Our Experience
Since we opened our doors in November 2002, we have represented many different types of clients in many different types of cases.
- The accused in criminal prosecutions ranging from misdemeanors to felonies of the most serious kind, in state and federal courts, and on appeal, including capital post-conviction appeals.
- Wrongly convicted defendants in post-conviction proceedings to establish their innocence.
- Individuals in civil rights actions to vindicate violations of the Constitution and federal laws by state actors and private parties who colluded with them.
- A major University in litigation, including commercial, general liability and professional negligence actions.
- Over 200 Duke University and UNC students in court proceedings.
- Several large groups of individuals wrongly accused in criminal and University proceedings in joint-defenses.
- Dozens of Graduate and Undergraduate students in university judicial affairs investigations and hearings.
- Elementary and high school students in disciplinary proceedings in public and private schools.
- Parents of disabled children in actions to enforce their right to education under federal and state law.
- Large and small businesses in litigation actions ranging from contract to professional negligence.
- Lawyers in professional negligence actions.
- Individuals who have been harmed by professional negligence
In each case, our Firm has an uncompromising focus on achieving the best possible result, and, throughout the process, we seek to instill calm in our clients and confidence that their problems will be resolved with care, concern, and attention to all of the implications that every decision will have on our client, as a whole person.
The Wrongful Prosecution of the Duke Lacrosse Team
The most notable criminal case our Firm has been involved in is, unquestionably, the investigation, prosecution, and exoneration of the Duke Lacrosse Team. In the days before the case became a national controversy, many members of the men’s lacrosse team came to our Firm with a problem of the most serious kind: they were accused of a horrific sexual assault that did not happen. The accusation, we knew, would threaten the reputations of all of them and their families, and that restoring their reputations meant proving their innocence. We accomplished this through the joint-representation of over thirty of the team members. Using metadata in the digital files of pictures taken during the night, cell phone records, dorm-access card reports, and the collective memory of all of the team members, we constructed an irrefutable digital timeline of events of the evening that ruled out the possibility that the accuser was sexually assaulted by anyone. Before any charging decisions were made in the case, all 47 members of the men’s lacrosse team had immutable digital alibis that were corroborated by the witness accounts of every individual present. On April 17, 2006, two boys were wrongfully indicted. Our Firm issued a press statement asserting their innocence:
"Today, two young men have been charged with crimes they did not commit. This is a tragedy. For the two young men, an ordeal lies ahead. …They are both innocent."
Almost a year later, on April 11, 2007, the North Carolina Attorney General announced that his Special Prosecutors, Jim Coman and Mary Winstead, and SBI Agents Greg Tart and DeSilva, drew the same conclusion; they declared the accused were innocent.
Special Prosecutors Jim Coman and Mary Winstead, relied heavily on our timeline of digital evidence and our synthesis of corroborating witness accounts in their conclusion that the sexual assault Crystal Mangum claimed did not happen. Jim Coman described the timeline of digital evidence "irrefutable" and "unalterable." Coman and Winstead used it extensively in their report on their investigation and conclusions, published in April of 2006, entitled Summary of Conclusions. We are enormously proud of the role we played in the case and working together with many fine defense attorneys, as well as with Jim Coman and Mary Winstead to establish the truth of this matter so clearly that they could do more than merely dismiss the cases, but also declare innocence.