Big thanks to Tom Fox for having me on his podcast, Innovation in Compliance. Tom is a leader in the compliance world; kudos to him for seeing the relationship between corporate compliance and transformational services to support the defendants and their families, and help them to find new ethical pathways. In this conversation, we discussed in depth our online White Collar Support Group that meets on Zoom on Monday evenings. A must-listen if you are a regulator, compliance professional, attorney or someone in the throes of these problems. – Jeff
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Tom Fox read about Jeff Grant’s work in The New Yorker and was intrigued, so he invited him on this week’s show. Tom describes Jeff’s work as “an unusual professional passion”. Listeners will be inspired by Jeff’s story: what led to his arrest and prison sentence, his redemption, and how he now helps others recover.
Listen on Megaphone:
Show Notes:
“I Was the Problem”
Becoming a lawyer was the perfect fit for Jeff’s skill set and attitude, he tells Tom, but it was “very bad for me in terms of bipolar disorder and my alcohol and drug abuse.” He describes his descent into white-collar crime, his subsequent arrest and resignation from his law practice. A suicide attempt, intervention, and a stint in rehab all contributed to his ‘aha moment’ and the road to recovery. “I was the one who had been doing things wrong, and I didn’t really realize that the whole time,” he recalls. “…that was the turning point that I realized that I was the problem.”
Progressive Prison Ministries
Tom asks Jeff what led him to found Progressive Prison Ministries. Going to prison sober was the catalyst, Jeff replies. He stayed sober throughout his sentence, and on his release, he started to volunteer at criminal justice and drug and alcohol nonprofits. He also went to seminary and became an ordained minister. “I just wanted to help people who were in the same situation we were in,” he tells listeners. He had to go it alone, but he wanted others like him to have someone to turn to for support. “We started this ministry to serve and support people who have been prosecuted for white-collar crimes and their families… It’s people in isolation all over the country who have no one to talk to and no one who understands their plight… We offer them a helping hand both emotionally and spiritually, and also a lot of practical information as well.”
12-Step Approach
Jeff’s approach to helping white-collar offenders recover is based on the Alcoholics Anonymous 12-step program. Unlike AA meetings, however, his meetings are facilitated by leaders. The act of sponsoring someone is ministering to them, he says; your sponsor gives you a lot of advice, in a 12-step sort of way. “The spirit of the steps are there,” he tells Tom. What’s more powerful to him, however, is the fellowship. The Monday meeting is only a small part of it, he tells Tom. He explains how they match members together, and that they keep in contact throughout the week. “It’s like being a cop,” he remarks, “you’re on the job 24 hours a day, and being in recovery is being in recovery 24 hours a day… So this is really a 24-hour a day support network.”
Supporting the Families
Tom asks, “How does the family work into white-collar recovery?” They often have it worse than the defendant, Jeff answers, because they are usually unaware of what the defendant has been doing, and reality hits them “between the eyes with something like an arrest or the FBI showing up at the door.” He comments on the high incidence of divorce and family estrangement and laments that recovery is not advanced even in his network. However, they welcome everyone who needs them, he points out. “We want to provide a place of support and comfort for anybody who doesn’t have a built-in support network or is estranged from their support networks.”
Supporting Attorneys and GrantLaw PLLC
“I was really intrigued by some of the information on your website, one of which was that the white-collar support group can help attorneys struggling to cope with a broken justice system,” Tom comments. He asks Jeff to explain more about this. We try to help attorneys understand the humanity of white-collar offenders, Jeff responds. “We try to bring a full picture to a very complicated situation that people tend to want to paint with a very broad brush.” He is happy that more defense attorneys, prosecutors, judges, and probation officers want to learn how to integrate Jeff’s theology to be “more just and more merciful and perhaps more lenient” in their dealings with white-collar defendants. He and Tom discuss his own law practice. His entire practice now is with white-collar attorneys, he says. He shares examples of how he helped defendants revise their strategy by asking the right questions. Tom asks him to advise attorneys who may be struggling themselves with the same problems he did. The first step is to admit you have a problem, he says. He outlines the avenues – both personally and professionally – where help is available.
Bill Livolsi is a Member of our White Collar Support Group that meets online on Zoom on Monday evenings.
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When Is The ‘Right’ Time?
Anyone who has been involved with the criminal justice system asks these questions:
What’s the right time to tell my family? What is the right time to tell my employer? What’s the right time to tell my friends and colleagues? What’s the right time in a social setting? Is there ever a right time? How do I tell anyone?
I have come to believe that these conversations need to happen, sooner rather than later. The topic needs to be broached, otherwise it’s a sack of bricks we silently carry everywhere we go. And it gets heavier and heavier with the passage of time.
Keeping secrets is corrosive, but these are hard conversations to have.
We are reluctant to have the difficult conversations surrounding our criminal justice issues. We’re afraid of rejection, we’re afraid of judgment and we’re afraid of being ostracized. All pretty normal fears.
Anyone who knows me knows that I believe in disclosing our situation to our employer, or prospective employer, sooner rather than later. I feel that keeping it a secret is in the long run counter-productive to our employment prospects. When they find out, and they will find out, having kept it hidden only reinforces the notion that we are, among other things, untrustworthy.
What about the numerous other situations we’ll encounter in our lives? Let me share a story from this past week at work.
I was paired for a day-long task with another one of my coworkers. We had never worked together before. The task at hand gave us ample opportunity to have a conversation while we were working.
As we were comparing our relative experience with our employer they told me how grateful they were to have this job because it was so difficult to find work as they were on federal probation.
BOOM, there it was!
