Valecia M. McDowell

For more than 25 years Valecia has brought her candor, pragmaticism, and diligence to bear on behalf of her clients, establishing herself as a go-to attorney in the investigations and compliance arenas. Valecia has experience conducting large scale internal and governmental investigations reviews across the United States, Europe, Asia, and South America, with specific knowledge and experience in the areas of consumer finance, financial crimes, and employee conduct risk, and DEI audits and legal compliance.

Valecia has represented clients in disputes, investigations, and negotiations involving domestic authorities, such as the Federal Reserve Board, OCC, CFPB, DOJ, SEC, HUD, FINRA, CFTC, DOA, OIG, Congress, State Attorneys General in the United States, and international authorities, including the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the Japanese Financial Services Agency (JFSA), and the Comissão de Valores Mobiliarios (the Brazilian Securities Commission). She frequently uses her years of project management experience to lead large scale and sensitive, confidential internal investigations and DEI legal assessments for Fortune 500 companies. For instance, Valecia led the team that published a racial equity audit report for CoreCivic, the largest private operator of corrections and detention facilities in the US.

Valecia has also served as a guest instructor at the Duke University School of Law for years, teaching a course on internal investigations, and has frequently been selected to speak regarding conduct risk management in the financial services industries at the SIFMA C&L Annual Seminar. Valecia has been recognized regionally and nationally for excellence in the law, Chambers USA, Best Lawyers in America, Legal 500 and Lawdragon. Valecia was one of ten, Innovative Legal Practitioners" identified by the London-based Financial Times in 2023 and was on Forbes Inaugural Top 200 Lawyers in America list in 2024. Valecia has also written or been featured in articles published by Bloomberg, American Banker, Corporate Compliance Insights, and Inside Counsel on the topics of internal investigations, financial services compliance, and risk management.

Representative Experience

Regulatory Defense and Internal Investigations

• Leading a team of more than 80 to conduct an enterprise wide risk analysis for a nation bank at the request of federal bank regulation 

• Leading a team of more than 30 to conduct a review of consumer sales practices for a national bank

• Defending False Claims allegations where mortgage company representatives were tried and convicted for fraud resulting in a resolution that successfully avoided payment of damages beyond the governments out of pocket losses 

• Conducting a public company investigation involving accounting irregularities and executive misconduct in the manufacturing industry

• Leading an investigation into allegations of public corruption on behalf of an international bank in South America

• Leading an effort to self-report potential health care billing irregularities to avoid false claims act liability

• Successfully representing a national bank in response to allegations of market manipulation lodged by various state attorneys general

• Conducting a highly publicized investigation on behalf of the City of Charlotte involving allegations of sexual harassment by a City Council Member

• Leading the team that published a shareholder demanded racial equity audit report for CoreCivic, the largest private operator of corrections and detention facilities in the US. (CoreCivic Racial Equity Audit Report)

Civil Litigation

Valecia also possesses significant trial, arbitration, and regulatory defense experience in complex, high-stakes cases, particularly in the financial services, healthcare, securities, manufacturing, and telecommunications industries. 

• Leading a team to obtain dismissal in a shareholder derivative class action lawsuit arising out of a $1.5 billion sales transaction for a publicly traded company

• Leading a team to obtain a favorable settlement for a national bank after commencement of jury selection in a federal consumer finance trial in South Carolina

• First chairing successful defense of Sarbanes-Oxley claims in Pennsylvania Administrative Hearing and on appeal before the Third Circuit

• Successfully arguing before the North Carolina Business Court on behalf of Bank of America in its shareholder derivative lawsuit relating to the acquisition of Merrill Lynch

• Trying a technical product development dispute before a jury, reducing the liability against our client by almost 90% and then successfully arguing the single remaining issue before the Eleventh Circuit, thereby eliminating all liability for out client

Notable

Valecia has been frequently recognized by her peers for excellence in the law:

