Chicago Federal Criminal Lawyers.
The Dirksen courthouse convicts governors as a genre - corruption, commodities and securities fraud off the exchanges, healthcare cases, and a U.S. Attorney’s office that tries what it charges.
Netflix told the story. The defense was ours.
When Shonda Rhimes built Inventing Anna, the defense at its center was Todd Spodek’s - argued for the so-called fake heiress in a Manhattan courtroom long before Arian Moayed of Succession played him on screen. What 320 million hours of viewers watched is the method every client of this firm gets, in every federal district.
The record, dated and sourced.
The courthouse.
The corruption capital’s courthouse.
Chicago’s federal docket is the public-corruption standard: governors, aldermen, and speakers convicted in a continuing series, built on wiretaps and cooperating insiders. The exchanges give the district its second signature - commodities and securities prosecutions, spoofing cases invented here - while healthcare fraud, violent-crime initiatives, and the O’Hare trafficking docket fill the calendar.
The Northern District staffs deep and tries cases; the Seventh Circuit upstairs reviews them fast and rigorously. This desk publishes Illinois-specific fee guidance for exactly this market - the preparation premium here is real, and it is what the situation prices.
Federal defense lawyers in Chicago, prepared for the Dirksen building.
The office that convicts governors.
Chicago’s U.S. Attorney runs one of DOJ’s proudest shops. Four of Illinois’ last eleven governors, convicted federally. Aldermen and speakers in a continuing series. Spoofing prosecutions - invented here, off the exchanges. Healthcare fraud staffed deep enough to try. Its wiretap appetite is real and its indictments arrive pre-built. This is not a district that files cases to settle them.
What you’re actually up against.
Career prosecutors who try what they charge. Title III intercepts running months before arrests. Commodities expertise no other office has. And the Seventh Circuit in the same building - fast, rigorous, merciless about unpreserved arguments. Chicago is a preparation market: the defendants who match the government’s preparation change outcomes, and the rest pay the difference in years.
Why Spodek Law Group.
We’re not your average federal defense firm - we get it. Ninety minutes from New York, and the Dirksen building’s AUSAs meet prepared adversaries, not visitors. White collar defense built against Manhattan’s prosecutors - the only bench harder than this one. Wiretap litigation, guidelines wars, and press management for cases that make the Tribune before they make the docket. This desk publishes Illinois fee guidance because the market asked; the courtroom practice is why it asked us.
The clock is already running.
A cooperator wearing a wire. A subpoena to your employer. Agents at a colleague’s door. Northern District cases run long and quiet - engage while the government is still choosing targets. The consultation is free. It’s confidential. It’s answered 24/7 - 212 300 5196. The government has a head start. Stop giving it a bigger one.
Any district is home ground.
Federal procedure is national - the same rules, the same guidelines, the same DOJ playbook in Chicago as everywhere else. Chicago is a ninety-minute flight from New York, and the Dirksen building’s AUSAs meet prepared adversaries from this firm - not visitors. Admission is handled by pro hac vice motion with local counsel where required, the client portal keeps every document and conversation in one place across any distance, and the person standing up in court is the lawyer you hired - not a referral.
195 Montague Street, Brooklyn
1301 Avenue of the Americas, Midtown
611 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles
Todd A. Spodek is a second-generation trial lawyer whose defense of Anna Delvey became Netflix's Inventing Anna. He appears on Fox News and CNN as a legal analyst, authored "My Advice to Diddy" in The Spectator, and is quoted by the Associated Press when the biggest federal cases break. The record behind the profile: a complete acquittal in a $26M money-laundering trial, RICO charges carrying a 10-year minimum dismissed, and 6 months on a $12M Ponzi case.
See who fights for you before you ever call.
Who we are, how we work, and why clients nationwide trust us with their future - in under a minute.
Why this firm.
Five decades of federal courtrooms. Whatever the government has charged, this firm has defended it before.
No allegiance to U.S. Attorneys, agents, or agencies. The client is the only constituency.
Every district in the country, one client portal - documents, invoices, counsel, in real time.
We decline more federal matters than we accept - and every accepted case gets the whole bench.
The first 72 hours decide the next 72 weeks.
No interviews, no consents, no explaining, no deleting. The words said in hour zero are the exhibits at trial. Write down what was asked and by whom - then stop.
