Priya Raghunathan

Priya prosecuted federal fraud and drug conspiracy cases in Denver for seven years before moving to the defense side. She has written the guideline calculations that decide federal sentences and she has argued them from both tables.

Her work now starts earlier than most. In a white collar matter she is usually engaged before charges exist, when a target letter arrives or an employer's internal investigation begins, and the goal is a declination rather than an acquittal.

She is precise about the arithmetic. A two level difference in the offense level, a grouping decision, a loss figure that double counts an offset: each is measured in years, and each is contestable in the presentence report long before anyone stands up at a sentencing hearing.