Our Experience
Each of the lawyers working in our law firm specialises in the same fields of law. This facilitates an efficient collaboration in those cases where more than one lawyer is required, for example in larger criminal proceedings under business criminal law involving a large number of defendants.
We assist many kinds of clients under criminal law. Our activities range from accusations of petty crimes such as “student loan fraud”, criminal assault or traffic violations to narcotics crimes and capital crimes. One particular specialisation of the law firm is criminal proceedings requiring special knowledge from other fields of law, in particular taxation law or Internet law.
Despite the high degree of specialisation, we regard ourselves as lawyers with farsightedness. To the extent that circumstances reveal relations to civil law or taxation law, the lawyers of the law firm deal with the parallel proceedings in suitable cases themselves. Even criminal law revisions or constitutional complaints have already been successfully represented by the lawyers of the law firm Rudolph Rechtsanwälte in select cases.
Fields of Law
Criminal law
Many standards of constitutionality may appear to be self-evident to us today. However, in practice, they have to be recalled and asserted anew every day.
Even if many criminal law cases are prepared by so-called “deals” between the defence, prosecutor and court these days, defence is in principle a fight. A fight for the truth. A fight for the defendant’s rights. A fight for the protection of constitutional standards.
Modern criminal defence is always a tightrope walk. A lawyer who is not able to put himself in the position of the accused will achieve very little at court, nor can a good defence lawyer afford to not having a feel for the judge’s, a witness’ or the general public’s perspective.
When the truth is being struggled for, uncomfortable questions sometimes need to be posed. A defence lawyer deserving this name always presupposes courage and the ability to manage conflict.
Law on taxation crimes
The law on taxation crimes is a special case, which, in contrast to other criminal cases, is not dealt with by the police or state prosecutor on behalf of the investigating authorities. In fact, in most cases, you have to deal with tax fraud investigators and a civil penalty crimes body in the fiscal authorities.
Frequently, criminal proceedings for tax offences are initiated by a search or after a tax audit. In this case, a specialist lawyer should be called on without delay. Due to the neutrality of the defence lawyer and the particular position in terms of the proceedings, options for action are often opened up to the lawyer, which are not available to the tax advisor.
Criminal proceedings under taxation and business law can often not be separated from each other in more complex cases. This means, for example, that tax inspectors are bound over to inform the state prosecutor of peculiarities in accounts giving reason to suspect a corruption crime (cf. § 4 V No. 10 German Income Tax Act). Criminal proceedings under taxation law can soon become a case for business criminal law involving the entire company.
Business criminal law
The scope of offences falling under the term business criminal law is large. Equally extensive is the term criminal business law itself, which is not defined by law.
When thinking of criminal proceedings under business criminal law, one typically thinks of files with several thousands of pages, which often take an excruciatingly long time at court. On the one hand, this is often because there is “a lot at stake” and the consequences of being found guilty are serious for the defendant. This is augmented by the fact that many creative structures of business move in a legal grey zone. The cases cannot be pressed into a black or white scheme without further ado as would be required for a conviction under criminal law.
A further challenge for the defence pertaining to business criminal cases lies in the central legal problems having their roots in special statutory regulations. Nevertheless, the process is conducted as per The German Code of Criminal Procedure – with all instruments of criminal proceedings – of which both prosecutors and defence lawyers happily avail themselves in order to gain a better position in the proceedings at court.
In the field of business criminal law, a dedicated and competent defence team is thus required, which is acquainted with the particularities of business criminal law, in order to be able to act at eye level with the investigative authorities and courts.
Internet law
Internet law involves various fields of law that are in relation with electronic data transfer. With the increasing significance of electronic media, not only companies are confronted with questions of competition laws, copyright laws and those covering naming rights. Private individuals are also suddenly exposed to problems having their roots in exotic fields such as telecommunications, telemedia and broadcasting laws.
Merely a few years ago, copyright law, for example, was a very specialised field of law that was only of interest to artists, publishers and performing rights societies (e.g. the Society for Musical Perfroming and Mechanical Reproduction Rights die GEMA). The Internet has changed this. Nowadays, many people, who have never had anything to do with a lawyer before, are finding themselves exposed to written warnings based on alleged breaches of copyrights.
Breaches of copyrights by means of file sharing – which even constitute a crime – are merely one example of how the Internet changes legal practice, thus creating new challenges for lawyers. Consumer, data and youth protection on the Internet are also of significance and under constant change.
In times where a significant proportion of all crimes are committed on the Internet, no defence lawyer can afford to regard cyberspace as a “sphere beyond the law”.
More on this topic soon
Taxation laws
The lawyers of this law firm also represent in suitable cases clients in formal proceedings under taxation law, in particular in objections to tax assessment notices and at fiscal court.
More on this topic soon
Company consulting in criminal law matters
Criminal law compliance is also becoming increasingly important for medium-sized businesses.
This includes the issue of preventing corruption by means of external lawyers of trust as well as training staff.
More on this topic soon