Publications

Court to Government: Don't Tread on Attorney's Fees

by John F. Lauro | October 22, 2008

The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit dealt a severe blow to efforts by federal prosecutors to dissuade employers from paying attorneys’ fees for indicted employees. The decision in U.S. v. Stein, No. 07-3042-cr, 2008 WL 3982104, at *1 (2d Cir. Aug. 28, 2008) sends a strong message to the government that the days of interfering with an employer’s policy of advancing fees are now over. The court reached the extraordinary result of dismissing indictments against partners and employees of the KPMG accounting firm, and the decision may very well bring about the death of the so-called Thompson and McNulty Memoranda with respect to the issue of advancement of fees.

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Protecting Corporate Employees: The Need for a New Bill of Rights

by John F. Lauro | April 17, 2006

Over the last several years there has been a dramatic change in the practice of white collar criminal defense. The highly publicized corporate scandals involving Enron, WorldCom, and others, and the federal government's reaction to those events have resulted in an enormous shift of power away from protecting corporate employees' rights.

After the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation and the Justice Department's issuance of the so-called Thompson Memorandum, the focus has been on enhancing the power of big government and protecting the existence of big corporations.

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