Financial Fraud Defense
What is it?
Financial fraud allegations carry severe consequences that extend well beyond the immediate legal proceeding. Criminal prosecution, civil liability, regulatory sanctions, and reputational harm that can affect professional relationships and business opportunities for years are all on the table when a financial fraud investigation begins. The defense of these cases requires attorneys who understand both the criminal and civil dimensions of the conduct at issue, because the decisions made in the early stages of an investigation affect exposure across all of those fronts simultaneously, and a strategy that addresses one without accounting for the others can create problems that outlast the criminal proceeding itself.
Financial fraud cases are also among the most document-intensive matters in all of litigation. The government typically begins building its case long before the target of an investigation is aware that one exists, accumulating financial records, emails, and witness accounts through grand jury subpoenas and other investigative tools that operate largely outside the target’s view. By the time a target becomes aware of the investigation, the government may already have a significant factual record, and the defense strategy needs to account for that reality from the outset.
How we can help:
We defend clients facing financial fraud allegations with the thoroughness, discretion, and legal sophistication these matters demand, engaging from the earliest stages of an investigation to protect our clients’ rights and shape the outcome before charges are filed if at all possible. That means understanding the full factual and legal landscape of the alleged conduct, assessing the government’s likely theory of the case, and developing a defense strategy that addresses both the criminal and civil exposure in a coordinated way.
When charges are filed, we prepare and try these cases with the same commitment and preparation we bring to every matter, building the defense that gives our clients the best available outcome at trial while remaining genuinely open to resolutions that serve their interests when the facts and the law support them.
Securities Fraud Defense
What is it?
Securities fraud investigations and prosecutions involve complex regulatory frameworks, significant document review, and the intersection of criminal and civil liability that makes these cases among the most demanding in all of white collar defense. The regulatory framework that governs securities transactions creates a web of disclosure obligations, trading restrictions, and anti-fraud provisions that are administered by the SEC, enforced by the Department of Justice, and litigated in both civil and criminal courts simultaneously in many cases. A securities fraud investigation that begins as a regulatory inquiry can become a criminal prosecution with significant prison exposure, and the transition between those two stages often happens faster than clients who haven’t been through it expect.
The document review demands of securities fraud cases are also significant. These investigations typically involve years of trading records, emails, financial statements, and communications that need to be reviewed and analyzed to understand what the government has and to build a coherent defense narrative. The clients who navigate these cases most successfully are almost always the ones who engaged experienced defense counsel at the earliest possible stage and who made informed decisions about cooperation, document preservation, and witness strategy from the beginning of the matter.
How we can help:
We represent clients under investigation or facing prosecution for securities fraud, providing the strategic, experienced defense that protects our clients’ rights and their futures at every stage of the proceeding. That means engaging with the government’s investigation strategically from the outset, making informed decisions about voluntary cooperation that account for both the criminal and civil exposure, and building the defense narrative that addresses the government’s theory of the case with the legal depth and factual thoroughness these proceedings require.
For clients facing parallel civil and criminal proceedings, we coordinate the defense across both tracks with the awareness that decisions made in one proceeding can have significant consequences in the other, and that the overall strategy needs to account for the full landscape of exposure rather than optimizing for one proceeding at the expense of another.
Government Investigations
What is it?
A government investigation is a serious matter even before charges are filed, and how a client responds in the early stages of an investigation can determine the outcome in ways that cannot be undone later. The government typically begins building its case before the target knows an investigation exists, and by the time a target receives a subpoena, a search warrant, or a request for a voluntary interview, the investigators may already have a significant factual record. The decisions made in response to that first contact, about what documents to preserve, how to respond to government requests, whether and how to cooperate, and what to say in any interactions with investigators, all have consequences that extend through the full arc of the matter.
Government investigations also rarely stay confined to a single legal theory or a single set of potential charges. What begins as an inquiry into one aspect of a business’s conduct can expand into a broader examination of the organization and the individuals within it, and the defense strategy needs to account for that possibility from the earliest stages rather than assuming the scope of the investigation will remain narrow.
