Into Community: White Collar – Jeff Grant’s Journey from Isolation to Advocacy

When I talked with Jeff Grant and Bill Lavosi about the upcoming White Collar Conference, what struck me wasn’t just the lineup of speakers or the professional setup. It was something Jeff said that cut right to the heart of what we’re all dealing with: “I came back from prison. And I knew I didn’t want anyone to have to go through what I went through. My family went through.”

That’s the thing about this space. We didn’t choose to be here, but here we are. And once you’re in it, you realize how much you need people who get it.

Why a Conference by Us, for Us

Jeff’s been running the White Collar Support Group for eight and a half years now. They’ve had 425 meetings with 1,100 members. When he started, there was almost nothing out there for people like us. “This was back kind of in the early days of internet, really. I mean, I’m back from prison 17 and a half years. And when we first went through it 20, 22 years ago, there was no information out there. We were just kind of suckers to the system,” Jeff told me.

The American Bar Association does white collar conferences. So does the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners. But those are conferences about us, not by us. This October 19th event is different. It’s three hours of content created by people who’ve actually lived this nightmare.

Bill Lavosi, who’s been working with Jeff for a decade, put it perfectly when he talked about what drew him to the group in the first place: “This wasn’t transactional relationships. And these are about helping yourself and helping your neighbor in the broad sense change for the better.”

That matters more than you might think. When you’re going through this stuff, everyone wants something from you. Lawyers want their fees. Consultants want their cut. Everyone’s got a product to sell. Finding people who just want to help because they’ve been there? That’s rare.

The Isolation Problem

The conference theme is “starting over, out of isolation and into community.” Jeff and Bill didn’t pick that randomly. They know that isolation is the killer in this space.

As I told them, white collar people have a hard time saying “I need help.” We’re used to being the CEO, the entrepreneur, the person in control. Suddenly you’re not just out of control, you’re completely at the mercy of a system that doesn’t care about you.

“Almost everybody is either a business person or has been a business person. And they know that to become successful in business, you’ve got a network,” Jeff explained to me. “And I tell them, look, if you’ve got a network right now that’s working for you, go for it. But most people have become estranged from their networks. So just tell them pretty simply, listen, we’re your network until you get another one.”

That hit me hard. Most of us lost our networks when this happened. The people we thought were friends disappeared. The business contacts stopped returning calls. You end up on an island, thinking you’re the only person who’s ever been through this.

But you’re not. There are tens of thousands of us out there.

The Panel Lineup

The conference has three panels, and the speaker lineup is unreal. For the first panel on breaking out of isolation, they’ve got Bill Barone moderating. He’s a former New Jersey state senator who got prosecuted himself before the Supreme Court overturned his conviction.

The panelists include Seth Williams, the first African American district attorney for Philadelphia who ended up prosecuted himself. They’ve got Erica Cheung, who blew the whistle on Theranos and dealt with her own isolation issues as a whistleblower. Elizabeth Kelly rounds out the panel as a criminal defense attorney working with people who have mental health disabilities.

The second panel focuses on healing through community. Father Joseph Cohn, a former sheriff who went to seminary and is now a progressive Catholic priest, will be there. So will Nea Wilson, a former school principal who had to restart her life and now works in nonprofits. Portia Louder, who’s actually coming out as a podcast episode this week, will share her story of overcoming substance abuse and incarceration while raising seven children.

The third panel is about reinvention. These are people who took their old skills and figured out how to use them in new ways. Jeffrey Abramowitz is now CEO of the PD Green program. Jeff Workman went from attorney to working at the Fortune Society. Casey Early is practicing criminal defense in Florida.

What You Actually Get

Bill made a point that I think is crucial: “A lot of white collar people, they’re really looking at this because I want to get back to whatever semblance of normal I used to have.” But normal isn’t coming back. What these panelists figured out is “how they looked at the skill sets that they used to have, or they accumulated over the years. And then take that and move that into the new part of their life.”

That’s the real value here. Not some magic formula or silver bullet, but actual examples of how people rebuilt. Bill put it perfectly: “There isn’t one right way. But when you listen to them, I happen to know most of them, you’re going to learn that you have the skills there, you just have to learn how to apply them.”

Jeff was even more direct about what to expect: “Anyone who tells you that they can relieve the pain, that the pain is going to go away soon, and that can happen by writing a check. And they’re lying to you because the pain is not going to go away soon, no matter what happens. This is something you got to work your way through.”

I appreciate that honesty. No false promises, no quick fixes. Just real people sharing what actually worked.

Getting Connected

The conference is virtual, 9 a.m. Eastern on October 19th. You can register at whitecollarconference.com. It’s open to everyone, including family members who are trying to figure out how to support someone going through this.

If you want to try out their community first, they meet every Monday night at 7 p.m. Eastern. As Jeff said, borrowing from the back of a New York taxi cab: “Can’t hurt, might help.”

That’s not a bad motto for any of us trying to figure out what comes next. Can’t hurt, might help. Sometimes that’s enough reason to show up.