If Government Agents Arrive,

Follow These Steps:

  • Ask for identification of the agent-in-charge and the prosecutor. Get business cards.
  • Contact your company’s inside or outside counsel. Ask the agents to talk to your counsel.
  • Request the agents not begin the search until counsel can be present.
  • Read the search warrant to learn what areas may be searched and what may be seized.
  • You are not required to assist, but don’t interfere and don’t hide or destroy anything.
  • Don’t volunteer information about your company or employees.
  • Don’t consent to a search of any location or documents not identified in the warrant.
  • If possible, send employees home.
  • Advise employees it’s their choice whether to be interviewed by the agents.
  • Employees can require that any interview occur at another time, with a lawyer present.
  • Don’t talk to the media unprepared. Tell employees to keep the search confidential.
  • Before the agents leave, ask for a detailed inventory of items seized.
  • Inventory and photograph all areas searched as soon as the search is over.
  • Identify all persons who had contact with the agents.