White-Collar Criminal Defense
“Doctors who fix feet and straighten noses rarely end up with fatalities. It’s the brain surgeons and the heart surgeons who lose patients. But it’s the same brain and heart surgeons who save lives. The same is true for lawyers. Those who take the most difficult cases lose the most often. But they also can occasionally win extremely difficult cases. That’s the thrill of advocacy.”
White-collar criminal defense is one of the most demanding areas of law practice - one fraught with danger, both for the client and the unwary lawyer. White-collar defense includes:
Accounting Fraud
Business Fraud and Theft
Business Opportunity Fraud
Computer and Internet Fraud
Embezzlement
Health Care Fraud, including Medicare and Insurance Fraud
Tax Fraud
Mail Fraud
White-collar crime differs from its "street crime" cousin in various ways:
It tends to be made up of complex, sophisticated, and relatively technical actions and conduct.
It tends to be intermingled with legal behavior and practices.
Criminal harm is sometimes difficult to identify.
Evidence of crime is usually not as clear-cut or dramatic as street crime.
Statutes criminalizing white collar crime are usually opaque.
Given the complexities of both the facts and the law in white-collar prosecutions, it is often beneficial for those accused of such crimes to retain legal counsel that is familiar with the appellate process. In today's prosecutorial environment, a legal defense cannot rely on just a defense of the facts, but also the construction of the statute at issue.