Here I was thinking of ways I was going to broach the topic with them (at some yet to be determined ‘right time’) and they got there first. I felt good that they were comfortable sharing this part of their life with me. Then I felt a sense of relief as I shared my situation. As we continued our conversation throughout the afternoon we found that we had so much in common irrespective of the differences in our convictions. It was a really good day.
I’ve been thinking about this experience and here are some thoughts I’ve come away with.
Prior to that moment did I have any inkling they had a felony conviction? No! And the same is true for them about me, they had no idea. Did we have large F’s stamped on our foreheads? Obviously not. Yet we both were silently keeping the same secret, until we weren’t.
It felt very good to be able to talk openly about our experience free of judgment and not having to hide something so impactful in our lives.
Too often I forget that there are hundreds of thousands of men and women in our society carrying around the same guilt, shame and fear of judgement that I am. They are the checkout person at the grocery store, they cut my hair, they’re my plumber, they’re my electrician, they are the men and women I work with.
I am very mindful of the fact that not every experience that I will have, or you will have, is going to be pleasant. I have had plenty of unpleasant ones in the past. Sometimes my worst fears will be realized; I will be judged, or rejected.
So, is there ever a right time? And with whom do I share? I don’t really know for sure, but I do know this much – the more I hold it inside, the more energy I expend keeping my secret, my sense of isolation will never truly end.
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Bill Livolsi is a Life Coach supporting the white collar justice community and a volunteer with Progressive Prison Ministries. He helps men and women facing prosecution for white collar and non-violent crimes navigate their journey – including rebuilding their lives after prison. He was prosecuted for a white collar crime and spent 13 months in Federal prison. Bill can be reached at whitecollarcoaching.com.
Huge thanks to Rich Roll for including my visit to his podcast (Ep. 440) in his MasterClass on Addiction & Recovery. What a gift and blessing to be among these incredible interviewees to share our stories and offer hope to others suffering from the disease of addiction. – Jeff
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Watch on YouTube:
The third in an ongoing series of curated deep dives, today’s show is a masterclass on addiction & recovery, featuring personal stories of sobriety from past guests & wisdom from lauded mental health experts.
Guests featured in this episode (all hyperlinked to their respective episodes) include:
NEW TO RICH? Hi I’m Rich Roll. I’m a vegan ultra-endurance athlete, author, podcaster, public speaker & wellness evangelist. But mainly I’m a dad of four. If you want to know more, visit my website or check out these two the NY Times articles: http://bit.ly/otillonyt , http://bit.ly/vegansglam
(Reuters) – The statistics have become depressingly familiar: Lawyers have significantly higher levels of problem drinking, substance abuse, anxiety and depression when compared with the general population.
The toll isn’t just personal. Clients can suffer if their counsel is impaired. The question is, what to do about it? How should bar authorities respond when a lawyer’s misconduct stems from addiction or mental health issues?
A new report by the New York State Bar Association on lawyer well-being dives into these questions and the feasibility of diversion programs for lawyers with substance abuse or mental health issues and who are facing disciplinary actions as a result.
These programs allow a court to stay an investigation or proceeding and direct the lawyer to an appropriate treatment and monitoring program. The report authors urge such options to be expanded to all disciplinary proceedings and applied “in the broadest possible fashion.”
It sounds enlightened and compassionate — but making it work is likely to prove challenging.
New York has had a diversion program in place since 2016, but the report authors note that few lawyers have taken advantage of it.
The Albany-based Appellate Division, Third Department, for example, “has seen only a handful of diversion applications over the past five years, with only one such proceeding reaching successful fruition,” according to the report.
Why don’t more lawyers see this as a lifeline? After all, it could be a chance to enter recovery and halt a potentially ruinous disciplinary action. As the report authors noted, potential beneficiaries “include the impaired lawyer, the lawyer’s family, partners, employees and clients, as well as the courts and the legal profession as a whole.”
But lawyers tend to be reluctant to seek help out of a deep-rooted fear of professional consequences, Patrick Krill, an attorney who advises law firms on well-being matters, told me.
“The message from the beginning of the law school experience is ‘Thou shalt not practice law while impaired,’” Krill said. “There’s less discussion about the disease of addiction.”
The result is a pervasive fear of being “perceived as impaired” that makes lawyers disinclined to let anyone know, he continued. “They keep it hidden and it grows and gets worse.”
That’s what happened to Jeff Grant.
“I was an alcoholic and a drug addict and living double life,” Grant, who regained his New York law license earlier this year after losing it in 2002, told me. (I wrote previously about Grant here.)
There was no diversion program when his world as head of a small firm in Mamaroneck, New York, started to fall apart 20-odd years ago. I asked if he thought such program might have made a difference or prevented his downfall, which culminated in serving 14 months in federal prison for fraudulently obtaining a loan.
“I’d like to believe it would,” he said. But at the same time, Grant also said that “nothing was going to get through to me before hitting bottom.”
In the roughly 9,000 (yes, 9,000) recovery meetings he’s attended in the last 19 years, he added, “I’ve never met anyone who was ready to get help before hitting bottom.”
The report’s authors — dozens of lawyers served on the task force that created the 167-page document — recognize this is an obstacle.
As is, the program “contemplates a lawyer ready, willing and able to seek treatment at the time when the disciplinary investigation or proceeding remains pending,” they wrote. “All too often, the attorney’s threshold acknowledgment of impairment or condition comes only after the disciplinary process has resolved disfavorably.”
In other words, it happens when the lawyer hits bottom and it’s too late for a diversion. (Though successful treatment can certainly help a lawyer get reinstated.)
Anecdotally, the report’s authors said they found many attorneys prefer to “take their chances” with the outcome of a disciplinary investigation rather than admitting to a problem. After all, most professional misconduct complaints are ultimately dismissed or resolved via confidential letters of advisement or admonitions.
