Nationally recognized Philadelphia federal criminal defense and white collar crime attorney NiaLena Caravasos was invited once again back to her alma mater, The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, to serve as legal advisor to joint Penn Law and Wharton MBA students preparing to successfully negotiate a settlement or proceed to litigation in a matter alleging securities and financial fraud. In helping the future lawyers and business leaders assess the strengths and weaknesses of their case in an effort to figure out how to best proceed, NiaLena took a unique approach and urged them to focus on the teachings of The Art of War by the ancient Chinese general and philosopher, Sun Tzu. While The Art of War is technically about military strategy and Eastern philosophy, it has increasingly been studied by Western businesspeople and military strategists. So, NiaLena focused on the application of those teachings in her analysis to the students on how to succeed ethically in a competitive legal and business setting. In helping the graduate students evaluate their case and develop the best alternative strategies to litigation, NiaLena employed the principles of “victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.” NiaLena further engaged in role-playing with the Law / MBA students so that they could gain a first-hand understanding of where the other parties were coming from in this legal dispute because “to know your enemy, you must become your enemy.” As “the art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy not coming, but on our readiness to receive him,” much attention was placed in assessing not only the individual culpability of the various parties but also the systemic issues of transparency in the securities industry as well as the need for remedial measures to prevent future similar misconduct.
