White Collar Support Group
Our resources section features recaps of our Tuesday Night Speaker Series events, personal reflections from community members, and practical guides on navigating the white collar justice system.
Several of the people you will meet here have also sat down for a long-form conversation on Nightmare Success, the podcast hosted by our own member Brent Cassity. If a recap leaves you wanting the whole story, that is usually where the rest of it is.
By Jeff Grant
In 2001, at just 24 years old, Adam Bentley Clausen was sentenced to 213 years in federal prison with no possibility of parole. Today, the same man helps advise the U.S. Sentencing Commission's Sentencing Impact Advisory Group. His is one of the most remarkable transformation stories in American criminal justice.
Read more →
By Jeff Grant
Karen Kelly spent more than 30 years as a federal and state prosecutor before joining Kostelanetz LLP. She supervised every federal civil and criminal tax matter in the country as Acting Assistant Attorney General of the DOJ Tax Division.
Read more →
By Jeff Grant
P.G. Sittenfeld walked our June 2026 Tuesday Night Speaker Series through the two-year FBI sting that turned lawful campaign donations into six federal charges, and the unexpected pardon that followed.
Read more →
By Jeff Grant
Tom Hardin, widely known as 'Tipper X,' used our May 2026 Tuesday Night Speaker Series to describe the four trades that, in his words, cost him his career and the two years he wore an FBI wire before calling a lawyer. His book is Wired on Wall Street: The Rise and Fall of Tipper X, One of the FBI's Most Prolific Informants.
Read more →
By Jeff Grant
Alex Little is the founder of Litson PLLC, a boutique federal litigation and white-collar criminal defense firm. A former Assistant U.S. Attorney, CIA intelligence officer, and Carter Center diplomat, he brings an unusual breadth of experience to federal criminal defense.
Read more →By Jeff Grant
The ABA Criminal Justice Section on the reentry consequences of a white collar conviction, and why defense attorneys and defendants need to think about collateral consequences from the very start of a case.
Read more →
By Jeff Grant
Sam Mangel and Craig Rothfeld, two leading prison consultants, explained at our March 2026 Tuesday Night Speaker Series when to hire a prison consultant, when not to, and what a consultant can actually get changed inside a Bureau of Prisons facility.
Read more →
By Jeff Grant
Anthony Bracco and Brian Sanvidge of Anchin Accountants & Consultants made the case at our February 2026 Tuesday Night Speaker Series for retaining financial experts early in white collar proceedings, including a case where a recalculated loss cut a nine-year request to a year and a day.
Read more →
By Jeff Grant
Our January 2026 Tuesday Night Speaker Series was a presentation on personal online reputation management with Drew Chapin of The Discoverability Company.
Read more →
By Jeff Grant
Doug Passon, Esq., a sentencing and mitigation expert with almost 30 years of experience in state and federal court, told our December 2025 Tuesday Night Speaker Series that federal mitigation starts the day you are charged, because the plea process is the first sentencing.
Read more →
By Jeff Grant
Our November 2025 Tuesday Night Speaker Series event was a panel on restitution and forfeiture presented by the Women's White Collar Defense Association (WWCDA).
Read more →
By Jeff Grant
We were thrilled to have Ron Bauer as our July White Collar Support Group Tuesday Speaker on July 22, 2025 at 7 PM ET. Ron Bauer is a venture capitalist and entrepreneur with over 25 years of financing early stage and growth businesses.
Read more →
By Jeff Grant
We were very happy to invite Professor Mark Osler as our June White Collar Support Group Tuesday Speaker on June 24, 2025. Professor Mark Osler's work advocates for sentencing and clemency policies rooted in principles of human dignity.
Read more →By Jeff Grant
The First Step Act created a system of Earned Time Credits (ETCs) that allow federal prisoners to earn time toward early release. Here is how it works.
Read more →By Jeff Grant
One of the most persistent challenges of white collar reentry is what appears when someone Googles your name. Here is what you need to know about online reputation management.
Read more →By Jeff Grant
International travel after a felony conviction is complicated, but not always impossible. Here is what you need to know before you try to travel abroad.
Read more →By Jeff Grant
If you have a complaint or concern about conditions of confinement in a federal prison, the BOP Administrative Remedy Process is the formal channel for raising it.
Read more →By Jeff Grant
Forensic accountants play a critical role in white collar criminal defense, both in investigating the government's financial analysis and in building the defense's own case.
Read more →
By Jeff Grant
Named by the Financial Times as 'The World's Most Elite Sober Coach', Tony Dominguez is a FiA Certified Interventionist and Hypnotherapist who joined us for our May 2025 Tuesday Night Speaker Series.
Read more →By Craig Stanland
"Once a fraudster, always a fraudster." It sounds like a simple phrase. But it's more than that. It's a cultural reflex baked into how we process wrongdoing.
Read more →By Erin Frey
I am a professor at Yale School of Management, and I am collaborating with the White Collar Support Group to understand how people change after being convicted of white collar crime.