How we can help:
We represent clients in government investigations from the moment of first contact, providing the strategic guidance that protects our clients’ rights and positions them as well as possible for whatever comes next. That means assessing the likely scope and theory of the investigation quickly, advising on document preservation obligations that protect our clients from obstruction exposure, making informed decisions about cooperation that account for both the benefits and the risks, and engaging with the government in a way that advances our clients’ interests rather than inadvertently providing the evidence that builds the case against them.
When investigations result in charges, we transition to the defense of those charges with the full context of the investigation behind us, which means we are never starting from scratch and our clients are never disadvantaged by the gap between investigation counsel and trial counsel that can undermine the defense in these cases.
Internal Corporate Investigations
What is it?
When a business needs to investigate potential misconduct within its own organization, the process needs to be thorough, confidential, and legally defensible from the outset. Internal investigations are triggered by a wide range of circumstances, including whistleblower complaints, government inquiries, audit findings, employee reports, or the discovery of financial irregularities that require explanation. Whatever the trigger, the organization needs to understand what actually happened, address the conduct appropriately, and position itself to respond to any external scrutiny that follows, all while managing the significant privilege and confidentiality considerations that shape how these investigations must be conducted.
The attorney-client privilege and work product protection that apply to properly structured internal investigations are among the most important tools available to organizations conducting them, but those protections can be waived or undermined by investigative choices that don’t account for the legal framework from the beginning. An internal investigation that isn’t structured correctly from the outset may produce findings that can’t be protected from disclosure to adverse parties, creating exposure that the investigation was designed to manage rather than generate.
How we can help:
We conduct internal corporate investigations with the rigor, independence, and discretion these situations demand, helping businesses understand what happened, address the conduct appropriately, and protect themselves from further exposure. That means structuring the investigation correctly from the outset to preserve applicable privilege protections, conducting witness interviews with the care and thoroughness that produces reliable findings, reviewing the documentary record with the attention to detail that surfaces the full picture of what occurred, and presenting findings in a way that supports informed decision-making by the organization’s leadership and board.
When internal investigations reveal conduct that requires disclosure to regulators, law enforcement, or other external parties, we advise clients on the scope of those disclosure obligations and the manner of disclosure that best protects the organization’s interests while satisfying its legal obligations.
False Claims Act Defense
What is it?
The False Claims Act imposes significant liability on businesses and individuals who submit false or fraudulent claims to the government, and the consequences of a False Claims Act judgment can be severe: treble damages, substantial civil penalties per false claim, and the attorney’s fees of the government or the private relator who brought the case. The statute’s qui tam provisions allow private individuals to file suit on behalf of the government and share in the recovery, which means False Claims Act cases are frequently initiated by current or former employees, competitors, or others with inside knowledge of the alleged conduct and a financial incentive to pursue it.
False Claims Act cases are also among the most complex and heavily litigated in the white collar and government contracts space. The materiality standard that governs which false statements actually give rise to liability, the scienter requirement that limits liability to knowing or reckless conduct, and the government’s ability to intervene in or decline to pursue qui tam cases all create strategic considerations that shape the defense from the earliest stages. The interaction between the civil False Claims Act case and any parallel criminal investigation adds another dimension that requires careful navigation.
How we can help:
We defend clients against False Claims Act allegations with the legal depth, strategic focus, and attention to the government’s investigative process that these high-stakes cases require. That means engaging early in the government’s pre-intervention investigation when possible, shaping the factual record before the government makes its intervention decision, and building the substantive defense that challenges the materiality, scienter, and damages elements of the claim with the rigor that False Claims Act litigation demands.
For clients facing qui tam cases in which the government has declined to intervene, we build the defense against the private relator’s case with the same thoroughness we would bring to a government-prosecuted matter, because the reputational and financial stakes of a False Claims Act judgment are significant regardless of who is driving the litigation.