JD Journal » bad lawyers

Connecticut AG Shuts Down ‘Illegal’ Law Firm

Erik Even — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 22:55:58 +0000

Connecticut’s Democratic Attorney General, Richard Blumenthal, is shutting down the Nationwide Home Relief Law Group, an “illegal” law firm Blumenthal says bilked 200 Connecticuters of more than $750,000.

Blumenthal says that the firm, which offered mortgage foreclosure rescue services to Connecticut consumers for up to $4,000 a pop, was in fact selling an arbitration service that the state courts offer for free. Furthermore, none of the lawyers working at the firm were licensed in Connecticut, according to Blumenthal.

Criminal charges against the firm, also operating as First Legal Group, may be pursued. There is no word on how many employees of the firm have lost their jobs.

Dreier Firm Faces Eviction

Erik Even — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 17:16:21 +0000

Save for a skeleton staff authorized to wind up the affairs of the now-bankrupt Dreier LLP, attorneys remaining at the firm’s midtown Manhattan offices must leave the premises by March 4th.

If the offices are not vacated by the agreed-upon date, the landlord, Hines 499 Park LLC, may “with the assistance of the United States Marshal” evict “all persons located within said premises.”

The agreement comes in the wake of an earlier motion by the landlord to compel the bankruptcy trustee to pay $2.1 million of “post-petition rent and other additional obligations under the Lease.”

Meanwhile, the firm’s founder and sole equity partner, Marc S. Dreier, who stands accused of defrauding investors of $400 million, remains under house arrest at his Lexington Avenue apartment, where he is being watched by private, armed security guards.

Bar Shuts Down Three Offices of ‘Vexatious Litigant’

Erik Even — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 17:36:20 +0000

The State Bar of California has shuttered three Southern California offices of attorney Mitchell W. Roth, who was recently declared a vexatious litigant by a federal judge in Los Angeles.

Roth has been hospitalized due to severe depression since January 23rd.

On January 30th, US District Judge Manuel Real of the Central District of California declared Roth, who has filed dozens of lawsuits in recent months, a vexatious litigant.

Vexatious litigation is legal action which is brought, regardless of its merits, solely to harass or subdue an adversary. It may take the form of a primary frivolous lawsuit or may be the repetitive, burdensome, and unwarranted filing of meritless motions in a matter which is otherwise a meritorious cause of action. Filing vexatious litigation is considered an abuse of the judicial process and may result in sanctions against the offender.

The State Bar, using a court order, shut down Roth’s offices in Sherman Oaks, San Diego and Riverside.

A recording at his Sherman Oaks office said: “Due to the illness of attorney Mitchell W. Roth, this law office is temporarily closed.”

The State Bar will inventory the files of Roth’s law firm and notify clients of the developments.

Roth was an unsuccessful candidate for Superior Court Judge in 2004. He graduated from St. John’s University School of Law in New York.

CA State Bar Shuts Down “Illegal” Law Office

Erik Even — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 17:14:21 +0000

Prosecutors at the State Bar of California have shut down a satellite office of Walter S. Martinez, a solo practitioner in Upland, California, alleging that two office administrators were illegally practicing law.

The Orange County District Attorney’s Office charged a dozen people, most of them chiropractors, as part of an ongoing sting operation against illegal patient referral and insurance over-billing schemes. Operation K-Fraud, which stands for “Knockout Fraudulent Attorneys and Unscrupulous Doctors,” targets a scheme in which doctors allegedly agreed to pay 30% of their patient billings to law office administrators in exchange for those patients’ referrals.

The defendants include eight chiropractors, one attorney and three administrative staff members. The attorney is David Gonzalez of Placentia. Another defendant, law office administrator Lisa Marie Tran, worked in Martinez’s Orange County office.

Earlier this week, an Orange County Superior Court judge granted the State Bar authority to take over Martinez’s Westminster satellite law office, which also goes by L&M Legal Services. Two office administrators were ordered to cease and desist from practicing law.

The State Bar has taken files from the office and returned them to clients. Martinez has not been charged.

Lemon Lawyers Battling Further Disciplinary Action

Erik Even — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 18:45:56 +0000

From The Legal Intelligencer:

Craig T. Kimmel and Robert M. Silverman, founders of one of the largest lemon law practices in the northeastern United States, continue to try to stave off disciplinary action in Pennsylvania and New York following their Sept. 2 suspension in Maryland.

The pair, founding partners of 12-lawyer Kimmel & Silverman, was suspended indefinitely by the Maryland Court of Appeals for failing to adequately supervise a new satellite office they started in Maryland as well as failing to properly communicate with a client of the firm after the sole lawyer in that office abruptly resigned.

Apparently Kimmel and Silverman hired a single individual to run a Maryland office. That lawyer, Robin Katz, could not keep up with the workload, but kept this fact from her supervisors, even forging documents. One day, she just quit.