Read more →
By Jeff Grant
Louis is a nationally recognized leader in social impact, blending lived experience with expertise in criminal justice reform, who joined us for our April 2025 Tuesday Night Speaker Series.
Read more →By Sabrena Morgan
Embarking on the journey of rebuilding your life after serving time in prison can be a daunting prospect. It's a path that demands resilience, determination, and a willingness to redefine who you are.
Read more →
By Jeff Grant
We were delighted to welcome Dr. Erin Frey of the Yale School of Management as our March 2025 Tuesday Night Speaker Series presenter to discuss her research on worker recovery after major mistakes.
Read more →By Anonymous
A personal reflection on finding community and hope during the most difficult period of a white collar prosecution.
Read more →
By Jeff Grant
We were honored to host Rachel Barkow, the Vice Dean and Charles Seligson Professor of Law at NYU School of Law, as our February 2025 Tuesday Night Speaker Series presenter.
Read more →By Jeff Grant
Jeff Grant recently appeared on Bloomberg discussing the ethical dimensions of presidential pardons and what they mean for the white collar justice community.
Read more →
By Jeff Grant
We were thrilled to host Brian Cuban for our December 2024 Tuesday Night Speaker Series. Brian is the author of The Addicted Lawyer and a nationally recognized voice on addiction recovery in the legal profession.
Read more →
By Jeff Grant
We were honored to welcome Amy K. Nelson for our November 2024 Tuesday Night Speaker Series. Amy is a founder, lawyer, and passionate advocate for criminal justice reform.
Read more →By Michael Neubig
A reflection on the anxiety of digital visibility after a white collar conviction, and the unexpected lessons that come from being seen.
Read more →
By Jeff Grant
Molly Parmer has spent 15 years only on the defense side. On the Joe Exotic appeal, a $400 million tax fraud acquittal, and the clients she chooses to take.
Read more →
By Jeff Grant
The night a cop shot her, a nine-year meth sentence, blogging out of Pekin to bury her own search results, and the halfway house Kansas City lost in 2017.
Read more →
By Jeff Grant
Tarra Simmons was told she could not sit for the Washington bar because of her felony record. She tells our group how she fought it, won, and got elected.
Read more →By Jeff Grant
The Fortune Society's general counsel on going from addiction at 13 and months on Rikers Island to 34 years sober, and why she writes crime novels.
Read more →
By Jeff Grant
Jason Bowles defended Hannah Gutierrez in the Rust case. He told our group why he argued sabotage, what the jury instruction left out, and what he will appeal.
Read more →
By Jeff Grant
The Forever Enterprises CEO on the $13 million he asked about once, the 930 years he faced, the garage, and the five rules that got him through prison.
Read more →By Jeff Grant
Multifamily investor Mike Morawski names the five mistakes that cost him a $100 million company, and how he got cleared to raise capital again.
Read more →
By Jeff Grant
Why federal fraud cases arrive as stacked counts, and how the liability line written in statute differs from the viability line set inside a prosecutor's head.
Read more →By Jeff Grant
Four women carrying federal restitution orders explain remission, the MVRA hearing most defendants never get, and what the Fairness in Restitution Act would change.
Read more →
By Jeff Grant
Prof. Doug Berman on the criminal history amendments: the two level reduction, the substantial financial hardship carve out, and the fight over intended loss.
Read more →
By Jeff Grant
What Glenn E. Martin told the White Collar Support Group about job hunting with a record, getting pushed out of the organization he founded, and the way back.
Read more →By Jeff Grant
The former U.S. Pardon Attorney on the 4,000-case backlog, why she stopped taking pardon clients, and where relief actually comes from now.
Read more →
By Jeff Grant
The ninth American convicted under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, on the FBI at his door, the Mueller subpoena, and what cooperating actually bought him.
Read more →
By Jeff Grant
What happens when a U.S. Attorney's financial litigation unit reopens your restitution years after prison, and the two statutes that let a judge cap the payments.
Read more →By Jeff Grant
Scott Semple ran Connecticut's prisons from 2015 to 2019. He explains the earned credit rewrite, the TRUE Unit at Cheshire, and what he tells directors now.
Read more →
By Jeff Grant
The Madoff Talks author on 400 pages of Bernie's letters, the four buckets of co-conspirators, the SEC's five failed investigations, and the SIPC clawbacks.
Read more →
By Jeff Grant
Elizabeth Kelley on what a bipolar, autism or PTSD diagnosis can really do in a white collar case: mitigation, diversion, placement, compassionate release.
Read more →By Jeff Grant
Mike Kimelman, an M&A lawyer who did 21 months for insider trading, walks the White Collar Support Group through how FTX actually broke, three weeks after it filed.
Read more →
By Jeff Grant
How does a Wall Street trader take opiates every day for six years and still post good numbers? Trey Laird's November 2022 talk to our Tuesday night group.
Read more →
By Jeff Grant
Attorney Peter Tomasek on how First Step Act earned time credits are calculated, why the BOP held them until January 2022, and the habeas cases that broke through.
Read more →