Our standard
Not every matter can be improved. Not every matter should be.
A specific refusal costs revenue, which is exactly what makes one worth writing down. What this firm will not do is listed here so you can hold us to it, including the matters where our advice is to do nothing at all.
Fabricated reviews, purchased links, manufactured profiles, guaranteed removals, and retainers taken for matters nobody could improve are all still purchasable. Fake reviews and testimonials are now prohibited by federal rule: the FTC's Rule on Consumer Reviews and Testimonials, 16 CFR Part 465, in force since October 2024, which makes our no-testimonials position the compliant one as well as the principled one. Much of the rest remains legal. There is no license to revoke and no board to complain to.
The practical consequence for you is that credentials cannot be checked, case studies cannot be verified, and testimonials establish nothing. So there is a real question about how anyone is supposed to choose.
Our answer is to publish the constraint. What follows is what this firm declines to do, in specific terms rather than as a values statement. If we breach any of it, this page is the evidence.
Refusals
Eight things this firm will not do.
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Reduce the visibility of accurate reporting of ongoing harm
Where material documents conduct that is continuing and causing damage to identifiable people, we will not work to reduce its visibility. This is the one we are asked about most and the one that is not negotiable.
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Fabricate anything
No invented reviews, no manufactured testimonials, no fake profiles, no synthetic commentary, no purchased followers. Not for clients, and not on this site.
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Manipulate systems deceptively
No private blog networks, purchased links, spun content, bot-driven search volume, or prompt injection against AI systems. These work briefly, they are detectable, and the penalty lands on the client.
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Impersonate anyone
Not a journalist, not a platform, not a client, not a member of the public. Correspondence from this firm is from this firm.
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Guarantee outcomes we do not control
Removal depends on publishers, platforms, and courts. AI answers depend on model developers. Anyone guaranteeing those is describing something that does not exist.
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Take a matter we cannot improve
If our assessment is that nothing meaningful can be changed, we say so and decline. We do not bill for activity that cannot produce a result.
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Publish a client's identity
No client names, logos, or testimonials on this website, in marketing material, in a pitch, or to a journalist. That holds after an engagement ends, and it holds where a client has offered. A reference given privately, with permission asked for that specific conversation, is a different thing from a name printed where it works for the firm forever.
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Work against a party we already represent
Conflicts are checked before engagement and the earlier client keeps the relationship.
Selection
Who we take, and who we decline.
Three tests, applied in the first conversation rather than after a retainer has been signed.
Is the record actually wrong?
Inaccurate, disproportionate, or genuinely resolved. If material is accurate, current, proportionate, and fairly reported, we are not the right call, and we will say so.
Is there a mechanism?
A realistic route to a different outcome. Where we cannot identify one, taking the matter would mean billing for activity, which we do not do.
Would this conceal ongoing harm?
If the answer is yes, we decline regardless of the fee, the referral source, or how the request is framed. This test is not weighed against the others.
References
Brokered, never published.
We do not publish client names, logos, or testimonials. A name printed on a website works for the firm forever, without the person's ongoing say-so. That is not a small thing to ask of someone who came to us privately.
References are available at the firm's discretion. We speak with you first and understand what you are facing. If it is appropriate, we then ask a client whether they would be willing to speak with you about you specifically, rather than about us in general. They are asked each time. They are free to decline, and some do.
We do not always make the ask. Some matters are too sensitive to involve a former client in, and protecting them comes before persuading you.
Questions we are asked
- How do you decide whether to take a matter?
- Three tests, in order. Is the material inaccurate, disproportionate, or genuinely resolved? Is there a mechanism that can realistically change the outcome? And would the work involve concealing ongoing harm to anyone? A matter has to pass all three.
- What happens if you find out mid-engagement that something was misrepresented?
- We stop. If a client's account of the facts turns out to be materially false, the engagement ends and we do not continue on the revised basis. This is stated in the engagement terms rather than left to be discovered.
- Do you work with people who have done something wrong?
- Yes, frequently. Someone who made a genuine mistake, faced the consequences, and has since been reduced to that single episode has a legitimate claim on proportion. That is different from concealing conduct that is still happening, and the distinction is where the assessment does its work.
- Who holds you to this?
- In the first instance, you do. It is published here specifically so it can be quoted back to us. Beyond that, this page is dated and revised in public, so what we committed to is checkable against what we do.
- Can I speak to one of your clients?
- Sometimes, and never as a matter of course. We speak with you first to understand what you are facing. If it is appropriate, we ask a client whether they would be willing to speak with you about your situation specifically. They are asked each time and are free to decline. Some matters are too sensitive for us to make the ask at all.
- What does this cost?
- There is no standard price, because there is no standard matter. Scope follows the assessment, and we do not quote before it. How that is arrived at is set out in full on the How We Work page.
If this is the standard you were looking for.
Tell us what is happening. If we are not the right firm for it, that is what the first conversation is for.
If your matter is in litigation, or likely to be, have your attorney contact us instead. Communications routed through counsel are treated differently, and that protection cannot be added afterwards. Why this matters