Second Opinions and Case Review
A confidential read on where a matter actually stands, delivered alongside your existing attorneys and not in place of them.
Second Opinions & Case Review
An independent read, alongside your existing counsel
Sometimes we serve as lead counsel; other times we work alongside existing attorneys as a confidential strategic advisor. A second opinion is the second of those: an independent assessment of where a matter stands, what the realistic options are, and whether the right people are on it, without displacing the lawyers already doing the work.
Asking for one is not a vote of no confidence. In a matter of any size it is ordinary diligence, and it is a great deal cheaper than finding out eighteen months later.
What a review looks at
Whether the assessment of exposure is right, and whether it has been tested against the documents rather than assumed. Whether the strategy follows from that assessment or from habit. And whether the team is the team this matter needs: Jeff Grant has written about the difference between the right team and simply a team, and about how often a team is assembled in the first frightened week and then never revisited.
It also looks at the money. Where the retainer is actually going, whether the forensic and investigative work the matter needs has been budgeted at all, and what the exposure looks like beyond the case itself, including restitution, fines, forfeiture and tax.
When people ask for one
Usually at a hinge. An offer has been made. A strategy has been proposed that the client does not understand. The costs have moved a long way from the estimate. Or the relationship with counsel has quietly become one in which questions feel unwelcome.
We help clients identify risks and evaluate options, and coordinate the right team of legal and business professionals. In a review that is the whole of the job, delivered as a view rather than as a takeover.
Jeff Grant on this subject
- 9 Tips for Hiring a White Collar Criminal Defense LawyerWhy fewer than 2% of these cases reach trial, what a defense actually costs, and why spouses usually need their own lawyer.
- The First Call: Choosing the Right Legal Team for Your White Collar ProsecutionThe first days: choosing counsel deliberately rather than reactively, and mapping the legal and financial strategy together.
Other practice areas
- Private General CounselThe access of an in-house general counsel, without the cost of one. Ongoing judgment for executives, entrepreneurs, professionals and family businesses.
- White Collar LawMatters involving financial crimes, fraud and investigations by the SEC, the Department of Justice and the IRS, before charges and after them.
- Closely-Held & Family BusinessesWhere the business, the balance sheet and the family are the same conversation. Counsel for owners facing legal, business, family and reputational questions at once.
- Dispute Prevention & ResolutionIdentifying risk before it becomes litigation, intervening while a matter can still be shaped, and guiding it from strategy through resolution.
- Nationwide with Local Co-CounselA nationwide network of attorneys, investigators, forensic accountants and compliance specialists, assembled per matter, with a single point of strategic leadership.