By:  Daniel M. Purdom

Veteran white collar criminal defense attorneys can provide a litany of horror stories in which seemingly inconsequential underlying conduct resulted in serious charges of obstruction of justice because of a poorly organized or supervised response to a subpoena or to the execution of a search warrant. Subpoenas and search warrants are a rare occurrence for legitimate healthcare providers. Consequently, legitimate healthcare providers are caught unprepared in the face of a well prepared law enforcement team. This article will hopefully provide practical considerations and steps to take in preparing for the anxious moment when a FBI agent hands your client a subpoena or a search warrant. This article is not intended to transform a healthcare attorney into a white collar criminal defense attorney. Instead, it is offered to sensitize the healthcare practitioner to the important concerns to address in this oftentimes harrowing experience by focusing the practitioner on key issues and helping to put a mechanism in place to address the process and minimize mistakes and misunderstandings.

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This article reprinted/posted with permission from the Illinois State Bar Association's The Corporate Lawyer newsletter, Vol. 42 #1, July 2003. Copyright by the Illinois State Bar Association. www.isba.org.

This publication has been prepared by Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP to provide information on recent legal developments of interest to our readers. It is not intended to provide legal advice for a specific situation or to create an attorney-client relationship.