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Jan Nielsen Little
Partner

Email: jlittle@kvn.com
Tel: 415.391.5400

Education:
Yale Law School, 1981
University of California at Berkeley, 1978

Jan Little, a partner at Keker & Van Nest, handles white collar criminal cases and complex civil litigation.

Drawing on her prior experience as a federal prosecutor before she joined the firm in 1986, Jan has developed a wide ranging criminal defense practice, representing corporations and individuals in investigations and trials. She has handled criminal cases involving securities fraud, tax fraud, healthcare fraud, bankruptcy fraud, bank fraud, other mail and wire fraud, obstruction of justice, perjury/false statements, antitrust, intellectual property crimes, international bribery and export crimes, and environmental matters. In 1995, she received the Significant Contributions to Criminal Justice Award from California Attorneys for Criminal Justice.

Jan has worked recently on cases of national prominence, including serving as lead trial counsel in 2007 in the nation's first criminal stock options backdating case, serving as trial counsel for a prominent banker in a well publicized 2004 criminal trial in New York, and representing the former chief financial officer of a Fortune 50 company in a nationally publicized 2003-04 investigation in Texas. Jan's prior trial work includes defending a prominent San Francisco attorney acquitted on RICO/drug conspiracy and obstruction charges, successfully defending at trial a police investigator charged with drug smuggling, and securing an acquittal for a businessman charged with loan fraud. Other recent criminal cases Jan has handled which were resolved favorably before trial include numerous investigations and prosecutions of executives charged with securities fraud; a foreign corrupt practices case; a health fraud case against a medical device manufacturer; and a complex tax and mail fraud case against a waste disposal company. Jan has also handled numerous investigations and proceedings before the Securities and Exchange Commission, usually in conjunction with parallel criminal and/or civil litigation. She also handles corporate internal investigations.

Jan also represents corporations and individuals in complex civil litigation. Recent civil litigation she has handled have involved claims of securities fraud, consumer fraud, civil RICO, and qui tam, among other issues. She has represented large and small corporations, executives, and business owners in all variety of complex civil litigation, in California state courts and in federal courts across the country.

From 1982 through 1986, Jan served as a prosecutor for the Public Integrity Section of the United States Department of Justice Criminal Division, handling trials and appeals in public corruption cases in federal courts in Washington, DC, Virginia, Texas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Nevada, and California. She received numerous awards from the Department, including the Department's Special Commendation Award for her work in the successful tax fraud prosecution of a federal judge.

Jan has published numerous articles on criminal practice and trial issues, and is a frequent lecturer at bar programs. She is past co-chair of the American Bar Association Litigation Section Complex Crimes Committee and the American Bar Association Northern California White Collar Crime Committee, and is currently active in several federal court committees. She also serves as a trustee and officer of a nonprofit independent school.

Jan has recently been listed in:

• California's Top 75 Women Litigators, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006 and 2005 in the San Francisco and the Los Angeles Daily Journal;
• California's Top 100 Lawyers, 2007 and 2006, in the San Francisco and Los Angeles Daily Journal;
• Chambers & Partners U.S.A. Guide, 2008, 2007, 2006 (White Collar Criminal Litigation);
• Best Lawyers In America 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006 (White Collar Criminal Defense and Commercial Litigation);
• International Bar Association Who's Who Legal, 2008, 2007, 2006 (Criminal Defense and Business Litigation);
• Top 500 Litigators in the U.S., 2008, 2007, 2006, Lawdragon magazine;
• Top 100 Lawyers in Northern California and Top 50 Women Lawyers in Northern California, San Francisco Magazine/Law and Politics, "Superlawyers" edition, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006 and 2005.

Jan was a law clerk to United States District Judge William W Schwarzer of the Northern District of California. She is a 1981 graduate of Yale Law School, where she directed the Jerome Frank Legal Services Organization and received the Wayland Prize for Litigation Skills. She is a 1978 graduate, with highest honors, from the University of California at Berkeley (Bachelor of Arts English literature). Jan is a native Californian and lives in Marin County with her husband and their three children.