Someone just got detained. You're being questioned at a border. The police arrived at the door with a warrant. A document just landed that you don't understand — and the reply window is already running. This is when Valken moves.
Most of our urgent cases share one thing in common: the person calling us almost waited too long. If any of these are happening — stop reading and call. The rest of this page can wait.
Passport taken, pulled aside, asked to wait in a separate room at a Schengen crossing or airport. Even if no-one has said "detained" — the moment feels wrong. It is.
A family member or colleague was taken into custody in a European city. You've received a call from a station, a consulate, or you simply cannot reach them. First hours decide a lot.
Registered letter, court summons, prosecutor's request, EAW, extradition request, freezing order, MLA letter. Language you don't fully read. A deadline somewhere on page one.
Knock at 6 a.m., officers with a warrant, request to search premises, devices, or accompany them "voluntarily". You have the right to counsel before you answer anything substantive.
Transfer frozen, card blocked, account closed — all incoming and outgoing suspended. Bank refuses to explain in writing. Often signals a compliance flag or external inquiry.
A foreign prosecutor, a ministry, a tax authority, a police officer phoned — asked for an interview, a meeting, a document, or "a brief conversation" without a translator. Don't go alone.
A journalist reached out about you or a family matter. They're writing something with your name in it, and you have hours — not days — to respond. We handle urgent press-legal strategy.
No visible document, no call — but a persistent sense that something is about to happen. Many of our most successful interventions began with exactly that sentence.
You send a message. You read this section later. By the time you're finished reading it, we're already two or three of these steps in.
Call, Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp or urgent@valken.ch — any channel is answered.
Not a dispatcher. The person who will handle your case takes the first call.
Detention, border, document, raid — each has a different protocol and clock.
Short electronic engagement, fee cap agreed, conflict check run in parallel.
Partner lawyer in the right city is briefed, mandated and moving.
Call to the station, reply to the authority, or lawyer en route — something is moving.
Under 6 hours — lawyer on the ground. For every major European city in our active network, a qualified partner lawyer reaches the police station, the border post or the client's location within six hours of your first message. For Geneva, Zürich, Paris, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Brussels, Milan and London — usually under three hours during business hours. It's the single metric we care about the most, and the one we measure every month.
An urgent legal response is only as good as the lawyer who shows up. Valken's network isn't a marketing map — it's fourteen countries where we've personally worked with the same partner lawyers for years, people who answer their phone at 3 a.m. because we've answered theirs.
Outside this core network, we can still help you by voice — but we will be honest with you upfront if we can't physically deploy. That honesty is part of the service.
Whichever you pick, you will get a senior Swiss lawyer — not a form, not a bot, not a scheduler. At 3 a.m. on a Sunday. At the start of a holiday. When it matters.
An urgent legal response is not a magic door. It's a carefully coordinated sequence of legal acts that protects you while slower processes unfold. Here's the honest picture.
If anyone promises you an arrest undone in an hour, or a border reopened on command — walk away. That's not how any legal system in Europe works. What we promise is speed, presence, and the best possible protective action under the applicable law.
Across our 14-country network. For Geneva, Zürich, Paris, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Milan, London — often under 3 hours.
Most European systems recognise strong procedural rights from the moment of detention. Enforcing them in practice takes someone in the room.
A formal representation letter from a Swiss law firm changes the tone of every conversation that follows. That is true by 5 p.m. the same day.
No lawyer, anywhere, can do that. Release in Europe runs through judicial review, bail applications, or procedural challenge — each on its own clock.
Interpol, sanctions lists, border systems — all have their own correction procedures, measured in weeks to months. We open them immediately. We don't fake the clock.
Any "solution" in that direction destroys your legal position — and isn't legal advice. If someone proposes it to you, they are not acting as your lawyer.
Message us on Signal or Telegram, or call +41 444 990 554 — whichever is fastest for you. Tell us: the full legal name of the person, the country and city, the station or authority (if known), and any case or file reference you've been given. We activate a partner lawyer in the relevant jurisdiction and, in parallel, make contact with the authority. In most European countries, the detained person has the right to a lawyer of their choosing from the first hours — we turn that right into someone physically in the room.
The urgent-response engagement starts at €3,500 and covers the first phase: senior-lawyer coordination, partner-counsel deployment, on-scene presence, first protective acts, representation letters and a written status brief within 24 hours. If the matter continues into a longer proceeding (extradition, bank litigation, criminal defence), that becomes a separate engagement with a fee cap agreed in writing. We tell you the total cost structure at the end of the first call — not in an invoice three weeks later.
If you are asking that question, call. The urgent line exists precisely for situations where you cannot measure how serious it is. Many of our most successful interventions began with "I'm probably overreacting, but…" and turned out to be urgent indeed. The opposite also happens: clients call scared, and we can tell them within ten minutes that there is nothing to worry about. Either answer is worth the call.
Yes. The line is staffed on a 24/7/365 rotation by senior members of the firm — never voicemail, never a scheduling service. Average pickup time is under two minutes. We also monitor urgent@valken.ch and our encrypted messenger channels on the same rotation.
Swiss professional secrecy applies from your very first message. Our internal systems are hosted on Swiss infrastructure. Encrypted channels (Signal, ProtonMail, encrypted email) are the default, not an upgrade. Our formal appearance in a proceeding is only made with the client's — or close family member's, if the client is in custody — explicit authorisation.
Often yes — by voice, by representation letter, by coordination with a qualified local lawyer we trust. In countries where we do not have a pre-existing relationship, we tell you upfront what we can and cannot do. Sometimes the best thing we do is point you toward a better-placed counsel we know personally, and pass you to them. That's also part of the service.
Yes. For genuine emergencies, we open the file first and agree on payment terms — full, instalments, or deferred — within the first 24 hours. We've never refused an urgent engagement because of timing on payment. What we do require is an honest conversation about it, not an unspoken expectation.
Within 24 hours of the first intervention, we deliver a written status brief: what happened, what was done, what the realistic path forward looks like, and whether a continued engagement is needed. Many urgent cases end there — problem contained, no further action required. Others continue into extradition, banking, sanctions or criminal-defence work — and transition seamlessly into the relevant Valken practice line.
If the immediate situation is under control, these briefings frequently help clients understand what comes next.
Every page on this website is here for the days before something happens. This line is for the minutes after. One number. Real person. From the first ring.
+41 444 990 554