Charles C. Murphy, Jr.

Chuck is a co-founder of the firm and is now the firm’s principal in light of the decisions by David Vaughan and Ellen Schlossberg to take positions as “of counsel” to the firm. Chuck has more than 37 years of experience handling a variety of white collar criminal matters (antitrust, tax and Title 18) from both the government and defense sides, and numerous civil matters (antitrust and complex business litigation, including class actions).

Chuck is one of the few lawyers in the Southeast who has had significant experience both at trial (albeit mostly in non-antitrust cases) and as an antitrust practitioner. He regularly teaches practicing attorneys in trial skills using the format developed at the National Institute for Trial Advocacy, of which he is a graduate.

As an attorney at the Federal Trade Commission in the early 70s, Chuck investigated anticompetitive conduct under section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act and section 2(a) of the Robinson-Patman Act (the anti-price discrimination statute). After two years at the FTC, Chuck moved to the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice to prosecute antitrust crimes under section 1 of the Sherman Act. He was lead counsel for the United States on the Armored Car prosecutions in the late 70s, obtaining convictions from the then three largest armored car firms in the U.S.: Brink’s, Wells Fargo and Purolator Security. He also worked on a variety of other criminal matters as a prosecutor such as building construction materials price fixing in Miami (that matter included a perjury case for a witness’s lying to the federal grand jury), road construction bid rigging in Mississippi and bank security customer allocation, to name a few. For his work at the U.S. DOJ, Chuck received an Outstanding Achievement Award.

Since leaving the government to start Vaughan & Murphy, Chuck has worked on many matters that have raised both civil and criminal antitrust issues including the following: an action against Pezetel, the foreign trade enterprise of the then Polish Peoples Republic under the Anti-dumping Statute; attempted monopolization and conspiracy to monopolize the market for installation of residential fiberglass insulation in Charleston, South Carolina; and monopolization and attempted monopolization of small package delivery services in Georgia and Florida, among many others.

Chuck has had numerous civil jury trials since entering private practice, getting his most recent victory on a directed verdict in his client’s favor (upheld on appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court) in a hard-fought civil case that lasted more than four years involving an alleged ownership interest in his client’s business.

On the criminal side, Chuck has years of experience in representing witnesses, subjects and targets in federal grand jury investigations and is accustomed to working with colleagues who represent similarly situated companies and individuals, often employing joint defense agreements to share confidential information and formulate coordinated defense strategy.

He won acquittal for the former president of a large trucking firm on a nine-count tax fraud case following a two-month jury trial in federal court in Atlanta 1998. He also obtained dismissal of 110 of 111 false claims in a False Claims Act jury trial that lasted seven weeks in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in 2007. He won dismissal of the 111th and final alleged false claim following an appeal and decision of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 2011.

Chuck counsels companies and individuals regarding the Antitrust Division’s Leniency Program and is a frequent seminar presenter on that topic. When a client fails to qualify or is otherwise not a candidate for leniency, Chuck has significant experience in negotiating an appropriate plea agreement with the government. If, however, after carefully evaluating the facts and weighing the options, a client elects to forego the plea process, Chuck has considerable experience handling every aspect of a trial defense from post-indictment motions through criminal discovery, pre-trial motions and trial.

He is a member of the bars of the United States Supreme Court, and the Third, Fourth, Fifth, Eleventh, District of Columbia and Federal Circuit Courts of Appeals. He is licensed to practice law in Georgia and Tennessee, and is a member of the bars of the Supreme Courts of both states.

Chuck has the highest rating – AV – from Martindale Hubbell. He has been repeatedly recognized by his peers as a SuperLawyer (in antitrust practice), and is rated in the highest tier in antitrust among all practitioners in Georgia by the international publication Chambers USA. He has also been recognized as an elite lawyer by Georgia Trend magazine. He is a frequent presenter at Georgia State Bar and ABA seminars in trial practice, antitrust law and criminal practice.

Chuck is an avid runner and most recently competed in the Doug Kessler Memorial Lightning 10K, a race held in memory of his former law partner, Doug Kessler, a long distance runner who passed away in 2005.