About McCauley
"I created my firm to provide professional athletes with legal and general business advice that considers the frequently ignored short-term and long-term financial consequences of that advice."
- Chris McCauley, CPA, Esq.
"Knowledge is power" is a phrase you've probably heard in your lifetime. It's a phrase that forms the core of McCauley (both the firm and me) and the overall purpose of my firm:
Empower athletes with straightforward, accurate and timely business research to help them safely navigate business deals.
Ever since that last time I walked off the football field, I've felt that athletes have been frequently and consistently taken advantage of by various groups, be it through unfairly lopsided business deals or certain regulations and restrictions placed upon them by various associations and organizations.
I believe the exploitation of athletes is nowhere more apparent than in the professional arena, where the consequences of unfair treatment can be significantly more damaging to families, players and friends than they were in college or other amateur leagues.
Unfortunately, things don't seem to be getting much better. As amateur athletes break ground in the professional ranks and start to make a name for themselves and increase their earnings, managing finances and a busy schedule that comes along with being a professional athlete becomes even more difficult, leaving athletes to place their trust and money in the hands of business professionals, family members, friends and entrepeneurs. Opportunists mixed in with the people who mean well can create a lot of financial trouble.
The thing about opportunists is that they do a great job of gaining trust and using that trust to:
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fund their own luxurious lifestyles,
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leverage them for their own personal benefit,
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funnel it to their pals and their businesses, and/or
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cover up schemes perpetrated against other victims.
To do this, they'll use a variety of techniques to slowly and secretly siphon away your money, such as:
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charging you for unnecessary work
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charging you for work not requested,
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charging you for work not even performed,
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churning transactions to increase commissions,
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structuring unfair business deals,
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providing misleading material information to encourage you to invest,
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omitting material information to encourage you to invest,
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forging your signature on transactions and
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transferring money directly to their personal accounts.
If you're not familiar with these techniques and how to sniff out fraud, identifying whether you are working with an opportunist can be extremely difficult - until it's too late.
Opportunists and other people who try to take advantage of athletes are why I started McCauley - to be the eyes and ears for professional athletes in their business deals.