In order for you to determine whether you want to hire me as your election lawyer, please read the attached documents which include my résumé, a sample retainer contract and a standard billing showing a "worst case scenario" in which a state senate candidate was properly prepared but failed to produce a sufficient signature "cushion" and we had to defend against an objection, fighting for every signature.

Over the last 32 years I have represented candidates for offices ranging from suburban library board trustee to President of the United States. My services have included:

• advising on qualifications and office selection,
• design of the successful campaign from petition to a fraud-free election day,
• campaign strategy,
• political party, independent political group, interest group and press endorsements,
• local election board objections to ballot access,
• litigation over compliance with campaign finance reporting requirements,
• litigation over compliance with campaign ethics requirements,
• state court litigation over access to information over important campaign issues,
• federal court litigation over ballot position and signage in polling places, and
• recounts

As careful as it normally is, the State Board of Elections recently published and distributed, and then retracted, its most important sample petition form which contained a potentially fatal error. Even after the State Board had corrected its admitted error, I found 21 remaining legal and practical problems with that form. Many local election agencies also publish sample forms, as do printers, and all a candidate can be certain of is that these forms are worth no more than what he paid for them. It does not matter where one gets a form, if it has a fatal error, the candidacy is finished. Relying on a form used in the past is suicidal since petition requirement law changed again two months ago.

As in most endeavors, early preparation is best advised. I have never had a candidate I advised early (and who followed my advice) fail to qualify for the ballot. After being certain that the candidate meets or exceeds all legal and practical qualifications, my next step is the design and drafting of nomination papers which are both legally compliant and actually aid, rather than impede, the campaign. The money saved on not paying an experienced lawyer to draft the nomination papers is dwarfed by the cost of a defense to a challenge to ballot access, a public gaffe, or the abject embarrassment of failing to achieve ballot access.

As is always the situation in which there is a relatively small group of potential clients and an even smaller group of lawyers available to represent them, I may already represent someone with interests contrary to yours which would then give me a conflict of interest preventing me from representing you. Should you wish me to represent you, you need to let me know your intentions and I will survey my current client list to determine whether I am available. If you delay until petition filing time and then seek to retain me to be sure that your papers are in order or if you delay until after the filing deadline and then seek to retain me to defend you or prosecute a ballot access objection against an opponent, the chances are very good that you have made an irretrievable error and/or I would then be unavailable.

I am pleased to have good relations in both major parties and with all significant party factions and organized independents. An ideal situation is for me to prepare a candidate and campaign so well that he or she captures the party endorsement and then goes on to win the primary election. This is how most of my clients who are now in office got there. Waiting until endorsement time passes before hiring counsel results in both being unprepared to claim entitlement to an important endorsement and also being unprepared to mount a winning campaign.

Best wishes for a successful campaign.

Yours truly,

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