Ann Flanery

Criminal Defense Lawyer for White Collar Charges | Ann C. Flannery Law Offices

Lawyer Ann C. Flannery is a leading Philadelphia trial attorney whose career is defending clients charged with white collar crimes.

 

Ann Flannery

Ann’s roots in criminal defense go back more than three decades. She defended her first clients as vice-president of Harvard Defenders, a student-run public defender service. After law school, she clerked for a federal district court judge, then practiced in the white collar departments of two highly respected law firms in Chicago and Washington, D.C. She was a core member of a team that secured the dismissal of a high-profile federal procurement fraud indictment against a Fortune 100 company and its officers. 

After moving to Philadelphia, Ann served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania before returning to criminal defense practice.

Since establishing her own law firm, clients have relied on Ann to represent them in a broad range of federal investigations and prosecutions, encompassing bank fraud, health care fraud, money laundering, public corruption, insider trading, pharmaceutical crimes, tax fraud, business fraud, antitrust, and procurement fraud. More details:

 

  • Trial Experience

    • Unlike many white collar practitioners today, Ann has tried numerous federal cases on the defense side, and is highly respected for her trial skills. Among the matters highlighted under "Cases," she represented a co-defendant of former Congressman Chaka Fattah in a lengthy trial in Philadelphia involving federal racketeering charges.

      Ann has secured acquittals for clients in federal criminal jury trials encompassing a broad range of charges, including bank fraud, money laundering, opioid prescribing, armed bank robbery, and narcotics trafficking.

      In a significant courtroom victory in the District of Connecticut, Ann’s client was acquitted of all charges after a five-week jury trial in which the government alleged a $20,000,000 bank fraud involving structured trade finance and agricultural export loan guarantees.

  • Internal Investigations

    • For private clients and as a consultant for an international risk consulting firm, Ann has conducted numerous internal corporate and business intelligence investigations. Some of these investigations paralleled or anticipated federal criminal investigations; others served to uncover and eradicate costly wrongdoing.

  • Former Federal Prosecutor

    • As a federal prosecutor in Philadelphia, Ann focused on the prosecution of white collar crime. She organized and led a tri-state bank fraud working group comprised of state and federal investigators, regulators and prosecutors, and frequently lectured on bank fraud. Her many jury trial successes included the prosecution of a cadre of Delaware County prison guards for multiple inmate beatings; a Swiss lawyer for the fraudulent use of internationally disseminated stolen bearer bonds; a “bust-out” business fraud operation; various tax fraud schemes; and a nationwide credit card scam.

  • Education

      • Duke University, A.B., summa cum laude (Economics with Honors; History)
      • Harvard Law School, J.D.

  • Bar Admissions

      • Pennsylvania
      • District of Columbia
      • Illinois

  • Professional Presentations

      Ann has taught extensively in Temple Law School’s highly regarded Trial Advocacy Program, instructing law students on trial skills and procedures. She pioneered a course on the Law of Investigations, exploring the law of criminal, private and regulatory investigations and their overlap.

      Her peers and federal judges have called on her to speak on numerous professional panels, including:

      • When Trial Is Your Best…or Only…Option (Federal Criminal Law Committee, 2023)
      • Don’t Yield the Field: Taking Voir Dire and Jury Instructions from ‘The Way It’s Always Done’ to ‘The Way It Should Be Done’ (PACDL White Collar Conference, 2022)
      • Practice Before Federal Juries (Federal Criminal Law Committee, 2022)
      • Federal Rule and Procedure Changes Due to COVID-19 (Federal Criminal Law Committee, 2021)
      • Jury and Grand Jury Challenges Related to COVID-19 (Women's White Collar Defense Association, 2020)
      • Problems and Challenges in Federal Criminal Trial Practice Resulting from COVID-19 (Thompson Reuters Celesq, 2020)
      • For the Defense: Logistics, Tactics and Strategy in the COVID Era (Federal Criminal Law Committee, 2020)
      • Lessons Learned from Ten Months with a New United States Attorney (Association of Corporate Counsel, 2019)
      • Criminal Forfeiture: Trends and Tactics (Federal Criminal Law Committee, 2019)
      • Criminal Forfeiture Roundtable (Federal Community Defenders, 2019)
      • Proffers: Possibilities, Pitfalls and Predicaments (Federal Criminal Law Committee, 2018)
      • Criminal Justice Reform Panel (Rutgers Law School, 2018)
      • Strategic & Ethical Considerations for Proffers & Plea Agreements: Risks and Rewards (PACDL White Collar Practice Conference, 2015)
      • Riding the Tides of Sentencing: Intended vs. Actual Loss; Pursuing a Variance; and Effective Advocacy at the Sentencing Hearing (PACDL White Collar Practice Conference, 2014)
      • Preparing the Pre-Sentence Investigation Report: Policies and Practices (Federal Bar Association-Criminal Law Committee, 2014)
      • Making an Effective Sentencing Hearing Presentation (Federal Bench-Bar Conference, 2013)
      • Effective Advocacy in an Adversarial Criminal Justice System (Federal Court - EDPA, 2013)
      • Federal Sentencing: How Tight is that Collar? (PACDL White Collar Practice Conference, 2013)
      • Sentencing Departures v. Variances (Federal Bar Association-Criminal Law Committee, 2011)

  • Professional Recognitions

      • Fellow, American College of Trial Lawyers
      • SuperLawyers - White Collar Criminal Defense
      • Top 50 Women Attorneys in Pennsylvania

  • Community

    • Ann has served on the Board of Directors for SquashSmarts, an afterschool enrichment program supporting underserved Philadelphia youth, and the Pennsylvania Innocence Project, which advocates for the exoneration of wrongly convicted individuals and seeks policy change to avoid such injustices.

      She is an avid golfer, paddle tennis player, and college basketball fan.