Operating in a regulated industry means practicing your profession with a degree of risk. Steve Ungar helps individuals and companies understand, manage, and minimize that risk proactively, and respond effectively when regulators come knocking.
Regulatory trouble rarely announces itself. It starts quietly: a letter requesting documents, an audit notice, a phone call from an examiner. By the time many businesses call a lawyer, the agency has months of work behind it and a theory already forming. The clients who fare best are the ones who engaged counsel before the letter arrived, or the moment it did.
Ungar Law Office represents individuals and companies before federal and state regulatory agencies across the Pacific Northwest and beyond.
The Best Defense Starts Before the Investigation
Compliance counsel is far less expensive, and far less disruptive, than enforcement defense. We help clients build compliance programs that fit their actual business, audit their own operations before the government does, and fix problems while they’re still private. When self-disclosure is the right move, we manage it in a way that earns credit rather than inviting escalation.
We Speak the Agencies’ Language
Over nearly four decades, Steve Ungar has represented clients before the SEC, FINRA, the Oregon Medical Board, the Oregon Attorney General, the EPA, the Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services, the Division of Financial Regulation, the Washington Department of Financial Institutions, and the IRS in civil audits and investigations. Each agency has its own priorities, its own procedures, and its own pressure points. Knowing them is half the work.
When the Inquiry Becomes Enforcement
If an agency moves from questions to action, the matter changes character, and so does our role. We defend enforcement proceedings directly, negotiate resolutions where they serve the client, and litigate where they don’t. And because regulatory matters can spawn parallel criminal exposure, our deep white collar defense practice means one team can manage both fronts with a single strategy.
What We Do
- SEC and FINRA securities investigations and enforcement
- Healthcare regulatory proceedings, including Oregon Medical Board matters
- Health care audits (Medicare, Medicaid, private insurers), internal reviews, compliance, and self-disclosures
- Oregon AG and state enforcement actions
- EPA and environmental compliance
- IRS civil audits and tax investigations
- Compliance program design and internal audits
- Response to agency inquiries before they become enforcement actions
Who We Help
Financial services firms and advisors. Healthcare providers and organizations. Gaming and lottery businesses. Cryptocurrency and fintech companies. Energy businesses. Licensed professionals and the companies they run.
A Letter Is Not Just a Letter
If a regulator has contacted you, however routine it looks, treat it as the beginning of something and respond accordingly. Call us first. The quiet phase of a regulatory matter is exactly when the most can be done.