_{How Can One Page, Written Early, Influence a Judge More Than Any Courtroom Apology? (Click the Play button to listen to the full podcast)}

When UBS fired me in 2005, I wasn’t thinking about a government investigation. I was thinking about myself. Where would I work next? What would I tell my clients who had trusted me for years? Instead of telling them the truth, I made up a story about raising money for hedge funds.

Three months later, the FBI showed up. When they did, I lied. After that, I went silent. I told myself they had bigger cases, that maybe they’d forget about me. A year passed. They hadn’t forgotten. My co-defendant was working with them the entire time.

That silence didn’t protect me—it weakened me.

The government had the first word, and once they did, they controlled the narrative. The press release labeled me “criminal,” “enabler,” “calculated.” Reporters at The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal repeated those words. Years later, those headlines are still there. Judges read them. Probation officers read them. Anyone Googling my name read them.

Here’s what I didn’t understand then: one page, written early, could have mattered more than anything I said later in a courtroom.

Judges form impressions before sentencing. They don’t wait for apologies from the lectern. They read. They study probation reports, narratives, letters, and anything else in the record. And if all they see is the government’s version, that becomes who you are.

Listen to what judges themselves have said:

• Judge Nancy Gertner values a rehabilitation plan—especially if it’s already started.
  
• Judge Mark Bennett told Michael Santos he’d be impressed if a defendant’s plan showed up in the probation report. Then he admitted he’s never seen it.
  
• Judge Bough said he doesn’t want empty apologies. He hears “I’m sorry” every day. He wants specifics—evidence of what’s already been done.
  

That’s the point: one page, written early, showing what you’ve learned and what you’re doing, carries more influence than any polished speech at sentencing.

If you lost your job, document the steps you’re taking to rebuild. If you owe restitution, record what you’ve paid—even if it’s small. If you’re volunteering, explain why and what you’ve done. Date it. Build on it. Judges don’t want promises. They want evidence.

I wish I had done that. Instead, I froze. I let silence hand the government the microphone. Their press release defined me, because I hadn’t written anything to counter it.

The government’s first word will always be there. The question is whether you’ll give them the last.

So ask yourself: what one page could you write today that a judge might believe more than anything you say later?

Justin Paperny