Megan Barriger is a litigator with a diverse practice, emphasizing securities litigation, complex commercial disputes, corporate governance disputes, and false claims act actions. She routinely defends corporations, officers, and directors in complex individual, class action, and derivative cases in federal and state court. She also has experience defending clients in internal corporate and government investigations, including SEC and DOJ matters.

Recently, Ms. Barriger has represented a major financial institution in a number of state false claims act litigations around the country involving municipal bonds; represented directors in a derivative case challenging the compensation those directors received for their board service; defended a company and its officers against a class action asserting securities fraud claims; and served as co-counsel in a class-action lawsuit brought on behalf of deaf and hard-of-hearing prisoners seeking meaningful access to emergency notification services provided by the Department of Correction.  Ms. Barriger also serves on the Litigation/Controversy Department’s Standing Committee on Privilege.

Ms. Barriger’s successful defense in securities litigation matters includes dismissals in cases against companies in many industries, including the biopharmaceutical and life sciences space. She draws on her experience clerking in Delaware’s Court of Chancery when defending companies, officers, and directors faced with allegations of breach of fiduciary duty and other alleged corporate governance failures.

Ms. Barriger has experience handling all phases of civil litigation. She has trial experience, has successfully argued motions, taken and defended depositions, coordinated electronic discovery, prepared witnesses to testify, and presented and cross-examined witnesses at trial. She has authored dispositive motions, appellate briefs, and amicus briefs in both federal and state courts.

In the first half of 2018, Ms. Barriger served as a Special Assistant District Attorney with the Middlesex County District Attorney’s Office, during which she first-chaired eleven criminal trials, as well as numerous evidentiary motions and other hearings before the District Court.

Ms. Barriger also maintains a robust pro bono practice. Her clients include a class of deaf and hard-of-hearing prisoners seeking meaningful access to emergency notification services, for which Ms. Barriger co-led a successful six-day bench trial in the District of Massachusetts; a family seeking medical deferred action; an individual seeking asylum in the US; and a restaurant worker who had been sexually harassed by her boss, for which Ms. Barriger first-chaired a successful two-day public hearing before the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, a decision that the Full Commission upheld.  She also served as co-counsel in a class-action lawsuit asserting that the state of Michigan violates the equal protection clauses of the US and state constitutions by taxing menstruation-related products.

Prior Experience

Prior to joining the firm, Ms. Barriger clerked for the Honorable Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster of the Delaware Court of Chancery. While in law school, she was a summer associate at WilmerHale and an intern at the US Department of Justice, Antitrust Division. Ms. Barriger was the editor-in-chief of the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law, and she authored and published a Note on due process limitations on class action monetary remedies. She also served as a legal writing instructor and as a research assistant to Professor Cary Coglianese.

Before pursuing her law degree, Ms. Barriger worked as a senior analyst at Compass Lexecon and a research analyst at McKinsey & Company.

Professional Activities 

Ms. Barriger is a member of the Board of Directors of the Middlesex Friends of the Fells, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting the conservation, appreciation, and sustainable enjoyment of the Middlesex Fells, a 2,200-acre public recreation area spanning several of the towns north of Boston, MA. She is also a member of the American Bar Association, Boston Bar Association, and the Women’s Bar Association.

In December 2020, she served as a panelist at MCLE’s Identifying What Is Privileged & Protected in Lawyer/Client Communications: The 60-Minute Lawyer program.