Professional Services Firms

We regularly defend lawyers, accountants, tax advisers, consultants, information technology advisers, investment advisers, brokers, and other professionals in a wide array of litigation. Since high damage amounts are commonly sought, professional services litigation is a high-stakes affair, often involving both large damages claims and the threat of significant reputational harm.  To defend claims against professional services firms effectively, a lawyer must understand what the client-professional was required to do, what theories of law should apply, what other actors may be responsible, what type of expert testimony will be required, and what the monetary and non-monetary risks are for the client.

Success in many professional services firm cases depends upon the ability to identify the potential experts, evaluate them, and recommend the ultimate selection to our client.  The lawyers at Steptoe understand how to manage the expert selection process on behalf of clients. Many of our lawyers have strong economics, finance, and accounting backgrounds, and are qualified to work closely with the experts to pinpoint and develop the issues quickly, and to work with the experts to obtain the best possible presentation in support of the client's case.  These experiences also enable our attorneys to challenge our adversaries’ experts efficiently and effectively.

Professional services firm cases often involve masses of documents and data, particularly where there are many claimants or damage issues involving long time periods and multiple variables.  Early and complete mastery of the data to assess exposure or potential recovery can drive choices regarding settlement vs. continued litigation.  In the most complex cases of this kind, it may be important to identify consultants who can create the necessary computer models, enter the necessary data, and quickly and inexpensively produce analyses based on various assumptions.  Steptoe lawyers have confronted many situations involving the management and mastery of data in such situations, and are accustomed to guiding the selection of appropriate consultants or working with the client's in-house personnel to locate, organize, and present persuasive evidence drawn from complex data sources.

Many professional services firm cases are filed as putative class actions.  The potential liability in possible class situations demands aggressive management on the part of defense counsel.  Attacks on the effort of plaintiffs to achieve class certification involve a set of special skills and the understanding of the issues presented, such as typicality and numerosity.  Steptoe lawyers have extensive experience with class-action defenses in many cases in numerous areas of the law.

The typical professional services firm matter today extends the complexity of pretrial discovery and trial preparation into the courtroom.  Steptoe lawyers understand the state- of-the-art trial presentation technology, and how it can be employed to advance their clients' interests, while at the same time understanding that "high-tech" is not the right answer in every trial situation.  We are experienced in using systems that quickly call up pertinent documents on large monitors for court and jury, and that permit such documents to be annotated right before the trier of fact in a way that drives home key points.  We are experienced in using the videotape deposition, transferred to CD-ROM for immediate, random access, as an effective tool for presenting the testimony of witnesses who cannot be brought to court and impeaching those who have come to court.

We understand our professional services firms’ needs to have the claims against them resolved quickly and reasonably whenever possible.  We are also sensitive to client concerns regarding the high costs often associated with defending claims against professional services firms.  We constantly seek alternatives to expensive, protracted litigation, and encourage arbitration and mediation in all appropriate cases.

Litigation, when necessary, is handled by a group of attorneys, paralegals, and staff with extensive experience in liability issues.

The types of matters in which we have represented professional services firms have included the following:

• Legal malpractice
• Accounting malpractice
• Tax adviser malpractice
• Tax controversies
• Tax shelter investigations and proceedings
• Information technology consulting and installation
• Computer performance litigation
• Breach of fiduciary duty
• Conflicts of interest
• Securities fraud
• Investment adviser fraud
• Legal ethics involving lawyers
• Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act violations brought against attorneys, accountants, insurance brokers and agents, and corporate officers and directors