Michael Kades

As a Partner at Nachawati Law Group, Michael Kades leads the firm’s newly launched antitrust practice, expanding its Public Entity Litigation Division to include comprehensive antitrust and competition enforcement capabilities. His work enables governmental clients to pursue coordinated, high-impact civil enforcement actions to protect markets, taxpayers, and consumers from corporate misconduct. Michael’s practice complements the firm’s established work in consumer protection, public nuisance, fraud, and data privacy, creating a full-service platform for public entities nationwide.

Michael joins the firm from the U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division, where he served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Enforcement from 2022 to 2025. In that role, he supervised some of the nation’s most significant antitrust investigations and litigation, including matters involving Apple, Visa, American Airlines, JetBlue, UnitedHealthcare, and Agri Stats. He also spearheaded the Division’s successful effort to revitalize enforcement of the Packers and Stockyards Act and helped develop major policy initiatives, including the 2023 Merger Guidelines and new enforcement approaches addressing labor monopsony and digital platform competition.

Prior to his service at DOJ, Michael was Director of Markets and Competition Policy at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, where he built a nationally recognized program examining the effects of market power on consumers, workers, and innovation. He frequently testified before Congress and co-authored influential research that helped shape the modern competition policy agenda.

Earlier in his career, Michael spent nearly two decades at the Federal Trade Commission, serving in senior litigation and policy roles. As Deputy Chief Trial Counsel, he was a lead architect of the Commission’s strategy in FTC v. Actavis, the landmark Supreme Court case redefining pharmaceutical patent settlement law. He also directed numerous pharmaceutical, healthcare, and merger investigations that resulted in significant consumer relief. Michael additionally served on detail as Antitrust Counsel to Senator Amy Klobuchar, where he helped draft and advance bipartisan antitrust legislation, including the CREATES Act and the Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act.

Michael began his legal career as a law clerk to the Honorable John W. Reynolds of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, before joining the FTC as a trial attorney. He also served as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, where he tried six cases to verdict.