Asking for a diversion means lawyers “not only expose themselves to the vulnerability of raising a mental or physical health condition or impairment, but could also be subject to the rigors and requirements of a monitoring program for a period of a year or more. Further, while a diversion order is confidential, some attorneys may still be reluctant to have any order issued that addresses their underlying condition or impairment.”
Both Krill and Grant, while supportive of robust diversion alternatives, also urge more attorney outreach and education about substance abuse and mental health issues starting in law school and continuing via mandatory CLE.
“If we as lawyers knew from day one if you start to experience mental health or substance abuse problems that there is track available to get help, and that it will insulate your (law) license somewhat from disciplinary problems,” Krill said, “I think we’d see a lot more” lawyers seeking help.
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Jenna Greene writes about legal business and culture, taking a broad look at trends in the profession, faces behind the cases, and quirky courtroom dramas. A longtime chronicler of the legal industry and high-profile litigation, she lives in Northern California. Reach Greene at [email protected].
Bill Livolsi is a Member of our White Collar Support Group that meets online on Zoom on Monday evenings.
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Spending an extended period of time alone can be a good thing. In my case, the forced solitude of federal prison provided me an opportunity to confront the many personal issues I had neglected for years.
FCI El Reno was to be my ‘home’ for 20 months. I self-surrendered in late March 2019. Not surprisingly, I didn’t want to be there, but there was nothing to be done about that. I was at the Camp. It was not a physically threatening environment but I didn’t press my luck. That said, prison was an extremely difficult experience. For me, and for many of the men I served time with, the worst aspect of our prison sentence was the isolation from children, family and close friends (those who remained).
I think about my time at El Reno almost daily. I’m very grateful it’s behind me. Yet strangely, there are things I miss, namely the unspoken bond that forms between those who share a common hardship. I was in the company of other men struggling with issues similar to my own. We shared these burdens with each other within our small group.
My first month at ‘The El Reno Resort and Spa’ (it was none of those things) flew by. There was so much to get accustomed to and to learn. It was as if I was dropped into a strange world where the language, customs and culture I knew no longer applied. Every day brought something new.
By the time summer came, I was pretty well acclimated and I found myself in the middle of a very real identity crisis. I was at one of the lowest points I had ever been. I felt trapped in my own head, and was trapped behind bars. My days were consumed with existential questions: How did I get here? Why did I get here? Who am I, really? Do I have any redeeming value to my children, my family, to anyone?
An unspoken fear of many who are incarcerated is that ‘people and events’ will conspire and you will never be allowed to leave. The prison rumor mill (inmate.com) was full of these tales. Such fears are silly and irrational to those looking in from the outside, but when you’re inside they feel very real. When I finally understood the truth, that my incarceration was not indefinite, and it would come to an end by December 2020, I began working though the issues and choices that brought me to that place. Slowly I began rebuilding my self-esteem, my self-worth, who I was, and who I will be.
Wayne Dyer said “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” As my rebuilding process unfolded I began to pay close attention to the good in my life and in the small things that previously went unnoticed. I found gratitude, a sense of normalcy and a little peace of mind.
Across highway 66 from the prison there is a huge wind farm. For a time I barely gave it a second look but it became an unending source of fascination for me. There are hundreds of turbines as far as the eye can see. The blades on all the turbines move in unison. Hundreds of blades moving together like gigantic swiss watches, keeping perfect time. When I focused on it, as I often did, I was mesmerized. I also realized that the direction of the turbines depends upon which way the wind is blowing (common sense, I know). Their directional movements were a mystery to me. One minute they were facing north, 10 minutes later they were facing west. So cool. And each structure is built in near perfect alignment with each other, one behind the next, and the next and the next, like a giant chess board. And depending on the time of day and the weather conditions, the visual effects could be stunning. When a storm would move in from the west or the north, which they often did, I would watch the structures slowly disappear, one by one by one, into the heavy cloud cover. It seemed like each day brought me a new revelation.
El Reno also has its own municipal airport, which isn’t unusual for Oklahoma. All sorts of planes would fly in and out. Small, single prop planes were the most frequent. They are a useful tool oil companies use for visual inspections of pipelines and drilling sites. These planes, and others, are easy to identify by sight but what I found fun was listening to the different engine sounds. High pitch or low, high revs/low revs, prop or jet. Sometimes I would sit on one of the outside benches, or lay on the warm cement of the abandoned tennis court, eyes closed, as the sound of the engine would soothe whatever was on my mind. Occasionally a certain engine sound would remind me of the many times I was on the beach in Sea Isle City, New Jersey and I would visualize a bi-plane flying by with it’s banner tow. All that was missing was the sound of the sea gulls and the waves, which my imagination gladly supplied.
Some mornings, if the breeze was just right, I knew they were cooking bacon behind the fence at the medium security facility. I love bacon. It wasn’t served to us lowly Campers. It made me think of home.
I learned to identify certain people’s footfalls on the walking track, sight unseen.
I enjoyed watching the feral cats hunting in the nearby field.
The smell of diesel fumes would let me know the back-up generators were running.
I knew it was noon when the town would test it’s tornado sirens.
I could tell by smell if there was a nearby brush fire (and the Camp fire crew would soon be called out).
And at all times of the day I would catch a whiff of burning tobacco coming from behind the out-buildings near the walking track.
I became strangely attached to these small things. They were all part of my ‘new normal’ existence.
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Lately I have been thinking about the things that bring joy and gratitude to my life right now. There is the most obvious – being home. Now I am able to be truly present for my children, grandchildren, and family. There is more: helping fellow travelers during their CJ journey, a job that helps to support our household, receiving a phone call, cooking, food shopping, fabric softener (if you’ve been to prison you’ll understand), or watching my garden grow.
