California constitutional right to privacy and bodily autonomy.
From small-town East Ridge, Tennessee, to the elite environs of the Eastern Ivy league, Robert Barnes walks among the humble and the haughty. Traveling from the everyday to the es- teemed, representing clients fighting for their civil rights and celebrities taking on the IRS, Barnes heeds the advice of his newspaper-throwing father, Walter, who was fond of reminding, “Never judge a man until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes”.
Warner Mendenhall is co-founder of Freedom Counsel and owner of Mendenhall Law Firm. Warner has been active politically all his life. Beginning with two terms on Akron City Council
in the early 1990s, Warner has helped citizens fight corruption and the abuse of power by local governments throughout Ohio. During his time on the city council, Warner felt that the city law department was not giving him accurate answers so he went to law school. After getting licensed in the late 1990s, Warner won his first cases exposing block grant fraud and defending Charter Amendments in Akron and knew that he had found his calling.
Since then, Warner has been building a mission-oriented practice to hold local, state govern- ment, and corporations accountable. Anchored by a passion for helping to give ordinary people the power to stand up to government abuses, corporate fraud, and bank malfeasance. Being driven by the idea of providing high-quality service to those in need of legal help, his firm and areas of practice have grown over the years into many areas.