Privilege attaches, facts get mapped while memory is fresh, documents get preserved the right way, and nobody in your orbit talks to agents unrepresented again.
We contact the government as your counsel: target, subject, or witness gets confirmed, deadlines get calendared, and the defense - not the investigation - sets the tempo.
How your case unfolds.
THE FULL PROCESS →Risk-free, in person or by phone. Ask anything, for as long as it takes. Strategy starts the same day.
Subpoenaed inboxes and a drawn timeline - we engage prosecutors at the target-letter stage, where charging is still a choice.
Suppress the overbroad seizure, contest intended loss, redraw the timeline - and when trial is the advantage, intent gets tried on the whole inbox, not the excerpts.
Chicago Federal Criminal Lawyers.
Chicago is a hotbed for organized crime. Many of the federal charges here are related to racketeering, federal gun law violations, drug trafficking, human trafficking, public corruption, bank fraud, tax evasion, rape, and murder. Because the feds tend to pick up the most serious cases, most defendants in federal criminal prosecutions feel hopeless and threatened by the sheer size of the criminal penalties. In fact, when you consider that over 97 percent of criminal cases filed in the federal courts end in plea bargains, it is scary to face these charges to say the least.
However, all hope is not lost. Although plea bargains are the norm, some defendants walk away with as little as a few months for charges of attempted murder. It is not uncommon for white-collar crimes to be worked out with fines and asset liquidation instead of prison time. After all, prison should only be reserved for the incorrigible criminals, not the well-intended who made some mistakes.
The Key Benefits of Hiring a Skilled Chicago Federal Defense Attorney
The skill in negotiating a plea bargain or succeeding at trial comes down to hard work. Only a skilled defense attorney can diminish the strength of a prosecution by dedicating their lives to researching the law and honing their skills. Most of the events in a criminal case now occur before the trial. Like tort law and other civil litigation, there should be very few surprises in a criminal case. The prosecution should present all the evidence and can be defeated when they reveal weaknesses in their cases.
A skilled Chicago Federal defense lawyer can deflate the prosecution's confidence by preserving errors that will take things up to the appellate courts, if need be, to create leverage in the bargaining process. A skilled Chicago defense attorney will hire private investigators, expert witnesses, and will be able to produce a strong defense even when it seems like nothing can be done. Forensic clues and reassessments of the prosecution's assumptions can create a lot of reasonable doubt and make them back off.
In fact, some cases can be dismissed before they even get going. It is not uncommon for federal prosecutors to overcharge defendants in hopes of compelling them to plead out for any reduction. In many of these charges, it takes a lot of experience and years of education to see the minute weaknesses that make the charges unprosecutable. The federal prosecutors are slick and will try to push forward cases by broadening laws into novel areas and omitting key elements.
For example, you can be accused of soliciting a minor for sex on an online computer dating app without the actor ever saying that they were a minor. Maybe they look young and simply said they were still in school, possibly a university for all anyone knows. Because the prejudice is so heavy against people who are accused of such acts, the prosecutors feel that they can break the law and that no one will care. And they will get away with it unless you hire a skilled attorney who is able to hold them to the letter of the law.
Gun charges are another example of cases where federal prosecutors can play fast and loose. If they find firearms in your home, they can try to charge with unlawful possession, if you have a past felony on your record, even if they are secured and in the operative possession of the true owner. Negating the fact that they are locked up and that you do not have constructive access can make all the difference in the eyes of an appellate court. Such cases based on gross speculation are not uncommon in the federal system.
There are even cases where prosecutors have stretched the definition of poisoning someone to a case where a roommate sprayed Windex on the victim's food. Although the taste would be off-putting and even nauseating, surely this was not what the legislature had in mind when they wrote the statute that also applies to cyanide.
And then there is the case where a man had posted Eminem lyrics on Facebook that were perceived as veiled threats by his ex-girlfriend. Cases like this jeopardize free speech and make the annoyance and nuisance of harmless and aggrieved ex-lovers into major federal crimes. For all these reasons, you need a skilled Chicago Federal defense attorney to protect you because the Feds are turning everything into a serious crime these days, no matter how far removed it is from actually harming anyone.
On the record, on the wire.
Get ahead of the case.
Answered within 24 hours, guaranteed. Some stories are better told out loud -
212 300 5196