In the years I was dealing with my prosecution and the run up to prison I often lost sight, perhaps understandably, of what I should be grateful for. My prison journey gave me the chance to find peace and gratitude in small things, in a very strange place. Perhaps I could have learned this lesson without going to prison, but I’ll never know for sure. Regardless, I have a deep sense of gratitude that I am able to recognize them and enjoy them now.
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Bill Livolsi is a Life Coach supporting the white collar justice community and a volunteer with Progressive Prison Ministries. He helps men and women facing prosecution for white collar and non-violent crimes navigate their journey – including rebuilding their lives after prison. He was prosecuted for a white collar crime and spent 13 months in Federal prison. Bill can be reached at whitecollarcoaching.com.
An attorney who is in recovery from addiction to alcohol and opiates relates five warning signs of addiction for other lawyers. Jeff Grant, who was disbarred but recently regained his license, discusses what to look for in oneself or in others.
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Recognizing the warning signs of addiction is a spectacularly difficult thing to do when you are deep in in the throes.
I should know.
I’m a lawyer who became addicted to prescription opioids, was disbarred and then served almost 14 months in federal prison for a white-collar crime. Step-by-step, lesson-by-lesson, I worked my way through my ordeal.
On May 5, 2021, my law license was reinstated by the Supreme Court of the State of New York. On Aug. 10, 2021, I celebrated 19 years of sobriety.
Here are some warning signs I wish I had recognized before I got clean and sober.
Plate Spinning
As the head of a law firm, I had hundreds of plates spinning up in the air, maybe thousands. It was all way too much, especially on a daily ration of alcohol and prescription opioids. Incredibly, I was still able to show up for work, show up for clients, and become even more successful—until I wasn’t.
I became burned out and exhausted, ravaged by over a decade of abuse. But I couldn’t find an elegant way out of my situation.
Lesson learned: Things did not get better until I let the plates crash to the floor.
Imperceptible Changes
I couldn’t see theday-to-day changes. But if I had been able to pull back and view my life in five-year slices, it would have been painfully obvious. My weight had blown up to 285 pounds. I was vomiting up blood from anxiety, spending way more money than I was making, and taking out home equity loans to subsidize my lifestyle. Family vacations had gone from resorts in exotic locations to using frequent flyer miles to pay for cheaper hotels.
Lesson learned: I was suffering both the distortion of perception and the distortion of thinking.
Leading a Double Life
Of course, I became a master at hiding things from my family, friends, colleagues, and clients. Or so I thought. But eventually there were too many empty liquor bottles and pill vials, and too many missed appointments, too many excuses to hide. The day came when the jig was up.
Lesson learned: I was really only fooling myself.
‘I Can Do it Tomorrow’
I thought I had the luxury of unlimited time. Why do today what I could put off until tomorrow? But it’s funny, the days turned into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years. When I woke up from my stupor, a decade had gone by, as did the promise of a young man’s happiness and success.
Lesson learned: Every day is a precious gift.
Savior Syndrome
And yet, I had good, solid advice for everyone else. I thought I was high functioning and a bastion of the community as I was a softball coach, on the school board, a confidant and friend to everyone around me. When the truth came out, no wonder they were all so disappointed and hurt that they stopped talking to me. I had deceived them all into thinking I was stable enough for the responsibilities of being a good friend, lawyer, and citizen.
Lesson learned: Like passengers’ instructions on an airplane, I had to put the oxygen mask on myself before I could help others.
The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing But the Truth
The truth—what a concept? The road to recovery was paved in my acceptance that I was an alcoholic and drug addict. In living one day at a time. In doing estimable acts. In doing the next right thing and turning over the outcome.
Lesson learned: There is a solution—not for those who need it but for those who want it.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. or its owner.
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Jeff Grant practices law at GrantLaw PLLC in New York City. He serves as private general counsel for people and businesses prosecuted for white collar federal and state offenses and other personal and business crisis situations.
This is perhaps my most incisive podcast ever (at least I think so). How could it not be, as I was interviewed by Prof. Sydney Finkelstein of the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. A must-listen if you and/or someone you care about have been prosecuted for a white collar crime. – Jeff
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Episode Summary:
He is addicted to prescription opioids, he attempts suicide, he’s found guilty of white-collar crime and serves 13 months in prison. Now he’s out, free, and has a chance to do something good for others, and himself, with the rest of his life. This was, and is, Jeff Grant, and on this episode of The Sydcast we hear his story. Link to Sydcast on Art19.com: https://art19.com/shows/the-sydcast/episodes/b6473d6d-3cc5-4484-b4ba-42ddad226991.
Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life.
Jeff Grant
After an addiction to prescription opioids and serving almost fourteen months in a Federal prison (2006 – 07) for a white-collar crime he committed in 2001 when he was lawyer, Jeff started his own reentry – earning a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York, majoring in Social Ethics. After graduating from divinity school, Jeff was called to serve at an inner city church in Bridgeport, CT as Associate Minister and Director of Prison Ministries. He then co-founded Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc. (Greenwich, CT), the world’s first ministry serving the white collar justice community.
On May 5, 2021, Jeff’s law license was reinstated by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York.
Now again in private practice, Jeff is an attorney and counselor-at-law providing private general counsel, legal crisis management, and dispute strategy and management services to individuals and families, real estate organizations, family-owned and closely-held businesses, the white collar justice community, and special situation and pro bono clients. He practices in New York and in authorized Federal matters, and works with local co-counsel to represent clients throughout country
For over 20 years Jeff served as managing attorney of a 20+ employee law firm headquartered in New York City, and then Westchester County, NY. Among other practice areas, the firm engaged in representation of family-owned/closely held businesses and their owners, business and real estate transactions, trusts and estates, and litigation. Jeff also served as outside General Counsel to large family-owned real estate equities, management and brokerage organizations, in which role he retained, coordinated and oversaw the work of many specialty law firms, including white collar defense firms.
