Pepper Hamilton, the Philadelphia-based corporate law firm, has acquired the investigative firm and law practice run by Louis J. Freeh, the former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The deal, announced on Tuesday, highlights the growing business of internal investigations into possible wrongdoing at corporations and other institutions, a increasingly lucrative area for law firms.
Scandal has been big business for Mr. Freeh. Over the past year, Mr. Freeh has served as trustee for creditors of MF Global, the collapsed brokerage firm; conducted the internal inquiry of a sex-abuse scandal at Penn State, and examined an SAT cheating scandal.
His investigatory arm, Freeh Group International Solutions, will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Pepper but retain its name and operate independent of the law firm. The lawyers at his law firm, Freeh, Sporkin & Sullivan, will join Pepper's white-collar criminal defense practice. In all, about 25 professio nals will be joining Pepper. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Mr. Freeh has worked closely with Pepper's lawyers on a number of matters, including the MF Global case and the Penn State report. In an interview, Mr. Freeh said that as his business has grown, especially internationally, it made sense to combine with a big law firm with the resources to handle an expanding portfolio of cases. He said the deal would allow them to meld their team of investigatory specialists, which include former F.B.I agents and forensic accounts, with Pepper's lawyers.
“To integrate the two groups is exciting and very, very different,†Mr. Freeh said.
Pepper Hamilton, with 500 lawyers, is an old-line Philadelphia firm started in 1890. In recent decades, like many regional firms, it has built a large international practice. It recently brought in Scott Green, a non-lawyer, as its first chief executive, who run the firm's operations alongside Nina M. Gu ssack, the chairman of the firm's executive committee.
