2009’s Top Financial Fraud Law Issues: #10 – The Offense And Defense Build Their Teams

This year, we have seen a remarkable movement of lawyers from the government into private practice, particularly to represent defendants in white collar crime cases. Just as significant, we have seen numerous lawyers in private practice jump into senior government positions where they will be handling financial fraud matters, setting regulatory policy, and seeking to influence legislative developments. The stakes are extremely high for everyone involved: the government, private law firms, and corporations. We already have seen and there is going to continue to be an explosion in fraud cases under everything from the securities laws to the federal Bankruptcy Code. We undoubtedly will keep finding more and more allegations of kickbacks, bribery, accounting fraud, pension fraud, bank fraud, tax fraud, Internet fraud, adoption fraud, estate fraud, and insurance fraud. There will be more cases like the Bear Stearns prosecution, which as we know actually resulted in not guilty verdicts. Someone has to be in charge of prosecuting these actions, and someone has to be responsible for defending them. The teams are getting their starting lineups ready to go. 

We expect many more changes among lawyers over the next six to nine months, including lawyers moving among firms in private practice, and we’ll report on them as they occur.