She failed to enter deadlines in 47 cases being handled by the law firm Piper Rudnick, now DLA Piper. That led to dismissals with prejudice in all 47 cases.

The firm, founded in 1991, prosecutes motor vehicle warranty and lemon law civil claims.

Via TLI.

Laywer: It’s Legal! Client: Great, Let’s Do It! Lawyer: Oh, Wait… Sorry

Erik Even — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 18:57:54 +0000

A Waterford, Michigan couple has filed a lawsuit against their former attorney, claiming they were ill-advised when they tried to raffle off their house in October.

Joseph and Penelope VanDevelder’s house on Wanamaker Road was on the market unsold for 18 months. So they contacted attorney Phillip Strehle to find out if they legally could raffle off the property.

In a suit filed in Oakland County Circuit Court, the VanDevelders said they hired Strehle, created a Web site and began printing and distributing raffle tickets that the attorney approved.

After much public attention, the VanDevelders sold 235 raffle tickets at $100 apiece. The couple says Strehle advised them to decline their snow removal contracts for 2008-09, because they would be out of the home before it snowed; and that Penelope VanDevelder quit her job and gave up medical benefits.

The suit says Strehle called the couple a few weeks later and told them to stop the raffle because it was illegal. It also states that Strehle attempted to change the house raffle to an essay contest.

The VanDevelders are seeking more than $25,000 in damages.

Another Bad Lawyer Steals from Clients

Erik Even — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 18:03:02 +0000

Um, what is up with lawyers nowadays? This guy steals from escrow funds, this one held on to settlement funds, these guys bribed clients. And then there’s Bernie and Marc.

You know, the word “law” is right in the name, guys.

Now a Brooklyn lawyer has been charged with stealing more than $4 million over seven years from guardianship bank accounts he supervised for incapacitated elderly people and children.

Steven T. Rondos, 44, and his firm, Raia & Rondos, have been indicted for money laundering, grand larceny, a scheme to defraud and offering a false instrument for filing.

Rondos was arrested in his Ridgewood, New Jersey, home and taken to the Bergen County jail.

A spokesman for the New York court system acknowledged that some of the thefts “should have been caught earlier” and reported that “a handful” of examiners assigned to monitor the accounts of guardians had been asked to resign.

Rondos, a graduate of Brooklyn Law School, was appointed as legal guardian of the assets of incapacitated persons in the New York metropolitan area. The 23 victims included mentally and physically impaired elderly people as well as children suffering from cerebral palsy due to medical malpractice at birth.

Rondos is accused of using large portion of the money for the mortgage on his Ridgewood home and for extensive improvements, including landscaping, kitchen renovations and a home theater.

Prosecutors say that on three occasions, when Rondos was confronted with the thefts, he stole funds from other victims to pay back his prior victim. Bernie Madoff would be so proud.

Rondos’ wife Camille Raia is the firm’s other named partner, and is not facing any charges.

Disbarred Attorney Caught in Madoff Web

Erik Even — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 17:01:11 +0000

A former lawyer, who was disbarred in the 1980s taking client escrow funds, has been charged with defrauding investors of out of millions of dollars as a hedge fund manager.

Say, Buffy, let us invest our wealth with the fellow who was disbarred for stealing funds!

Arthur G. Nadel, 76, made his initial appearance before a federal magistrate judge in the Middle District of Florida in Tampa. He turned himself in after spending two weeks on the lam. Next he will be charged in New York’s Southern District, where he faces securities and mail fraud allegations brought by prosecutors who say more than $200 million is missing.

Nadel, prominent in Sarasota, Florida social and philanthropic circles, claimed to investors and partners that returns on investments in two groups of funds he managed from 1999 through 2007 averaged more than 20% per year. Sound familiar?

FBI Special Agent Kevin G. Riordan tied Nadel’s flight to the publicity from the December arrest of Bernie Madoff in a multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme. Nadel fled after a business partner, concerned about the Madoff affair, asked Nagel to audit the funds he ran.

Nadel left a note telling his family he would not return, and advising his wife to get a hold of certain funds before it was too late. He also said he might kill himself.

Nadel advised six funds divided into two groups. Hundreds of investors put $210 million into one group, several gave $60 million to Nadel to invest in the other. But by the end of 2008, there was less than $125,000 left in the two groups.

A 1957 graduate of New York University School of Law, Nadel was admitted to the New York bar in 1958, but lost his license to practice for taking client escrow funds.

Photo via May Blog.

Lawyer Forgot She Was Suspended, Argued Before CA Supreme Court

Erik Even — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 17:37:14 +0000

The California Supreme Court has removed Cynthia Thomas from the death penalty case of Charles Moore, and referred her to the State Bar for disciplinary proceedings. The court says Thomas argued Moore’s case before the Court on December 2nd while ineligible to practice law.