Insights from this Episode
Why Jeff wanted to become an attorney
Family struggles Jeff went through during his auto-medication addiction problems
How Jeff ended up in prison and what his experience was
The steps of Jeff’s return journey to life after prison
How Jeff supports white-collar criminals
Patterns of white-collar crimes
Institutional challenges towards fraud
Quotes from the Show:
“I became addicted and slowly I started to deteriorate where I couldn’t show up at work anymore and I couldn’t run my firm even though it was continuing to be successful” – Jeff Grant [12:11]
“I was betting my livelihood and health of my family and my future in ways that were just reckless” – Jeff Grant [17:02]
“I learned more about human nature and respect and care and character in prison than I’ve learned in my entire life.” – Jeff Grant [24:48]
“[About his early life as a successful attorney] Positional power and money bought me the illusion that I had anything important to say and that anybody ever cared what I had to say, and the truth was that I was just a narcissistic mess” – Jeff Grant [27:18]
“I’m afraid that what we are doing is that we are teaching business leaders and political leaders…we are teaching them the wrong values” – Jeff Grant [50:17]
“[About people who make fraud] It’s not okay to take advantage of the system so long as you, either don’t get caught or if you do get caught, you won’t get prosecuted for it” – Jeff Grant [50:34]
Fellow Travelers Mike Neubig and Jeff Grant are featured in this article, and are members of of our White Collar Support Group that meets online on Zoom on Monday evenings.
Pour yourself a cup of coffee, because this is quite a read.
Who’s more despicable: a thief who robs a 7-11 at gunpoint, or Elizabeth Holmes, the former billionaire (on paper) accused of perpetrating a massive fraud with her blood-testing company, Theranos?
It may be easier for the armed robber to be forgiven than Holmes. He wasn’t born and raised in an environment of privilege. She had everything.
There are several programs helping “blue-collar” ex-felons find jobs and start life over after prison, but there are no such programs for white-collar ex-cons. (“White collar” traditionally describes a nonviolent crime involving financial fraud.)
“You had your chance and you blew it,” says Mike Neubig, a former CEO convicted of lying to investors. He’s struggled to find steady work, and he realizes that most people couldn’t care less. He says their message is, “We don’t have sympathy,” but he asks, “How long do you want us punished?”
Even in a tight labor market, where accountants in particular are in high demand, few companies will take a risk on someone who’s broken trust in the past.
There are tens of thousands of highly skilled men and women who’ve done their time and need to go back to work. They’re testing different interview strategies. Some succeed, some don’t, and now some of these former inmates are leaning on each other. “White-collar guys are smart,” one told me.
Meet three men who explain what they did wrong, what’s next, and what you need to know if you ever end up in prison.
THE HIGH-PROFILE AUDITOR CAUGHT IN AN FBI STING
I was surprised several months ago when Scott London reached out to me on LinkedIn with a nice message about an online forum I moderated. Surprised, because the last time we saw each other was in 2013, when I was chasing Scott around a federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles after he was arrested by the FBI.
But Scott London is a nice guy.
A nice guy who broke the law.
Scott was a senior partner in the Los Angeles office of auditing giant KMPG. He gave a friend, Brian Shaw, insider information on a couple of companies, and Shaw used that information to trade shares and make about $1.6 million.
“I gave him a series of tips over 10, 12 months,” Scott admits. He says he crossed the line from legal to illegal slowly, after listening for months as Shaw explained how his business was struggling. Scott says he had no idea that Shaw would use the information to make such huge gains. “I thought he was going to trade and make $10,000, $20,000.”
Still, “The facts were that I gave him that information,” and in exchange, Scott received money and gifts worth between $50,000–$70,000.
But the suspiciously timed trades netting a whopping $1.6 million got the attention of law enforcement.
The FBI contacted Brian Shaw, and he agreed to set up his friend in a sting, meeting Scott in a parking lot and passing him an envelope filled with $5,000 (money provided by the FBI). This gave the feds the evidence they needed to bring a case.
When federal agents showed up at Scott London’s door, they pulled out the photo of him taking the cash. “I did it,” he told them on the spot, admitting everything.
When we met again recently for this newsletter, Scott told me that when he first went to prison, he was sent to the same facility housing Brian Shaw. He says prison officials were concerned about having both of these ex-friends in the same place, so Scott was immediately put in the SHU (pronounced “shoe”), the Special Housing Unit, aka solitary confinement.
Nobody told Scott why he was going to solitary or how long he’d stay. “It was the worst period of time in my life.” He had no access to a phone for a week, and he spent 23 hours a day in a small cell. “There are people screaming in there.”
He was there for 30 days.
Then he was moved to the general prison population at a federal facility in Lompoc, California, where he spent most of his days doing landscape maintenance at Vandenberg Air Force Base.
“There’s a feeling I used to have daily: ‘How could I be so stupid and do something like this?’,” he tells me. Fortunately, Scott’s family survived on savings and his wife’s income.
Shortly after his release from prison, he reached out to a friend who ran a tech company. “I said, ‘I don’t care what I do.’” The CEO took a chance on him, even though hiring a high-profile ex-felon caused some “awkward conversations” at the company.
Within a few months, Scott was promoted to Chief Operating Officer.
He realizes that his success after prison is very unusual. Scott thinks the main reason he was able to bounce back is because he never denied the charges. Not to the FBI. Not to his friends.
