White Collar Law: Pre-Indictment and Post-Indictment Strategy
Matters involving financial crimes, fraud and investigations by the SEC, the Department of Justice and the IRS, before charges and after them.
White Collar Law, Pre-Indictment & Post-Indictment Strategy and Team Building
What a white collar attorney does
White-collar attorneys specialize in representing individuals or businesses facing non-violent criminal charges related to financial crimes, fraud, embezzlement, insider trading, bribery, and other similar offenses.
They often work on cases involving complex legal issues, regulatory compliance, and investigations by government agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Department of Justice (DOJ), or the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
The right team, not just any team
The first decision a person makes in a white collar matter is usually the worst-informed one they will ever make about it, because it is made in the first days, under fear, on the advice of whoever happens to be nearest. Jeff Grant has written about that first call at length. The work at that moment is to step back and strategize rather than react, and to choose counsel deliberately.
Choosing deliberately means matching counsel to the case rather than to reputation. It means mapping the legal and the financial strategy together from the beginning, because each constrains the other. And it means working out early which specialists the matter will actually need, which commonly includes forensic accountants, certified fraud examiners, investigators, mitigation specialists and mental-health professionals.
What the process actually is
Expectations here are usually set by television and they are usually wrong. Jeff has written that fewer than 2% of white collar prosecutions have gone to trial over the past two decades, which means the process is overwhelmingly one of investigation, negotiation and sentencing advocacy rather than cross-examination.
That changes what matters in choosing counsel. A trial reputation is not the relevant qualification for a process that is not going to be a trial. What is relevant is judgment in dealing with prosecutors, and the ability to build the record that persuades them, and later the court.
Before charges, and after them
The work divides at indictment and the two halves ask for different things. Pre-indictment, the questions are about exposure, internal investigation, disclosure, and who needs to be in the room. Post-indictment, they are about strategy and about assembling and coordinating the team that will carry the matter.
GrantLaw, PLLC maintains a nationwide network of leading attorneys, investigators, forensic accountants, communications professionals, compliance specialists, and other experts, assembling the right team for each client’s unique circumstances while providing a single point of strategic leadership.
The costs nobody quotes at the start
A defense budget is not the same thing as the cost of the matter. Alongside counsel there is the team itself, and beyond the criminal case there may be restitution, fines, forfeiture, tax liability and family support obligations, most of which fall outside what a criminal attorney is retained to handle.
Spouses are the related point that gets missed. Their legal interests frequently diverge from the defendant’s, and Jeff has written that they are usually better served by their own independent counsel than by an assumption that the interests are aligned.
A perspective few attorneys have
Jeffrey D. Grant is the only attorney in the United States who served time in federal prison for a white collar crime and returned to the practice of white collar law. Having personally experienced crisis, accountability, loss, recovery, and redemption, he offers an uncommon combination of legal insight, empathy, resilience, and strategic perspective.
He is also co-founder of the White Collar Support Group, which has met online every week for hundreds of consecutive meetings, and which is how a great many clients hear his name long before they need a lawyer.
Jeff Grant on this subject
- 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.
- 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.
- Why White Collar Defendants Need a Private General Counsel: The GrantLaw ApproachWhy a criminal defense lawyer, however good, is not the person managing what the case does to a marriage, a payroll or a balance sheet.
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.
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- Dispute Prevention & ResolutionIdentifying risk before it becomes litigation, intervening while a matter can still be shaped, and guiding it from strategy through resolution.
- Second Opinions & Case ReviewA confidential read on where a matter actually stands, delivered alongside your existing attorneys and not in place of them.
- 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.