White Collar Crime News

When the FBI knocks, call an attorney June 3, 2009

Dealing with a smart client is like a breath of fresh air.  I just had a client on a major case hire me before saying or doing anything when the FBI came calling.  As a result, all options are on the table.  The client indicated that he had spoke to some other attorneys that had no plan, that he was screwed and that he should ask the FBI what they want.

What do you think they want?  To hang out?  To take a survey about your neighborhood?  No, they are looking to nail you to the wall.  Anything you say to them will help them and I mean anything. 

Of course, you can’t  win every single case like in the Devil’s advocate and when no charges are even filed yet, it is virtually impossible to tell a client that there is a 100% chance of any outcome.  I’ve seen some of the worst looking cases go nowhere for any number of reasons.  You are not convicted until you are convicted so until that happens, there is always a chance of winning the case or otherwise avoiding absolute disaster.

The other important aspect of a white collar crime case and one of the main reasons why the client hired me over the other attorneys that had spoken with or planned to meet with was that I had a plan.  There is too much “passive representation” or “reactive representation” which is when the attorney just waits for something to happen. 

I often say that I provide “aggressive representation” and that is just not a fancy tagline, especially in a white collar crime case. In these cases, there is a ton of work to do before a complaint is even filed.  Since there is so much work to do, I may charge a little more than another attorney would but my client today realized that his life is on the line and this is an emergency that needs to be dealt with right away.

There is no one way to handle every case, so I don’t have a cookie cutter plan that I put in place.  Instead, I create a plan with the client and the rest of my office.  My office has a proven track record of handling these cases so we are not working  just to keep busy.  We take the action necessary to fight for the client.  The other thing that the client liked is that my entire office works as a team on his case.  So he has three attorneys with over 40 years combined experience in addition to our entire support staff working together on the case.

This is going to be a major case so it’ll be interesting to see how it develops and how my strategy works in this case.  I’ll post updates as I can but I will be limited in what I can disclose.