Your Trusted Crisis Management Attorneys in New York, NY

We are crisis management attorneys in New York City. We have been in practice since 2008. We get involved when people and companies face challenging situations with potential legal and reputational consequences. Examples of these situations are high-profile whistleblower allegations, significant accounting controversies, product recalls, or government investigations.

As crisis management attorneys, we can assist in:

• Developing an overall strategic plan to manage and resolve the crisis
• Dealing with government investigations
• Determining the company's scope of civil and criminal liability
• Preparing a press response as part of an overall communication plan
• Representing the company before media outlets

The role of crisis management lawyers can involve different activities such as risk assessment, strategic planning, legal guidance, coordination with stakeholders, response management, litigation and defense, and reputation protection.

Risk Management

In every crisis faced by the corporation, the first step crisis management lawyers make is to assess the risk in order to know how to manage it. An analysis of these risks will be weighed with its potential impact on the client's interests, reputation, and legal liabilities.

Strategic Planning

Once risks are identified, the crisis management lawyer then develops an overall strategy to manage the risk. This involves planning for activities that protect the client's interests and minimize legal, financial, and reputational damage.

Legal Guidance

Crisis management lawyers also provide legal advice on complex issues relating to governmental regulations, civil and criminal liabilities, and other risks that may arise from the crisis.

Coordination with Stakeholders

A crisis management lawyer can also represent the corporation when dealing with other stakeholders such as the government, the public, and the media. They also collaborate with internal teams such as public relations specialists to formulate solutions to the crisis.

Response Management

Another aspect of crisis management involves response management. This includes the preparation of press responses to the crisis and other forms of communication to the public. The crisis management lawyer must review all corporate communications to the public during the period of crisis to ensure a unified response that protects the client's interests and minimizes any risk of civil or criminal liabilities.

Litigation and Defense

The most common role of crisis management lawyers relates to representation in litigation and defense. This does not only involve representation before the courts but also with other government agencies, such as with SEC, DOJ, and CFTC and in congressional hearings.

The First Twenty-Four Hours

The first day of a crisis usually determines whether the situation becomes manageable or accelerates into catastrophe. The actions to take immediately include:

• Issue a written legal hold. All employees and contractors who may possess relevant information are instructed in writing to preserve every document, email, text, and electronic record. Failure to issue a legal hold can result in spoliation findings later, with adverse jury instructions and severe penalties.
• Set up a privileged internal investigation. The investigation should be conducted under attorney direction so that interview notes, expert reports, and other work product are protected by the attorney-client privilege and the work product doctrine.
• Designate a single spokesperson. Confusion is contagious. One person — usually the CEO, with counsel's input — should be the sole public voice. Other employees should be instructed not to comment.
• Notify the board. Directors have fiduciary duties that can be implicated by a crisis. They need to know what is happening, the steps being taken, and the legal exposure.
• Coordinate with insurance carriers. D&O insurance, E&O insurance, cyber insurance, and crime insurance policies frequently require prompt notice of claims and circumstances. Late notice can void coverage.

Coordinating Counsel With Public Relations

A crisis touches both legal and reputational issues, and the two demand different kinds of expertise. The press release that satisfies the PR team's instinct for transparency may create admissions a litigator would never make. The careful legal denial that protects litigation positions may sound evasive and stoke public anger. The crisis management lawyer's job is to coordinate with the PR team so that public statements protect the company's reputation without prejudicing its legal defenses. Joint defense privilege and common interest privilege can sometimes extend the attorney-client privilege to communications with outside PR consultants, but only if the relationships are structured carefully.

Government Investigations and Parallel Proceedings

Many crises trigger investigations by multiple agencies simultaneously. Securities issues attract the SEC and possibly DOJ. Healthcare issues attract HHS-OIG, state attorneys general, and the FBI. Environmental issues attract EPA, state DEC, and local agencies. Antitrust issues attract DOJ Antitrust, the FTC, and state regulators. Each agency has its own jurisdiction, its own procedures, and its own staff. Statements made in one investigation can be subpoenaed by another. The crisis management lawyer maps the agency landscape early and coordinates responses so the company speaks with one consistent voice across all forums.

