Nathans & Ripke LLP

Focus and practice areas

Nathans & Ripke LLP is a Baltimore litigation firm built around criminal defense in state and federal courts. The firm takes cases in federal courts across the country, not only in Maryland. Its work reaches into civil litigation as well.

The criminal side of the practice covers white collar grand jury investigations, felony and misdemeanor trials, federal sentencing, criminal appeals, and post-conviction litigation. The firm also handles federal forfeiture and asset recovery, plus administrative and regulatory proceedings.

Named practice pages go further into subject matter. They include criminal antitrust defense, embezzlement, environmental charges, federal drug charges, health care fraud, money laundering, mortgage fraud, parole hearings, public corruption defense, securities fraud, and tax and accounting fraud.

The civil side

The firm lists academic proceedings, attorney grievance investigations, civil appellate practice, false claim cases, and civil and administrative proceedings. Several of these sit next to the criminal work in a natural way. An attorney grievance investigation and a white collar inquiry can arrive at the same client's door in the same month.

In my opinion, that pairing is the most useful thing the practice list tells a reader. A professional facing a regulator often faces a prosecutor too, and the two tracks move on different clocks.

How the team is built

Three attorneys appear on the site. Larry Allen Nathans and Booth M. Ripke are partners. Robert W. Biddle is of counsel.

Larry Allen Nathans founded the firm. The site does not give a founding year, so the firm's own measure of its depth is the one it publishes: nearly 100 years of combined trial experience across its lawyers.

Three attorneys is a small roster for the range of matters listed. It means the lawyer a client meets is likely the lawyer who tries the case. Small defense firms that handle federal work tend to operate this way, with partners carrying files directly rather than distributing them down a bench of associates.

Recognition on record

Larry Allen Nathans received the Baltimore Lawyer of the Year designation for White Collar Criminal Defense from a legal-ranking publication in 2025 and 2021. The same publication gave him that title for Criminal Defense, General, in 2015.

He was listed in a U.S. lawyer-recognition publication under both White Collar and Criminal Defense, General, from 2008 through 2026. That is an unbroken run across roughly two decades. Peer-reviewed listings measure reputation among other lawyers, which is a narrower thing than case outcomes, and it is still a record that accumulates over time.

Where the firm can appear

The firm's lawyers hold licenses in Maryland, the District of Columbia, New York, Florida, and New Jersey. They are also admitted to the United States Supreme Court, along with a number of federal district and circuit courts.

That spread matters in white collar work. Federal investigations follow money and conduct, and money crosses state lines easily. A grand jury sitting in one district can reach a client living in another.

The firm serves Baltimore and the Washington, D.C. area, and it takes federal matters throughout the country. Multi-state admission removes a step that would otherwise require local counsel in each venue.

Who the firm describes as clients

The site names corporations, senior executives, politicians, attorneys, physicians, and other professionals. These are clients with something at stake beyond the criminal charge itself. A physician facing a health care fraud allegation also faces a medical board. A lawyer under grand jury scrutiny also faces bar counsel.

The firm's mix of criminal and civil practice areas lines up with that client profile. Attorney grievance investigations and academic proceedings are on the list, and both are the kind of parallel exposure that follows a professional accusation.

General context on the matters the firm names

What follows is background on how these proceedings typically run, offered as general context and not as a description of this firm's cases.

Federal white collar investigations

Most begin quietly. A target or witness learns of an investigation through a subpoena for documents, a grand jury summons, or a call from a federal agent. Grand jury proceedings are secret, and the person under scrutiny often has limited visibility into what prosecutors have gathered.

Counsel typically works on two fronts at this stage. One is the document production, which can run to hundreds of thousands of pages in a corporate matter. The other is contact with the prosecutor's office, where an argument against charging carries the most weight before an indictment is returned.

Federal sentencing

Sentencing is a separate proceeding with its own record. The federal Sentencing Guidelines produce an advisory range, and in fraud cases the loss amount often drives that range more than any other factor. Disputes over how loss is calculated can move a recommended sentence by years.

A judge weighs the guidelines range alongside the statutory sentencing factors, and defense counsel builds a record through written submissions, character letters, and sometimes expert testimony. The hearing itself is usually short. The preparation behind it is not.

Appeals and post-conviction litigation

An appeal is argued on the trial record. New evidence has no place there, and the appellate court reviews legal rulings made below. Post-conviction litigation opens a different door, one that can reach claims like ineffective assistance of counsel that depend on facts outside the original record.

Both have firm deadlines. Both are decided by judges who did not sit through the trial and know the case only through what counsel puts in front of them.

Forfeiture and asset recovery

Federal forfeiture can move against property before any conviction. Assets get restrained, and a client may find bank accounts frozen while the criminal case is still at an early stage. Recovering property involves its own filings and its own deadlines, and it runs parallel to the defense of the charge.

What the record shows

The firm publishes a clear picture of what it does and who does it. Three named attorneys, a founder identified by name, a stated combined trial experience figure, and a practice list that names specific offenses rather than broad categories.

Nathans & Ripke LLP does not publish case results or settlement figures on its site, which is common among criminal defense firms where client confidentiality limits what can be said about outcomes. As a reviewer, the verifiable material here is the attorney recognition, the bar admissions, and the specificity of the practice pages.

The Lawyers listings attach to Larry Allen Nathans individually and span 2008 to 2026. Bios for Booth M. Ripke and Robert W. Biddle are not detailed on the site, so their individual backgrounds are not part of the published record.

The firm's home base is Baltimore, with reach into the Washington, D.C. area and federal courts nationwide. Its lawyers hold bar admissions in five states plus the District of Columbia and the U.S. Supreme Court.