He counsels clients to avoid his kind.

• Position: People - A profile of lawyer Pete Anderson

Charlotte lawyer Pete Anderson doesn't mind representing companies charged with crimes. After all, he cut his teeth prosecuting companies that broke federal environmental laws and, like any litigator, enjoys the combat of the courtroom. But with the new practice he and a colleague have set up at Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick, he aims to reduce the likelihood that his clients will end up in court.

Anderson, 39, and Charlie Murdter, also a former prosecutor, specialize in what they call corporate compliance and business crimes. Anderson terms it "preventive law." They advise companies in highly regulated industries such as banking and chemicals about procedures to keep from getting in trouble.

If that sounds like a clever way to persuade companies to put them on retainer, so be it. "Our thinking is: It's much cheaper to avoid a crisis than to respond to one."

The idea had its roots in a job Anderson had in the '80s, between college at Rutgers University in New Jersey and law school at the University of Virginia. Thinking he wanted to be a lawyer, he worked in the legal department of Allied Signal, a New Jersey chemical maker. Allied had dumped Kepone, an insecticide, into the James River in Richmond and become one of the first companies prosecuted for an environmental crime. In response, it set up a...