• Forbes, America’s Best In-State Lawyers, 2025
• Forbes - Top 200 Lawyers in America, 2024
• Chambers USA - North Carolina, Litigation: General Commercial, 2014-2025, Litigation: White-Collar Crime & Government Investigations, 2021-2025

• Best Lawyers in America, Litigation - Securities "Lawyer of the Year," 2023, 2026; Arbitration "Lawyer of the Year," 2025
• Best Lawyers in America, 2013-present
• Legal 500 US, National Corporate Investigations White-Collar Criminal Defense, 2024-2025; City Elite Rankings - Charlotte Commercial Litigation, 2025

• Lawdragon’s 500 Leading Lawyers in America list, 2024-2025; 500 Leading Litigators in America list, 2023-2026

• Financial Times Innovative Lawyers North America, shortlisted for the "Innovative Practitioner” category, 2023
• Women in Business Law Awards Americas, Financial Regulation Lawyer Finalist, 2024
• Business Today Top 10 Powerhouse Lawyers Influencing White-Collar Crime Litigation in North Carolina List, 2023
• Charlotte Business Journal Power 100 List, 2023
• The Mecklenburg Times 50 Most Influential Women list, 2023
• Business North Carolina Legal Elite, Litigation, 2023
• Business North Carolina’s Power List, 2022-2023, 2025
• Super Lawyers, "Top 100" list North Carolina, 2017-2020, 2022-2025; “Top 25” list Charlotte, 2017-2025; "Top 50" list of Women North Carolina, 2020-2025; 2014-present
• Benchmark Litigation Future Stars, 2010-2017; Local Litigation Star, 2018-2026
• North Carolina Lawyers Weekly Power List, Business Defense, 2023
• Lawyers of Color "Nation's Best" list, 2019; Fifth Power List, 2020
• Julius L. Chambers Diversity Champion Award, 2017
• Senior Fellow, Litigation Counsel of America, 2009-present
• Member, Trial Law Institute
• Member, Diversity Law Institute
• Co-chair, Moore & Van Allen Inclusion & Belonging Committee
• Current Board Member, Leading on Opportunity’s Council
• Current Board Member, Duke University Law School’s Board of Visitors 
• Current Board Member, Charlotte Mecklenburg Community Foundation
• Current Board Member, Duke Law Alumnae Council
• Former General Counsel of the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce and Charlotte Regional Business Alliance 
• Former Board Chair, Arts & Science Council
• Former Board Chair, Community Building Initiative

News

Insights

Publications

• "Amotion sees resurgence after almost a decade”, NCLW

• "Racial Equity Audits: The New ESG Frontier" Bloomberg 

• "Diversity Culture Clashes: the Desire for and Backlash to DEI audits and interventions" Westlaw 

• "Shedding Light (without the spotlight)" Super Lawyers
• "Q&A with Moore & Van Allen's Valecia McDowell" Corporate Compliance
• "After SEC v. Graham, Have the Courts Limited the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act's Reach?" Westlaw Journal Derivatives
• "Work with Your State Attorneys General to Avoid Enforcement Actions" American Banker
• Co-author, "Risks to Consider When Contemplating a Deferred Prosecution Agreement", InsideCounsel.com
• Co-author, "5 Tips for Conducting High-Value Internal Investigations",  InsideCounsel.com
• Co-author, "6 Factors When Choosing Counsel in Internal Investigations", InsideCounsel.com
• Co-author, "How to Conduct Internal Investigations", InsideCounsel.com
• Co-author, "Lights, Action, Interview", InsideCounsel.com
• Co-author, "Beware of Blue Collar Techniques in White Collar Investigations", InsideCounsel.com
• Co-author, "The Nuts and Bolts of Internal Investigations", InsideCounsel.com
• Co-author, "Have Increased Government Investigations Remedied the Causes of the Financial Crisis?", Bloomberg Law Reports- Corporate Counsel
• E-Discovery in Arbitration: Leading Lawyers on Recovering Electronic Evidence, Meeting New Disclosure Guidelines and Implementing Measures to Streamline the Process (Aspatore Books’ Inside the Minds series).