Chicago’s a pretty town, especially when the weather doesn’t suck. That alone isn’t a sufficient reason to come here. Not even the opportunity to meet a bunch of blawgers and twitterers. I came to make a point to a bunch of in-house counsel, that nobody has a white collar in an orange jumpsuit.
The same themes upon which I tread lightly here were the subject of my presentation. Three felonies a day. Corporate and financial crime is still crime, and hiding heads in sand doesn’t prepare one to deal with it. That corporate executives make lousy defendants, poorly equipped to handle an arrest and prosecution. The phrase “white collar crime” was dead, and their survival depended on their coming to terms with it.
The controversy came in the message that they didn’t need Biglaw former prosecutors, whose strategy was capitulation because there was no winning or they were really the good guys. They needed criminal defense lawyers. They needed to learn what it meant to fight and win. They needed to believe that the formulaic approach that permeates defense in the hands of people whose only experience is prosecution was the road to perdition, for their executives, their corporation, even themselves.
Did they believe? I dunno. There remains a wall between the general counsel and criminal law. There’s a certain morbid fascination, but no real connection. They know that other corporations, other CEOs, CFOs, GCs get busted, but that has nothing to do with them. It will never happen to them. It couldn’t. They’re the good guys.
It seems that in-house counsel aren’t a whole lot different than regular folks when it comes to crime. It never happens to anyone until it happens. And then it’s too late.
I tried to make that point. I didn’t hold back. I suspect that many will agree that there is much they can, and should, do in preparation for the possibility of a criminal investigation and prosecution, but they will never get around to doing it. They won’t prepare their staff. They won’t identify counsel. They won’t have their ducks lined up and when the hammer falls, they will be caught totally unprepared to deal with the most emergent of situations.
Maybe they will think back to my presentation and say to themselves, I could have prepared for this. It cost me two days of my life, of my practice, to be here to tell them. It’s unlikely that anyone has ever told them what I did before, and I’m fairly certain that no one has ever spelled it out as clearly.
For my part, I tried to help. It’s really all I can do at this stage, and later, I won’t say I told you so.
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Hey Scott, Wish I could have stuck around, but I was feeling pretty worn out and tired. It was good to finally meet you.
Scott: I hope that in your speech, unlike in the blog post above, you gave credit to Harvey Silverglate, author of the book THREE FELONIES A DAY.
In fact I did (and even held up the book at the presentation, as well as Tim Lynch’s book, In the Name of Justice), as I did when I reviewed the book. But who are you to question? I don’t have to mention Harvey’s name every time I mention the book. I’m not being paid to promote it. Are you?
It was great to meet you too. I wish we had more time too.
It’s amazing how shortsighted marketing folks can be. If I were a writer, and if some phrase that I had coined had become an ordinary part of the language (such that those using it felt no need to attribute it) I would consider that a much greater success than selling another ten thousand books.
As much as I like Harvey, as well as the concept of the book (even though I didn’t really like the book itself), it’s people like this who make me regret getting involved in the first place.
I’m Harvey’s research assistant. Yes, part of my job is to promote his book, but I’m also an aspiring writer and blawg frequenter. And while I don’t think there’s an obligation, necessarily, to mention an author’s name, I think it’s generally good practice to give credit for ideas that aren’t one’s own. A hyperlink would be enough to clarify.
To be clear, Harvey didn’t ask me to respond. I did so on my own volition. In general, he’s thrilled that the title of his book is involved in the conversation–more so because it advances the cause for justice system reform than sells books.
Do you think you’re helping Harvey by pissing off the people who do credit him? Who cares that you think it’s a good practice to constantly hype someone? You don’t get a vote, but you have been offensive in questioning my lack of promoting his book and done some serious damage to Harvey. Happy now?
If you want to help Harvey going forward, learn how not to behave inappropriately and annoy the people who are helping him.
The only person I know in that category is Bruce Bethke (he coined the term “cyberpunk”), and I’m pretty sure he’d rather have sold another bunch of books.
Me, I dunno. When “dwarves don’t float” becomes a common term, then I’ll know.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to stick that phrase into a post. It’s just not that easy, ya know?