Because of the recent publicized failures and crimes involving Enron and Tyco, WorldCom, there has been an increased prosecution for white collar offenses. Today, almost all business deals that don't fit within a particular framework are going to be investigated and perhaps even prosecuted. Nobody is free from that. Somebody will come to see us and say, "I am being asked by an FBI agent about something I did five or six years ago." By the time and FBI agent comes knocking on their door, that investigation is near complete. We will have to tell that client that they still have a problem, but here is how we can fix it.
The main difference between federal cases and state cases, especially in the fraud context, is that by the time the federal case winds up in court, many, many years have gone into investigation of the particular fraud. In the state cases, that is not necessarily the case. Fortunately our firm is set up to handle those types of prosecutions. We have intimate knowledge of how the U.S. attorney's office works in those types of cases. We handle a lot of fraud cases, complicated theft cases, complicated computer fraud cases, mortgage fraud cases, bank fraud cases, and wire fraud cases. We have the ability to develop defenses that I don't feel a lot of cases have the ability of doing. |