Erin Nealy Cox, Executive Managing Director and Deputy General Counsel of Stroz Friedberg, heads the firm's Dallas office. In this capacity, Ms. Nealy Cox manages the office’s overall operations, including supervising the digital forensics laboratory and staff, while maintaining a full docket of client assignments in the areas of digital forensics, cybercrime investigations, data breach response, and electronic discovery processing. She supervises numerous digital forensic and electronic discovery assignments for government agencies, major law firms, and corporate management and information systems departments in criminal, civil, regulatory, and internal corporate matters, including matters involving e-forgery, wiping, mass deletion and other forms of spoliation, leaks of confidential information, and computer-enabled theft of trade secrets. Ms. Nealy Cox is a trusted advisor to top executives, in-house lawyers, and outside counsel on the technical and strategic aspects of such matters.
In a highly significant development, Ms. Nealy Cox was named Special Master to review issues relating to electronic evidence in HFG Enclave Land Interests v. Enclave at Forney Branch LTD--the same case that prompted the Texas Supreme Court's important eDiscovery opinion in In Re: Weekley Homes, L.P., on remand in Dallas County District Court.
Prior to joining Stroz Friedberg, Ms. Nealy Cox was as an Assistant U.S. Attorney (AUSA) for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Texas for nearly ten years. While there, Ms. Nealy Cox served as the Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property Coordinator for four years and was appointed to a nation-wide working group responsible for coordinating and prosecuting complex cyber-crime cases across the United States. In her role as a federal prosecutor, she was responsible for prosecuting all types of federal crimes, including white collar fraud, public corruption, intellectual property theft, child exploitation, narcotic offenses, and cyber-based crimes. She also argued several criminal appellate cases before the Fifth and Second Circuit Courts of Appeal.
Among the high profile cases that Ms. Nealy Cox worked on as an AUSA were United States v. Fuchs, et al., a ground breaking online pharmaceutical conspiracy case that resulted in the first conviction of an online pharmacist under the “drug kingpin” statute; and United States v. Andy Nguyen, et al., a 22-defendant white collar case concerning a massive insurance fraud scam that involved over 70 staged accidents in North Texas. In another notable case involving the theft of intellectual property from a leading U.S. retailer by a former employee, Ms. Nealy Cox successfully advanced a novel theory of valuing loss, which led to a multimillion dollar valuation in favor of the victimized company.
During her tenure with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Ms. Nealy Cox was deployed to Main Justice in Washington, D.C., to serve as senior counsel to the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Office of Legal Policy (OLP). In less than a year, Ms. Nealy Cox was appointed Chief of Staff. In this leadership position, she directed tactical operations for the office. The OLP coordinates the Department’s highest priority legislative initiatives and focuses on counter-terrorism strategies as well as improving traditional law enforcement and criminal justice efforts. While at OLP, Ms. Nealy Cox contributed to the formulation of policy on key issues relating to federal sentencing, child exploitation, online pharmacies, and gang violence. Her responsibilities included drafting legislation and briefing senior ranking members, including the Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney General, and staff members of the House and Senate Judiciary committees.
Prior to her work in government, Ms. Nealy Cox was a litigation associate at Carrington, Coleman, Sloman & Blumenthal in Dallas and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in New York. Ms. Nealy Cox held judicial clerkships for The Honorable H. Barefoot Sanders, U.S. Senior District Judge for the Northern District of Texas and The Honorable Henry A. Politz, then Chief Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Ms. Nealy Cox received her B. A. from the University of Texas at Austin, and her J.D. cum laude, from Southern Methodist School of Law, where she served on the SMU Law Review Association as Articles Editor. She also received the SMU School of Law Merit Scholarship and is licensed by the bars in Texas and New York.