“I had more people advising me, ‘Deny, deny, deny, there’s no evidence.’” But Scott thinks being honest saved his career. “That builds credibility amongst the community you live in.” It’s something he talks about in ethics training for aspiring accountants.
Still, he knows he’ll never again be a top manager at a top accounting firm.
“I don’t think there’s any way that anybody who committed a white-collar crime can go back to the industry they were in,” he says.
THE EDUCATION CEO“I wouldn’t trade it. It’s created the person I am now.”
Mike Neubig used to worry that a potential employer would find out about his criminal record. Now he writes about it openly on a blog.
Mike was the youngest of five children in a poor household. “I felt invisible.” He was also the first to go to college, where a professor was impressed with his writing. “Nobody ever told me I was smart before.” That sparked an interest in education: “I wanted to give back and try to impact the type of kids that I was, that were kind of invisible.”
He ended up becoming a teacher and eventually got involved in restructuring education. He wrote a book, created his own business — Capture Educational Consulting Services — and raised $3.9 million in startup funds from investors.
Then things went south.
He lied to investors about how well the company was doing.
“I think that investors make the assumption that you are ready to handle sudden success, hundreds of thousands of dollars,” he says.
His board fired him.
Then one day two years later when he was home alone, the doorbell rang.
“I peeked out and I thought I saw the sleeve of a policeman’s uniform,” Mike recalls. “I’d never had anything besides a speeding ticket in my lifetime, and my heart started pounding.”
He went to open the garage door to see if anyone was in the back. “There was a bunch of police cars out there, and they came underneath the garage door and said they had a warrant for my arrest and to put my hands behind my back, and I was just in shock.”
Soon everyone heard the news. His wife’s prayer group found out. So did the parents of the football team he helped coach. “People looked at me like I had the plague.”
Unlike Scott London, Mike Neubig has struggled to find a job. His story is more common. As soon as an employer does a background check, it’s all over. Google “Mike Neubig” and see what pops up.
Every time he lands an interview, he tries to figure out when to reveal his past. Sometimes he mentions it right off the top; sometimes during a second interview (but only halfway through, “so that you can finish the interview with reminding them how great you are”); sometimes he waits until after he receives a conditional offer of employment.
None of it’s worked out, even when he’s been told he’s the perfect candidate. Mike has been fired from two jobs after managers discovered his record, and he’s had three offer letters revoked. “Once they know, they don’t want anything to do with me,” he says. “How do you build trust again?”
Even entry-level custodial jobs may be off-limits. “Can you trust the white-collar ex-felon late at night alone in an office?”
THE $140,000 JOB
Here’s one particularly painful example. Mike says he landed a job in San Francisco after his indictment but before his conviction. It was a great job, paying $140,000, and somehow he passed the background check (obviously no one Googled him). He started working, and then he flew to New York for a week of training.
Two days in, his boss calls a meeting. “I start to show him my computer and all the things I’ve done, and I look up, and the lady from HR is on the screen.” The boss revealed they’d learned about his indictment and demanded he immediately hand over the computer. “The lady on the screen says, ‘Tell us a little bit about what happened,’” he says, “but they had already taken my computer.” (I reached out to the company and the boss, but I never got a reply.)
Mike is no longer running from his record. “It’s all over my LinkedIn page.” He thinks it’s important to be public about his past and to share what he’s learned. “As my therapist said, ‘You have to rebuild your whole identity at age 50.’”
He’s even started to get a little work. Newsflash: Just last week, Mike landed a contract to be a marketing director. The company knows his background and hired him anyway. “It’s really brought me self-esteem I haven’t had in a long time.”
Despite everything, he says the experience made him a better man. And his wife and daughters stuck with him.
“It was awful, but I wouldn’t trade it. It’s created the person I am now.”
THE LAWYER TURNED PREACHER “I tried to kill myself that night…”
Jeff Grant was a very successful lawyer in New York who became addicted to prescription opioids after rupturing his Achilles’ tendon. He started stealing money from clients. Then to save his business after 9/11, he applied for a Small Business Administration loan, falsely claiming his office was a block from Ground Zero. “It was a stupid, crazy thing to do.”
He received $247,000.
In July of 2002, when it became clear he’d committed fraud, he surrendered his law license. “I tried to kill myself that night with an overdose of prescription opioids.”
Friends came to the rescue and drove him to rehab. Jeff became sober. Then, nearly two years later, “I got a call from two federal agents to tell me that there was a warrant out for my arrest in connection with the misrepresentations I made on the 9/11 loan.”
He turned himself in and pled guilty. “All I wanted to do was accept responsibility and pay my debt and move forward.”
In 2006 he went to prison for over a year.
Jeff was sent to a correctional institute in Pennsylvania, where he says there were “five stockbrokers, two former doctors and one former lawyer — that was me — and about 1,500 drug dealers.” (More on lessons he learned in prison below… wow!)
When Jeff got out of prison, his life was a mess. “I didn’t have a job. My family was in disarray.” He was still in recovery, though, and went to court-managed drug and alcohol counseling several times a week. A counselor advised him to begin re-establishing his reputation by doing volunteer work. That led to some paid positions.
In 2009 he decided to go to seminary, even though he’d been raised Jewish. He received a Master of Divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary and started working in churches.
He started Progressive Prison Ministries in 2014 to specifically provide emotional and spiritual support to white-collar criminals and their families. The group holds virtual meetings every Monday night, and everyone from ex-cons to people awaiting trial call in. “We give them hope and some guidance on how to move forward,” Jeff explains. While the program is “spiritually oriented,” it is non-denominational. “We serve people of all faiths or no faith whatsoever.”
