Howard Foster is a nationally recognized racketeering lawyer, who has practiced law for 30+ years and represented individuals and corporations in RICO cases for 20+ years. A graduate of Brandeis University and Boston University Law School, Howard has litigated many civil RICO cases in federal courts throughout the nation and in the U.S. Supreme Court. He is also the first lawyer in the country to successfully use RICO against companies that compete unfairly by using illegal immigrant labor.
The case, Commercial Cleaning Services v. Colin Service Systems, 271 F.3d 374 (2d Cir. 2001), was reported on by The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The National Law Journal, numerous law review articles, and was even summarized in a YouTube video.
Howard went on to use RICO on behalf of American workers who now have the right to sue their employers to redress wage depression caused by hiring illegal immigrants. See Mendoza v. Zirkle Fruit Co., 301 F.3d 1163 (9th Cir. 2002), Trollinger v. Tyson Foods, 370 F.3d 602 (6th Cir. 2004), and Williams v. Mohawk Industries, 465 F.3d 1277 (11th Cir. 2006). The Mohawk case reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 2006. Howard, along with the Department of Justice, argued on behalf of the legal American workers. The case ultimately settled for $18 million, which went to the American workers in the form of back pay for each hour worked. Nevertheless, he believes Mohawk and the other large Georgia carpet mills continue to use massive numbers of illegal immigrants in order to depress wages. He is investigating this and may bring new cases.
Howard has used RICO against property management companies that force their tenants to use union labor to improve their offices, a pervasive practice in states without right-to-work laws. See Wacker Drive Executive Suites LLC v. Jones Lang LaSalle Americas (Illinois), LP, 2019 WL 2270000 (N.D. Il. 2019); Goddess and the Baker Wacker LLC v. Sterling Bay Companies, 592 F. Supp. 3d 746 (N.D. Ill. 2022). He believes the National Labor Relations Act is unconstitutional as it subjects employers to extortionate “collective bargaining.” He hopes to challenge this landmark law soon in a way that may appeal to the current makeup of the Supreme Court.
He also defends individuals subjected to frivolous RICO cases including Puerto Rico businessman, Fahad Ghaffar, in the RICO case brought by prominent self-described billionaire, John Paulson. See Paulson PRV Holdings LLC v. Ghaffar, 23-1521 (D.P.R.).
Howard is currently representing numerous businesses in RICO cases involving fraud, theft, extortion, embezzlement, white collar crimes, conspiracy charges, loansharking, piracy, and more. Howard litigates and consults on civil RICO cases around the country, in which individuals and businesses have been defrauded and/or otherwise victimized by the many forms of racketeering activity that plague the economy.
Howard has also taught civil RICO at the Chicago-Kent College of Law of the Illinois Institute of Technology.