The Criminal Lawyer

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS BLATANT SELF-CONGRATULATION.  COMMON SIDE-EFFECTS INCLUDE NAUSEA, EYE-ROLLING, INVOLUNTARY VOCALIZATIONS, AND ENNUI. (more…)

We’re on vacation starting tomorrow, and that means we’ve been extra-busy trying to get as much work done as possible beforehand. So we’re not taking the time to post anything particularly thoughtful today. Maybe while we’re on vacation, but not today.

Still, we were pleased to see we were quoted in Crain’s this morning. Essentially, we were asked to comment on a recent USA Today article claiming that white-collar prosecutions plummeted even as the economic crisis worsened. First of all, USA Today’s stats exaggerate things. As the actual statistics (shown below) show, the drop wasn’t that big. And it’s easily explained by the shift in the FBI’s focus after 9/11. And once the political pendulum started to swing back to financial crimes in 2007, more investigations got started, and we’re now beginning to see plenty more white-collar cases.

We weren’t quoted as accurately as we’d have liked, and they said we used to be a federal prosecutor when we were really a state prosecutor, but they did spell our name and firm correctly, so we’re not complaining.

Anyway, it occurred to us that we’ve been getting some good press lately. And that gave us a great idea for a post. Instead of writing anything of substance, we’d just post some links to the various articles, and call it a day. So here’s some shameless self-promotion:

How Dirty Are Hedge Funds? (Forbes, Oct. 20)

Galleon SEC, FBI Informant Roomy Khan Worked at Intel (Bloomberg, Oct. 22)

Galleon Wiretap Defense Not ‘Hopeless,’ Experts Say (Bloomberg, Oct. 28)

Bear Stearns Defense Holds Lessons For Execs (Forbes, Nov. 17)

After Lull, Financial-Crime Prosecutions Seen Set to Rise (Crain’s, Dec. 22)

And for those who need some useful CLE credits, here are the lectures we gave this year (CLE credit good for most states):
Hope for Hopeless Cases I: Defending an Internet Pornography Case

Hope for Hopeless Cases II: Defending Wiretaps and Tape Recordings

Hope for Hopeless Cases III: Better Loss Calculations for Lower Sentences in Financial Crimes

Hope for Hopeless Cases IV: Your Client Confessed! Now What?

Enjoy!

There’s probably some really juicy legal stories out there today, but we haven’t bothered to look yet. Instead, we’re spending our free time preparing for our upcoming CLE webcast at 11 a.m. Eastern this Friday at West LegalEd Center.

This will be the second in our “Hope for Hopeless Cases” series. We’ll be talking about ways to defend cases where your client’s on tape. Title III stuff, body wires and consent recordings. We’ll discuss weaknesses to look for and exploit in litigation, and give you some tools for cross examination and argument at trial. 1.5 hours, accredited in most states.