The group includes former CEOs, captains of industry, a former local sheriff and a discredited ex-district attorney. Many of them share their stories on Jeff’s podcast, White Collar Week.
“This is hard work, Jane. This is like therapy on steroids.”
Time for their advice…
HOW TO SURVIVE PRISON
— If you’re going to prison, memorize important phone numbers or have them mailed to you inside. Nobody remembers phone numbers anymore.
— Tell visitors not to handle any cash ahead of a visit, because there may be drug residue on it.
“The single most important thing to know about going to prison is to show respect and be able to receive respect,” says Jeff Grant, who adds that respect is mostly demonstrated by “keeping your mouth shut.” People who ask a lot of questions are suspected of being rats.
Prison has a lot of rules which are not intuitive at first. “It’s like being on a plane and landing in Manchuria,” he says. “You can get off the plane, but you don’t speak the language, you don’t know the customs, you don’t know the culture, you don’t have the money.”“You don’t want to know how he acquired it.”
For example, on his third day in prison, Jeff went over to a weight stack to bench press. It was very early in the morning, and nobody was working out.
“Somebody came up to me and said, ‘Are you planning on using that equipment?’ And I said, ‘Yeah.’” The guy told Jeff, “When you’re done, come talk to me.” Jeff said he was so freaked out, he did one bench press before going back to talk to the guy, who suggested Jeff talk to his “cellie,” his cellmate.
When Jeff asked his “cellie” what the deal was, the cellmate told Jeff the man who spoke to him “owns” the weight equipment during that part of the day. “You don’t want to know how he acquired it,” the cellmate told him. “If you want to use that equipment during that time of day, you’ve got to pay him for it.”
Jeff asked why the guy didn’t just tell him that. “He doesn’t know you,” his cellmate said. “He doesn’t know if you’re a rat.” White-collar inmates are generally older and often white, as is Jeff, and that can make other inmates suspect them of being prison plants.
Jeff began to walk the track around the prison yard, 10 miles a day. “After about three months, a ‘shot caller’ came up,” he says, referring to the head of a gang. “He said to me, ‘I hear you can be trusted.’” Jeff knew by now not to speak. “So I just nodded my head, and he said, ‘All right, then.’”
The next day other inmates suddenly started talking to Jeff, the former lawyer, and asking for legal advice. He ended up helping many of them with divorces and bankruptcies.“You can’t trust anybody.”
Scott London paid a consultant a few hundred dollars to get advice before starting his prison sentence. “Turns out [the advice] was mostly wrong.”
Here’s what he learned on his own about prison.
“You can’t trust anybody, you can’t trust what people tell you, you have to look out for yourself.” Scott says there will be inmates who want to get you in trouble. At the same time, “Don’t treat people poorly.”
He says the first couple of weeks were a process of learning the rules, such as, “This thing is only for coffee. Don’t wash your hands in that sink.”
Then came the occasional challenges, “where somebody is exerting their influence.” Scott says you can react in one of three ways:
Cowering — “From that time on, they would kind of own you throughout your stay.”
Defiant — “You just go over the top and try and be aggressive with them.”
Something in-between — “Hold your ground and say, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean any disrespect. I’m here to do my thing, you’re here doing your thing.’”
Scott chose the last strategy. “In the end, I made some reasonable friends there that I spent most of my time with.” Finding such people helped the time go by. “If you were just trying to be a loner, and you isolate yourself, it’s going to be very, very difficult to get through.”
AND AFTER PRISON?
There are “Fair Chance Employers” who are willing to hire someone with a criminal record to reduce recidivism rates, but Mike Neubig says they focus on blue-collar ex-felons, not people like him.
In California, the 2018 Fair Chance Act bans employers from doing a criminal background check until a conditional offer has been made. The offer can only be rescinded after “considering the nature and gravity of the criminal history, the time that has passed since the conviction, and the nature of the job you are seeking.”
It doesn’t take much to convince a company to rescind an offer to someone who previously committed fraud.
So Mike says he’s found value in volunteering with the youth ministry at his church, and with Jeff Grant’s Progressive Prison Ministries. “Find a support group,” he says. “Don’t be afraid to admit what you did… otherwise the shame will just kill you. It still does at times.”“Think about the people in your life.”
Scott London says white-collar ex-cons need to leverage the skills they have and reinvent themselves in a career different from the one they had.
He also has two pieces advice for staying out of trouble in the first place. First, don’t make critical work decisions when you’re vulnerable. “You might be going through a divorce, you might have financial issues.” This could put you in the wrong frame of mind to make moral and ethical choices.
Second, “If you are about to go over the line… think about the people in your life.” Those people will suffer greatly. “My son came home from school one day, and there was a news truck sitting outside, and he had no idea what was going on.” If Scott had that image in his mind before he broke the law, he says he wouldn’t have broken the law.“We have a right to a second life.”
Jeff Grant has done what seemed impossible and won back his law license. Even some of his old clients from 20 years ago have come back.
This gives him hope.
“We’re now hopefully being regarded not so much as castoffs anymore,” he says, “but more as people who’ve gone through some difficult challenges, albeit mostly by our own hand, and who have a right to recover, have a right to a second life.”
Jane Wells would love to hear what you think. Please feel free to email [email protected].
Do you believe the criminal justice system is stacked against us? Do lawyers collude with each other to make more money? If you already know what the outcome will be, why do the work for a trial? What’s the plan? Who do you trust? Everyone deserves good legal representation. Does the government get it right? Better Call Daddy: The Safe Space For Controversy!
Jeff Grant is on a mission. After a hiatus from practicing law, he is once again in private practice and is committed to using his legal expertise and life experience to benefit others.
