June 2, 2026
Whistleblower Law Collaborative partners Bob Thomas and Erica Blachman Hitchings round out another semester of teaching at BU School of Law.
This is Bob’s fifteenth year teaching at the law school. This semester he led the Whistleblower Law and Practice seminar, a course developed by him. This course examines the laws that protect and incentivize whistleblowers to provide information and assist in the enforcement of laws prohibiting fraud and misfeasance in both the public and private sectors. It looks at the law as well as the practical aspects of lawyering in this field. There are two types of whistleblower laws: (1) laws which protect whistleblowers inside and outside of government from retaliation by their employers for having engaged in protected activity; and (2) laws which provide financial incentives to whistleblowers for reporting fraud against the government, or fraud in the securities and commodities markets.
Bob also teaches Contemporary Issues of Constitutional Law, which he also personally developed.
Since 2019, Erica has been instructing the popular Health Care Fraud and Abuse course developed and previously taught by her partner Bob Thomas. This course uses a case-study approach to some of the issues arising in the complex world of health care enforcement and compliance. It examines the False Claims Act, the Anti-Kickback Statute, the Stark I and II laws, the Food Drug and Cosmetic Act. They look at the relationships between regulated industries (e.g., pharma, hospitals, doctors, medical device companies) and government insurance programs (e.g., Medicaid and Medicare), why these relationships generate billions of dollars every year in fraud, and how the interested constituencies are approaching these issues.
The students enjoy the practical application of law and gaining an understanding of how each attorney has a critical role. As one former student said,
I really enjoyed being in your class this semester. I not only learned a lot of doctrine, but learned a lot of small things relevant to qui tam practice, the types of fraud common in the healthcare space, and what considerations are relevant to attorneys practicing on either end of an investigation. I even enjoyed taking the final, and hope you enjoyed writing it!
We are proud of Bob’s and Erica’s contributions to a new generation of attorneys!