Within the narrow niche of criminal defense, there have long been two discrete groups of practitioners. There are the regulars guys, the trench lawyers, whose speech is occasionally peppered with colorful phrases and whose conduct borders on the rough. Then there are the ones who call themselves “white collar” defense. They’re the ones whose pinkies spring up when drinking tea from china cups.
My unfair yet lame attempt at humor aside, the primary distinction between the two factions has long been the clientèle to which they appeal. Street crime goes to the trench lawyer. Businesspeople go to white collar lawyers. That’s because businesspeople are “different”, unlike those nasty drug dealers and murderers. They are respectable. At least they used to be.
The Wall Street Journal Law Blog reports:
This time, the feds actually went out on their own a crafted a sting operation. They took initiative. They went after white collar defendants exactly like they would with drug dealers. They blurred the lines. It’s unheard of.
There’s a message here, both for businessfolk and the white collar criminal defense bar. For the former, you’re no longer immune from scrutiny. The feds are coming after you. For the latter, the days of china teacups and polite meetings at One St. Andrews Plaza are over. White collar defendants are as much at risk as those nasty street criminals. In prison, all collars are striped.
The distinction between white collar and street criminals is a fiction, honored more as a marketing ploy than anything else. It allows criminal defendants from respectable backgrounds to pretend that they are some better breed. Only after they emerge from prison do they come to grips with the fact that locking arms with the government as if they would be enjoying aperitifs at the club later might not be an effective defense.
It might be premature to say that white collar is dead, that a criminal defendant is a criminal defendant, collar color aside. But it is hardly premature to say that the mindset of white collar defendants, and the lawyers who cater to them, better change. The slap-on-the-wrist days are over. The days of the feds doing everything in their power to pretend white collar crime doesn’t exist are well past, and there are more than enough laws to assure that every businessperson commits a felony daily (if not three). No amount of huffing and puffing about how you didn’t kill anyone is going to save you. The game is on, even for respectable folks.
Consequently, it’s time that defendants formerly known as white collar defendants started taking their defense seriously. Sorry if this makes you feel dirty, but it’s better than a quick and easy conviction. Forget about teacups and collar color, and prepare to fight.
My unfair yet lame attempt at humor aside, the primary distinction between the two factions has long been the clientèle to which they appeal. Street crime goes to the trench lawyer. Businesspeople go to white collar lawyers. That’s because businesspeople are “different”, unlike those nasty drug dealers and murderers. They are respectable. At least they used to be.
The Wall Street Journal Law Blog reports:
On its surface, it’s unlikely that this bit of news will keep many business executives awake at night. But it should. This reflects a significant change in the DOJ approach to white collar crime, where it rarely reaches anyone’s radar until after some massive corporate failure or some particularly credible snitch with strong political connections starts spewing. Indeed, begging couldn’t get the feds to look into corporate crime in the past. That’s changed.Wow.
It’s not every day that the DOJ unveils a case with indictments against 22 white-collar people. But that’s what we got earlier Tuesday, when the Justice Department unveiled indictments charging executives and employees in the military and law enforcement equipment industry with violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Click here for the BLT blog’s story; here for the DOJ announcement itself.
As part of the DOJ’s efforts, nearly two dozen corporate executives and employees were arrested Monday in Las Vegas and in Miami. The DOJ announced that it was the first large-scale foreign bribery investigation using undercover federal agents.
This time, the feds actually went out on their own a crafted a sting operation. They took initiative. They went after white collar defendants exactly like they would with drug dealers. They blurred the lines. It’s unheard of.
There’s a message here, both for businessfolk and the white collar criminal defense bar. For the former, you’re no longer immune from scrutiny. The feds are coming after you. For the latter, the days of china teacups and polite meetings at One St. Andrews Plaza are over. White collar defendants are as much at risk as those nasty street criminals. In prison, all collars are striped.
The distinction between white collar and street criminals is a fiction, honored more as a marketing ploy than anything else. It allows criminal defendants from respectable backgrounds to pretend that they are some better breed. Only after they emerge from prison do they come to grips with the fact that locking arms with the government as if they would be enjoying aperitifs at the club later might not be an effective defense.
It might be premature to say that white collar is dead, that a criminal defendant is a criminal defendant, collar color aside. But it is hardly premature to say that the mindset of white collar defendants, and the lawyers who cater to them, better change. The slap-on-the-wrist days are over. The days of the feds doing everything in their power to pretend white collar crime doesn’t exist are well past, and there are more than enough laws to assure that every businessperson commits a felony daily (if not three). No amount of huffing and puffing about how you didn’t kill anyone is going to save you. The game is on, even for respectable folks.
Consequently, it’s time that defendants formerly known as white collar defendants started taking their defense seriously. Sorry if this makes you feel dirty, but it’s better than a quick and easy conviction. Forget about teacups and collar color, and prepare to fight.
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Good grief, man, you want them to accept that they’re in as much peril as street criminals AND that their lawyer may wear cuffed trousers? Oh, the humanity….
I KNOW! I’m such a trouble maker.
For us “trench-types”, the mantra goes: “If you use a gun to take it, I’ll defend you; if you use an accountant, go [colorful expletive] yourself.”
This post reminds me of the moment in the Bonfire of the Vanities where Sherman McCoy’s fancy pants, white shoe estate lawyer tells him that for criminal advice he’s best off consulting with a criminal lawyer with an office down near the courts because despite their awful, ethnic sounding names, those guys know what they’re doing.
Funniest part of that is that Tom Wolf’s model for a criminal defense lawyer was Eddie Hayes, who was an officemate of mine at the time. His Bronx accent was just horrible, but even then he had his bespoke shirts flown in from London. Eddie hung out with a far better crowd.
Even white collar defendants committing blue collar crimes used to get different treatment. I guess the idea is that wealthy people using violence wasn’t a random scary thing. But even blue collar people getting charged with white collar crimes were still often treated as blue collar criminals.
Not sure what I’m getting at, but I believe in equal opportunity treatment by the government.