Jeff provides a broad range of legal services in a highly attentive, personalized manner. They include private general counsel, white collar crisis management to individuals and families, services to family-owned and closely-held businesses, plus support to special situation and pro bono clients. He practices in New York and in authorized Federal matters, and works with local co-counsel to represent clients throughout country.
For more than 20 years, Jeff served as managing attorney of a 20+ employee law firm headquartered in New York City and then Westchester County, New York. The firm’s practice areas included representing family-owned and closely-held businesses and their owners, business and real estate transactions, trusts and estates, and litigation.
Hiring a white-collar defense lawyer is a monumental task — and one that most entrepreneurs and businesspeople, even those who are sophisticated legal consumers, are monumentally unprepared to do.
I should know.
I’m a lawyer and entrepreneur who became addicted to prescription opioids and served almost 14 months in federal prison for a white-collar crime.
I was disbarred, and then step-by-step, lesson-by-lesson, I worked my way through the ordeal.
On May 5, 2021, my law license was reinstated by the Supreme Court of the State of New York. Here are some takeaways I learned from over three decades of experience on both sides of the legal system:
1. You are in trauma, whether you know it or not
Your entrepreneurship, intellect and survival skills have betrayed you. You are in pain, and will do — and pay — almost anything to make the pain go away. You’ve probably been looking over your shoulder for a long time. It’s normal to be terrified; who wouldn’t be?
Practice point: no matter what you do, the pain is not going away any time soon. Beware of anyone who tells you differently.
2. Long-term plan instead of short-term relief
You know this, but you are probably in fear of what you think is the worst thing that can happen — prison. Prison is not the worst thing that can happen—the worst thing that can happen is not having a comeback story. Keep your eye on the prize. That is, a carefully and thoughtfully constructed long-term plan for health, purpose and prosperity for you and your family. It’s okay (in fact, it’s vital) to give yourself the time and space to step back and make good, thoughtful decisions. You are in the desert, and it will be a long journey to the promised land.
Practice point: This is a marathon, not a sprint. Pace yourself.
3. Your brother-in-law probably knows nothing about hiring a white collar defense lawyer…
…Neither does your dentist, haircutter or almost anyone else. Everyone around you is most likely offering “well-intended advice.” And maybe already picking at your bones. But, there is dependable professional help out there in the form of private general counsel with specific experience in the intricacies of white collar defense and all of the other legal, business, family and emotional issues you are likely to face.
Practice point: These are shark- infested waters and a great general counsel can help you navigate them.
4. There is very little chance that your case will go to trial
Over the past two decades, less than two percent of white collar prosecutions have gone to trial. This means that whether a “trial lawyer” has spent much of the last twenty years as a prosecutor or as a criminal defense attorney, they probably have no (or very little) white collar trial experience. But, we are stuck in an old paradigm where we think we need a trial attorney to swoop in and save the day. This might happen on television, but it almost never happens in real life.
Practice point: Are you suffering from Perry Mason syndrome? Get real, and fast.
5. Ever wonder why lawyers have such fancy offices?
Do you want to pay for expensive overhead (maybe you do) or for excellent lawyering? Isn’t it more important to find out if you and an attorney have a great connection, and can work together? Has your defense attorney taken the time to really understand you and your family, your back story, all of your issues, and your life goals?
Practice point: Are you sure these are the professionals you want to trust with your life?
6. Your criminal defense budget
Your criminal defense lawyer can’t do it all; you’ll need a team. Your defense attorney’s job is to marshal the best resources in order to make a persuasive presentation to the prosecutors, to the probation officer at your pre-sentence investigation, and to the judge. How much of your criminal defense budget/retainer will be allocated for experts (forensic accountants, investigators, mitigation experts, medical experts, etc.) to give a complete and accurate picture of you, your family and your side of the facts?
Practice point: Make sure you fully understand — and approve — the plan and budget up front.
7. Outside your criminal defense budget
Your issues are most likely way bigger, and more complicated, than just your criminal matter. How much of your overall budget will be allocated for other attorneys and professionals (business attorneys, tax attorneys, bankruptcy lawyers, family law, civil litigation, estate planning, accountants, etc.)? How much of your overall budget will be allocated for other obligations (restitution, fines, forfeiture, taxes, antecedent debt, alimony, child support, etc.)?
Practice point: Your defense attorney’s job is to get you the best sentence — they will probably not help you balance other important issues that need to be addressed.
8. Does your spouse/significant other need separate counsel?
In a word, yes. Or at least, probably. You’ve been shouldering this thing alone for so long, it’s hard to be a good partner again. Believe it or not, your spouse’s interests are probably not fully aligned with yours. They have their own body of rights that deserve professional attention.
Practice point: Tell the truth, don’t tell your spouse/significant other that everything will be “okay.”
9. Out of isolation and into community
You don’t have to go through this alone. Believe it or not, there is a rich community of people who have been prosecuted for white collar crimes, and their families, who want to give of themselves freely to help you.
Practice point: Don’t be afraid to reach out, join a white collar support group and benefit from the experiences of those who have been there before you.
Jeff Grant, Esq.
GrantLaw, PLLC, 43 West 43rd Street, Suite 108, New York, NY 10036-7424
Jeff Grant is on a mission. After a hiatus from practicing law, he is once again in private practice and is committed to using his legal expertise and life experience to benefit others.
Jeff provides a broad range of legal services in a highly attentive, personalized manner. They include private general counsel, white collar crisis management to individuals and families, services to family-owned and closely-held businesses, plus support to special situation and pro bono clients.
For more than 20 years, Jeff served as managing attorney of a 20+ employee law firm headquartered in New York City and then Westchester County, New York. The firm’s practice areas included representing family-owned and closely-held businesses and their owners, business and real estate transactions, trusts and estates, and litigation.
