Compliance Lawyer Practice – Boutique International Compliance Law Firm

A significant part of our legal practice involves the creation, implementation, and review of compliance programs for local, United States based and international businesses.  We have assembled a unique team of compliance attorneys and have created a boutique compliance team within our law firm that services clients with worldwide business activities.  The entire industry is trending toward the adoption and enhancement of compliance programs spurred on by a true desire to reduce risk as well as recent legal changes that mandate the adoption of compliance programs for most businesses.

We have made a major firm commitment to our compliance practice.  Compliance attorney John Fisher recently obtained national certification in Corporate Compliance and Ethics through the Society for Corporate Compliance and Ethics.  We have assembled a team attorneys with various legal backgrounds, including health law, transportation law, business and banking, corporate and securities law, employment law, non-profit tax law and other areas to offer a team of attorneys capable of addressing the compliance needs of most businesses.  We are actively involved in compliance for international companies and actively work with our network of local counsel in other countries to address the international compliance needs of our clients who have international operations.

We provide compliance program development, review and assessment services to businesses in a number of different industries including manufacturing, transportation, services, health care, financial and others.  We assist providers in conducting internal audits, internal investigations, compliance program gap analysis and effectiveness reviews. We have also assisted providers who are the subject of reviews by institutions where they may be employed or have staff privileges.

Examples of some of our compliance services to businesses include:

• Conducting effectiveness reviews and making suggestions for enhancements to existing compliance programs.
• Working with governing bodies to develop initial compliance programs.
• Advising compliance officers and governance with respect to ongoing monitoring and auditing.
• Assisting businesses to conduct internal audits and assessments.
• Assisting providers to focus on specific risk areas that may affect their businesses.
• Assisting businesses in reacting to compliance reports including investigations and corrective action plan development.
• Conducting detailed compliance related research in the course of acquisitions of other businesses.
• Creating programs that leverage existing resources and expertise into an enterprise management system addressed at compliance issues.

Compliance Programs Are An Essential Element of Business Operations

Effective compliance programs have become an essential element of an effective regulatory risk reduction program.  The importance of compliance programs have been repeatedly emphasised by government officials over the past decade.  Recently, Marilyn Tavenner, Acting Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released a brief article on the CMS Blog emphasizing the use of “predictive modeling” technologies to identify specific providers that warrant further investigation.  The Acting Administrator touts that predictive modeling has already identified 2,500 leads for further investigation, 600 preliminary law enforcement cases, and 400 direct interviews with providers that have taken place due to the use of predictive modeling.

Compliance Programs – One Size Does Not Fit All

Federal Sentencing Guidelines make it clear that one size does not fit all when it comes to compliance program development.  An effective compliance program needs to be strategically developed based on identification of the risk factors that are specific to the size and nature of the organization.  It is not prudent to simply copy the policies of another organization and adopt them as your own.  You should create a structure as well as topical policies that reflect the nature of your particular organization; sometimes right down to the personalities that are involved in the various aspects of your operations.

There are certain core principals that will be common to all compliance programs.  However, your program should be appropriately scaled to the size and resources of your organization.  Decisions regarding allocation of resources are difficult but must be addressed.  At the same time, you do not want to develop policies that you will never have the resources to appropriately follow.  This carries the risk of creating a “Roadmap” that demonstrators to investigators the things that you are NOT doing.  Policies that you do not follows are argueably worse than having no policies at all; at least in some areas.

Contact our Compliance Team through our primary law firm web site.