Senior Justice Department Attorney to Join Morrison & Foerster

Charles Duross, a senior attorney at the Justice Department who once prosecuted a congressman who hid $90,000 in his freezer, has decided to join the law firm of Morrison & Foerster as head of its global anticorruption practice.

Mr. Duross, who led the Justice Department’s unit that enforces the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for four years before his departure on Friday, will begin at Morrison on Feb. 17, the firm announced on Monday. Patrick Stokes, co-head of the fraud section’s securities and financial fraud unit at the agency, will succeed Mr. Duross, according to a Justice Department spokesman, Peter Carr.

Mr. Duross was an architect of some of the Justice Department’s guidelines on the corrupt practices act, which prohibits American companies from bribing foreign officials in seeking competitive advantages.

During his tenure at the Justice Department, Mr. Duross was a principal author of “A Resource Guide to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act,” a joint publication of the agency and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Under his leadership, the Justice Department resolved more than 40 corporate cases, resulting in about $1.9 billion in penalties and more than two dozen convictions, according to the Morrison & Foerster announcement.

“Chuck’s intimate knowledge of the F.C.P.A. enforcement system he was instrumental in creating, along with his relationships with his fellow enforcement officials around the world, will be an invaluable asset to our clients,” Larren M. Nashelsky, chairman of Morrison & Foerster, said in a statement.

Mr. Duross was also one of the lead prosecutors of William J. Jefferson, a former congressman who famously hid $90,000 in his freezer and was sentenced to 13 years in prison in 2009 on bribery, money laundering and racketeering charges.

In an interview, Mr. Duross said he began looking at about a half-dozen law firms in October after deciding he was ready for a change. While he praised the firm’s white-collar practice and global platform, Mr. Duross recalled various meetings with the firm’s lawyers, and added that it was also the collegial environment that ultimately won him over.

“They were having as much fun talking to each other as with me,” he said.

Before running the Justice Department’s corrupt practices unit, Mr. Duross served as assistant chief of the unit from October 2008 to April 2010, and as a line prosecutor with the fraud section from December 2006 to October 2008. He joined the Justice Department’s fraud division in 2006 after serving in the United States attorney’s office in the southern district of Florida since 2001.

“Chuck has been an extraordinary public servant for many years and has been a tireless and dedicated leader of our F.C.P.A. program,” Mythili Raman, acting assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s criminal division, said in a statement. “Chuck’s strategic, tenacious, and thoughtful approach to our F.C.P.A. enforcement program has not only resulted in individuals and institutions being held accountable for F.C.P.A. violations, but has helped to change corporate culture for the better.”