Internal Investigations

An effective internal investigation can determine the facts before the government does. The investigation should be conducted by lawyers (often outside counsel) with no prior involvement in the matter being investigated. Witness interviews should be conducted in a structured way, with Upjohn warnings making clear that the lawyer represents the company, not the individual employee. Documents should be collected and reviewed under privilege. The findings should be reduced to a careful written or oral report that informs the company's decisions about whether and how to disclose to regulators.

Voluntary Disclosure and Cooperation Credit

Many federal enforcement programs offer significant cooperation credit to companies that voluntarily disclose misconduct, conduct thorough internal investigations, and remediate. The DOJ's Corporate Enforcement and Voluntary Self-Disclosure Policies, the SEC's cooperation framework, and similar programs at other agencies can reduce penalties dramatically and sometimes result in no enforcement action at all. The decision to disclose is consequential and must be made with careful attention to the strength of the underlying facts, the likelihood of the issue being discovered anyway, and the company's culture and values.

Whistleblower Allegations

Many corporate crises are triggered by internal whistleblowers. Whistleblowers may have access to the SEC's whistleblower program (offering up to 30 percent of any monetary sanction over $1 million), the CFTC's parallel program, the IRS whistleblower program, the False Claims Act qui tam mechanism, and a host of state-level programs. Anti-retaliation provisions protect whistleblowers from adverse employment action. A company facing whistleblower allegations must respond with care: aggressive responses are often perceived as retaliation, and even legitimate disciplinary action can produce expensive collateral litigation. We help companies navigate these issues from the first hint that an internal complaint may have been filed.

Product Recalls

Product safety crises require simultaneous attention to regulatory compliance (with the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the FDA, NHTSA, or other relevant agency), customer communications, civil liability exposure, and supply chain logistics. The recall notice itself is a high-stakes document; the wording determines both regulatory satisfaction and the contours of subsequent class actions. We coordinate with product safety consultants, claims administrators, and litigation counsel to manage product recalls from announcement through closure.

Cybersecurity Incidents

Data breaches and cyber incidents have become one of the most common kinds of corporate crisis. State breach notification laws — including New York's SHIELD Act — impose strict timelines for notifying affected individuals and state attorneys general. Federal regulators in financial services and healthcare have their own notification rules. The company must investigate the technical aspects of the breach, contain ongoing exposure, communicate with customers and partners, manage media coverage, comply with mandatory disclosures (including SEC Item 1.05 of Form 8-K for public companies), and prepare for the inevitable consumer class actions and regulatory inquiries that follow.

Insurance Coordination

Most crises generate significant legal and remediation expenses. D&O insurance covers directors and officers facing claims arising from their corporate roles. E&O insurance covers professional services failures. Cyber insurance covers breach response, regulatory fines (where insurable), and business interruption from cyber events. Crime policies cover internal theft and fraud. Coordinating across multiple policies requires attention to notice provisions, defense cost coverage, settlement consent rights, and the order in which policies respond. We work alongside coverage counsel to maximize insurance recovery on crisis matters.

Crisis Communications With Employees

Employees experience corporate crises personally. They may worry about their jobs, their reputations, and their pay. Information asymmetry — when employees learn about company developments from the media before management — destroys trust. At the same time, premature internal communications can leak to the public or to investigators. The crisis management lawyer helps structure internal communications that are timely, accurate, and consistent with the company's external positioning.

Closing the Crisis

Crises do not last forever. The closing phase often involves a final settlement or consent decree with regulators, a structured remediation plan, completion of any board investigation, integration of compliance lessons learned into ongoing programs, and a return to normal operations. The goal is not just to survive the crisis but to come out stronger and better-positioned, with stronger compliance, clearer governance, and a record that supports future business and regulatory interactions.

Call Our Office

The role of a crisis management lawyer is essential in dealing with high-profile corporate situations with significant legal consequences to stakeholders. A boutique law firm can effectively handle crisis management with a more distinctive and personal approach than larger law firms. Should you need legal representation, we at the Law Offices of Albert Goodwin are here for you. We are located in Midtown Manhattan in New York, NY. You can call us at 212-233-1233 or send us an email at [email protected].