Alumna Spotlight: Linda Severin, '78

An interview with Robby Griswold

Linda Severin, RC and LSA '78, Social Science and Philosophy majors

She was a student who hardly spoke up in her RC courses but she expressed her ideas clearly and artfully in her writing. She funneled that grasp of language into a successful career in multiple kinds of law on both US continental coasts. She's also a dedicated athlete and played for the first three intercollegiate women's basketball teams at University of Michigan. She now calls Newton, Massachusetts home and her son, Greg, is a current Residential College student. 

Tell us about your career path. 

I went straight to law school at University of Virginia after graduating from the RC. Since law school, I’ve practiced law in a variety of settings and in three different cities. In New York, I first worked for a law firm doing litigation. One of the partners I worked with – John Sprizzo – became a federal judge and asked me to become his law clerk. That job was an amazing opportunity for a young attorney, exposing me to the wide range of civil and criminal cases handled in federal court while being mentored by a brilliant jurist. After leaving my clerkship, I became an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York, where I handled criminal investigations, trials, and appeals. Fun fact: While at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, I tried two major cases with the woman I later married. 

After leaving the U.S. Attorney’s Office, we moved to Seattle, where I practiced law at a big firm doing white-collar criminal defense work, which involved conducting internal investigations to figure out whether a company had violated the law, responding to investigations by the government, and negotiating with the government to resolve legal problems. I also helped companies beef up their internal compliance processes so they could avoid problems in the future. I then started a two-person firm with a colleague and friend. After he became a federal appellate judge, I went to work in-house at Boeing, then at a medium-sized firm. By that time, I’d had two children, and we decided to move to Boston to be closer to my in-laws. 

After taking several years off when our children were young, I began working as a whistleblower attorney at a small firm in Boston. This work is, in many ways, like being a prosecutor. We learn about fraud from whistleblowers and bring actions on their behalf to recover money for the taxpayers. When we’re successful, our clients get a share of whatever the government recovers in the case. Our clients have received millions of dollars for speaking out against fraud. Since we work on a contingency basis (not charging clients unless we win), when we lose, we get zero.

I’ve also taught trial advocacy at New York Law School and the University of Washington Law School.

Could you share any cases or other experiences that stand out from your long legal career?

As a young attorney in New York, I was part of a trial team representing plaintiffs who were harmed by the Amoco Cadiz oil spill off of the cost of France in the English Channel. At the time, it was the largest oil spill in history and caused enormous damage to the northern coast of France. We prevailed after a seven-month trial.

As an Assistant U.S. Attorney, I was responsible for investigating and prosecuting violations of federal law. I handled many cases over the course of almost 8 years, including the trial of a man who was the leader of a gang responsible for numerous murders in New York City. When I was growing up, I imagined myself as a defense attorney representing accused persons, so it was somewhat surprising to end up as a prosecutor. In that role, I came to realize how critical it is to have people committed to equal justice handling these cases and making ethical, fair-minded decisions about how and whether to prosecute someone. 

Shortly after we moved to Seattle in the early 1990s, there were a number of anti-LGBTQ initiatives that people were trying to get before voters. These initiatives sought to enshrine discrimination and included very extreme provisions, including prohibiting LGBTQ people from adopting and from teaching in public schools. My wife and I were part of a group of pro bono attorneys who fought successfully to keep those initiatives off the ballot. 

Navigating the legal profession as a lesbian has been an interesting journey. When I began my career as an attorney in New York City in 1981, I didn’t know a single attorney who was “out” at work and I certainly wasn’t. In fact, I may not have been hired to be an Assistant U.S. Attorney a few years later if the FBI background check had picked up that I was a lesbian. I would have lost the job of a lifetime, and the Department of Justice would have lost a fine public servant. By the time I left the government and moved to Seattle in 1992, things weren’t much better. We moved because my partner (now wife) was hired to teach law at University of Washington. I didn’t feel that I could be open about the reason I was moving to Seattle without harming my chances to be hired, so I didn’t mention it, which was awkward to say the least. It turns out that my instinct was correct – I learned a few months after joining a firm that one of the key partners who interviewed me had criticized an associate for including a gay law student for on-campus interviews, saying “Why did you put him on the schedule, we’d never hire him!” without even considering the candidate’s credentials.

As time went on, society advanced, things got better overall, and – most importantly – we had children. Becoming a parent led me to overcome my reticence and get comfortable with being 100% out 100% of the time. The world was still sending out plenty of anti-LBGTQ messages, but I was not going to let my children pick up anything but pride in myself and our family from me. By the time we moved to Boston in 2004 (with battles over same-sex marriage still raging), we were out and proud. To our delight (and amazement), when we got married that fall, our son’s kindergarten teacher in our local public school even had the class create a congratulatory banner for us.

Back to other big case wins - as a whistleblower attorney, I was part of a team of attorneys who brought an action against a major pharmaceutical company, Amgen, for kickbacks in violation of the False Claims Act. Amgen paid hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties on our case and other related cases. I’m currently working on a number of other cases I’m excited about, which you may end up reading about in the newspapers if we are successful. It’s very inspiring to represent persons who have the courage to step forward as whistleblowers to expose wrongdoing.