what we offer
Hotline
Since 1996, Attorney Picardi has been providing national hotline services for accounting professional liability programs. The hotline has been an effective loss control tool for accounting firms and their carriers. It is designed to help accounting firms avoid claims and defend those they cannot avoid.
Direct Consulting
When your firm's risk management needs exceed the limits of the Hotline, we can design an engagement to address your specific concerns. Such direct consulting services may take the form of a focused engagement letter review, a comprehensive risk management audit, or anything in between. In each case, the accounting firm (rather than the carrier) retains us with the intent to establish a privileged relationship.
Because carriers have found that accounting firms become better risks after undergoing this risk management audit, many make it a condition of writing or renewing policies for firms with less than optimal claim/incident experience, or practices exposing them to heightened risk.
Seminar/Webinar
Attorney Picardi presents seminars and webinars for accountants across the United States. These sessions - sponsored by a single accounting firm, a local agent, state and regional societies and associations, or national accountant liability programs - are focused on issues of risk management and professional liability defense.
Claim/Incident Triage
We provide carriers with claim and incident triage services—immediate and incisive analyses of newly-reported matters. This service helps carriers employ their resources to maximize the likelihood of timely, favorable, and cost-effective responses.
Pre-Claim Legal Assistance
When an accounting firm reports an incident to its carrier, we are available to provide pre-claim legal assistance to the accounting firm and carrier. We have provided these services on a national scale, but more often concentrate our efforts locally.
These services may include subpoena representation (many accountant liability policies provide some form of subpoena coverage), especially if the subpoena or similar process compels testimony, seeks an interview, presents liability exposure, or raises sensitive issues of confidentiality or privilege. We would meet with the accounting firm, review relevant files before producing them, confer with counsel for the issuer and other parties, prepare the accounting firm’s personnel to testify, and represent the accounting firm’s interests throughout.
In other contexts, the carrier may determine that early intervention with the hands-on assistance of local counsel will materially reduce the likelihood of the incident escalating into a claim.
We become the accounting firm’s point of contact and liaison with the carrier, providing guidance on a range of issues, including further communications with clients and third parties, coordinating with experts on mitigation efforts, assessing conflicts of interest, and possible disengagement.
Our fee for these services is based on the number of hours worked at carrier-approved rates.
Claim Defense
When an accounting firm reports a claim to its carrier, we are available to provide the firm with a defense. We have provided these services to accounting firms nationally, but more often have concentrated our efforts locally.
Attorney Picardi is a career litigator with extensive experience in commercial disputes and professional liability defense.
For the past twenty years, he has concentrated his litigation efforts almost exclusively on defending accounting firms against claims of malpractice. In providing these services, we often collaborate with other law firms.
Our fee for these services is based on the number of hours worked at carrier-approved rates.
Mediation
Attorney Picardi is a certified mediator, available to serve as a neutral to assist parties in their efforts to avoid litigation and arbitration by resolving their business disputes efficiently through the more collaborative and less adversarial process of mediation.
His fee for mediation services is a fixed charge per half or full-day session.
Third-Party Claim/Incident Administration
We are available to provide carriers with third-party claim/incident administration (“TPA”) services. These services may include processing newly-reported matters; coordinating coverage analyses; assessing future handling; projecting expense budgets; recommending loss and expense reserves; retaining counsel and experts, as necessary; reporting to carriers periodically; and overseeing trials, arbitrations, mediations, informal settlements, and other dispositive events.
Our fee for TPA services would take the form of a monthly retainer based on an agreed-upon percentage of projected annual premiums in the programs being serviced, subject to periodic adjustment.
Publications
Attorney Picardi has written extensively on issues of accountant risk management and professional liability. His publication, The Accountant’s Risk Management Handbook (A Practical Guide To Reducing Liability Exposure In The Practice Of Accountancy), has guided accountants for many years.
He plans to continue writing independent articles, contributing to carrier and broker newsletters,
and refining a library of practice templates as resources to accounting professionals as they navigate the risks of their practices and seek to understand challenges presented by new legislation, regulations, court decisions, and industry pronouncements.