Since the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, we have been helping public company audit committees look into anonymous complaints by employees regarding questionable accounting and auditing matters.

After a company pleaded guilty to criminal charges (of cutting corners in the repair of high-tech parts), a federal investigation continued to target dozens of its former employees. Their lawyers, working together in joint defense, hired us to help them respond to accusations that federal agents were bringing to prosecutors as the basis for indictments.

The facts we developed helped defense counsel show the prosecutors that many of the accusations were simply technical misunderstandings, and very few of the many ex-employees investigated were charged.

We were helping an investment bank gather information days before it planned to finance a company, when one of the company's female employees claimed the CEO had sexually harassed her. Working for the bank's outside counsel, we interviewed other employees of the company to help evaluate the accusation, as well as the accuser and accused. The company reached a settlement with the female employee, which allowed our investment-banking company client to proceed with the transaction as planned.

We worked for counsel to a foreign manufacturer that was under criminal investigation for price-fixing. The allegations against our client were being made by a competitor's executive who had already pleaded guilty, and who now accused our client of conspiring in the price-fixing with him.

We investigated the accuser and found information abroad about previous antitrust schemes he had participated in, as well as negatives about his credibility as a witness.