Jennifer Dowdell Armstrong

Jennifer is a member in the Litigation practice group and co-chair of the firm's Women's Council. She focuses her practice on federal complex commercial litigation, governmental investigations and white collar criminal defense, and antitrust and Foreign Corrupt Practices Act compliance counseling and internal investigations.

Jennifer has achieved a record of success by resolving a variety of business and commercial disputes involving multi-party actions, parallel civil and criminal proceedings, and class actions in federal and state trial and appellate courts. On behalf of plaintiffs and defendants, she represents clients across a wide range of industries, including financial services, healthcare and life sciences, insurance, retail, and transportation. Likewise, her experience covers a broad range of substantive areas of law, including antitrust and unfair trade practices, securities, contracts, and business torts, including breach of fiduciary duty, fraudulent or negligent misrepresentation, violation of the Unified Fraudulent Transfer Act, tortious interference with contractual relations or prospective business advantage, alter ego/veil piercing, civil theft and civil conspiracy. Her clients include private and public companies, corporate directors, officers and shareholders, and individuals.

Jennifer is experienced in all aspects of corporate criminal defense and enforcement-related litigation, from investigation through trial. She has aggressively defended clients in investigations and enforcement actions brought by the Department of Justice, Securities and Exchange Commission, Drug Enforcement Administration, and other regulators involving allegations of violations of the FCPA, antitrust laws, the Controlled Substances Act, healthcare fraud, tax fraud, bank fraud, identity fraud, public corruption, insider trading and other securities violations, bribery, money laundering and conspiracy. Because she has achieved victory in some cases by convincing prosecutors not to pursue charges against her clients, these successes have never become public.

Jennifer also counsels clients on a wide range of antitrust and FCPA compliance issues. In this context, she develops and implements effective antitrust and FCPA compliance programs, works with her clients to formulate strategies to mitigate antitrust and FCPA risks, and regularly provides counsel on potential antitrust and FCPA issues. Jennifer has also conducted corporate internal investigations involving allegations of potential antitrust and FCPA violations.

Prior to joining McDonald Hopkins, Jennifer served as a judicial law clerk for Chief Judge Solomon Oliver, Jr. in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio and an associate in a national law firm’s Antitrust, Competition, and White Collar Crime practice group. During law school, Jennifer worked as a judicial extern for Judge Karen Nelson Moore in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

Jennifer earned a J.D., summa cum laude, from Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, where she served as executive editor of the Cleveland State Law Review. Jennifer received a Master's in Nonprofit Organizations (MNO) from Case Western Reserve University's Weatherhead School of Management. She has a B.A. from Miami University.