The best white-collar defense wins - at least for the client - are those that nobody hears about, when prosecutors are dissuaded from filing charges in the first place.
Keker Van Nest & Peters name partner Elliot Peters got the next-best thing, when a California state court judge last week dismissed a 10-count indictment against his client, real estate developer John Wessman, in a Palm Springs public corruption case.
The win brings a speedy end to a high-profile ordeal for 82-year-old Wessman, who faced the prospect of spending the rest of his life in prison.
"When I called him on Friday night with the news, he was in tears," Peters told me.
In a wide-ranging interview on Tuesday, Peters, 62, who is routinely ranked as one of the nation's premier white-collar defense lawyers, talked about the Wessman case, the highs and lows of white-collar work and what he sees ahead for the practice area under the Biden administration.