Contacts
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J. Scott Janoe
Partner
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Andrew M. Lankler
Partner
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John Taladay
Partner
"It is clear they have a deep bench of experienced attorneys. Whether it is late at night or the weekend, when there is an emergency they are very responsive and willing to talk through issues."
Chambers USA 2022
Baker Botts lawyers have decades of experience proactively working with clients to prepare for, prevent and manage crises that raise significant legal, business and reputational risk. Our team includes former federal and state prosecutors, former federal regulators, former in-house counsel, national security and cyber advisors, skilled litigators, investigators, corporate lawyers, industry specialists and crisis communications consultants.
Our Approach
Crises manifest themselves in different ways and are rarely one-dimensional. By nature, they are unpredictable and can morph unexpectedly. Our multidisciplinary team takes a proactive, integrated approach to solving problems, drawing on relevant experience across practice areas and industries to deliver sophisticated and multi-dimensional strategic guidance proven to limit legal risk, contain problems, minimize reputational harm and reduce collateral damage to the business. We work closely with our clients, including Boards of Directors, Special Committees and senior company leadership, to develop tailored solutions to address specific problems. We focus on getting clients beyond the crisis and back to business.
Our team also helps companies prepare for both the predictable and the unpredictable. In a world of instantaneous communications, a 24-hour news cycle, data intrusion and data leaks, increased whistleblower activity and an unpredictable geo-political landscape, businesses need to be proactive in an environment that demands high ethical conduct by business leaders. While it is impossible to foresee everything that might go wrong or where the first hint of a problem might emerge, we help our clients build and revisit crisis management plans as well as prepare for strategic and practical considerations on how best to get ahead of problems that may arise. More importantly, we help position clients to become more agile and tactical in how they respond to “the unexpected”—whether it is a report of wrongdoing, a catastrophic event, a significant data breach, an attempt to harm or sabotage an organization through misinformation, product failure or any other significant issue.
In addition to conducting assessments of existing procedures, we also work with clients to train their teams to more effectively react to and contain crises at the outset. As we have seen time and again, how a company responds in the initial stages of any crisis and how nimbly it addresses issues as they arise, are critical to its ability to control the narrative and limit the fallout with its stakeholders, customers, the public, the government and other interested parties.
Our Experience
- Criminal, civil and administrative investigations
- Whistleblower claims or third party allegations of wrongdoing
- Environmental disasters and toxic torts
- Financial disclosures and restatements
- Accounting irregularities and internal control lapses
- Board governance issues and breaches of fiduciary duties
- Cyber security and data breaches
- Theft of trade secrets
- Complex litigation and class actions
- Antitrust investigations
- Product failures, product safety and product liability
- Financial and business restructuring
- Workplace safety investigations
- Suspension, debarment or exclusion from government contracting
- National security matters
- Infringement on patents, intellectual property and other proprietary information
- Legislation that may limit a company’s ability to conduct business