Thomas says she “failed to realize” she hadn’t been fully reinstated to the Bar, after being suspended in 2007 for not advising a client of his legal options in a separate criminal case. Although she had fulfilled the one-month suspension in that case, she hadn’t passed the State Bar’s ethics examination, which is a requirement for permanent reinstatement.

A graduate of the UC Davis School of Law, Thomas told the Supreme Court she had failed the ethics exam in August. She took the test again in November, but was not notified she had failed again until December 6th, four days after the oral argument.

“I do not believe that my suspension at the time of oral argument,” she said, “resulted in any actual compromise in the quality of representation afforded Mr. Moore.”

The high court disagreed, and has terminated Thomas’ representation.

Moore was sentenced to death on April 11, 1984, for the brutal stabbing deaths of Robert and Marie Crumb in their Long Beach apartment in 1977.

Chicago Forgets to Fire Law Firm

Erik Even — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 21:15:48 +0000

A prominent law firm paid $38.1 million to collect overdue Chicago parking tickets and other debt is still rolling in city business, one year after it was supposed to be fired for bankrolling an Arizona trip for a high-ranking Revenue Department official.

Last February, the collection-services law firm of Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson was accused of picking up the 2003 travel tab for First Deputy Revenue Director Robert Forgue, even though Forgue had contract management authority over the firm.

Forgue resigned his $137,000-a-year job after Inspector General David Hoffman recommended his firing. Hoffman also urged the city to stop doing business with the law firm, which had raked in $33.6 million since 2002. Corporation Counsel Mara Georges agreed.

Instead, the firm was paid $4.5 million last year for 11 months of collections. In November, the firm was awarded a five-year, $3.4 million contract for “claims management, collection and cost recovery services” stemming from damage to city property.

A Revenue Department employee, who spoke confidentially to the Chicago Sun-Times, blamed the city’s reversal on the “web” of former Revenue Department officials who now work at Linebarger. They include Cathy Murray, head of the law firm’s Chicago office, and Evelyn Ramsey and Matthew Fleming.

The idea of corruption in Chicago or in Illinois is, of course, ludicrous.

Deputy Revenue Director Phil Cobb said Linebarger has assured the city that the employee involved in arranging Forgue’s trip “no longer works on city business, was removed from the Chicago office and no longer receives any compensation” from the city.

Via CST.

Nevada Suspends Lawyer Accused of Stealing from Clients

Erik Even — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 21:15:16 +0000

The Nevada Supreme Court has temporarily suspended a Las Vegas attorney accused of misappropriating client funds and accepting retainers without performing any services.

Philip Singer is accused of not distributing settlement funds and mixing his personal funds with client accounts.

According to the order of suspension:

Singer appears to have misappropriated funds from clients and third-party lienholders, accepted and cashed retainer checks without performing any services, and commingled client and personal funds.

The State Bar of Nevada will hold hearings on the matter in March. Singer’s attorney declined to comment on the case.

Singer handled divorce, personal injury and criminal cases. He represented Nicolas Serrano-Villagrana, the drunken driver whose pickup plowed through a bus stop in 2004, killing a 4-year-old boy.

Serrano-Villagrana was convicted in 2005 and later received a prison sentence of 12 to 40 years.

If Singer is found guilty, this would be the first case of corruption in the entire history of the city of Las Vegas.

Milberg Partner to Report to Prison After Client Bribery Scandal

Erik Even — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 19:09:48 +0000

Two defendants convicted in the Milberg LLP scandal, former partner Steven Schulman and former client Howard J. Vogel, will report to federal prison this week.

In 2006, the firm and two of its named partners, David J. Bershad and Schulman, were indicted in US District Court on various counts, including racketeering, mail fraud, and bribery. Prosecutors claimed that Milberg paid portions of $251million in legal fees to plaintiffs to induce them to sue.

The firm agreed to pay $75 million to settle charges last year.

Schulman, who pleaded guilty to a federal racketeering charge, was sentenced to six months in prison. Vogel, who served as a plaintiff in 40 of the firm’s cases, will serve three months.

Bershad recently began serving six months in prison. Last year, former partners William Lerach and Melvyn Weiss began serving separate sentences of 24 months and 30 months, respectively. Another defendant, Steven G. Cooperman, who served as a lead plaintiff for Milberg, recently began a sentence of four months.

Government Lawyer Uses US Marshals as Chauffeurs to Sports Events

Erik Even — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 01:40:26 +0000

Joseph Band, who was a lawyer in the US Marshals Service’s Office of the General Counsel, enlisted deputy marshals to ferry him and others, including famous broadcasters, to and from sporting events in government vehicles, according to a report released today by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine.

Band allegedly attended a variety of sporting events, such as the 2007 World Series in Boston, the 2007 college football championship game and the 2008 Super Bowl, both in Phoenix, and a 2008 NFL playoff game in Tampa, acting as a Fox Sports statistician. Broadcasters Joe Buck, Tim McCarver, and Troy Aikman accepted the rides in government vehicles.

The report concludes that Band, who was a member of the USMS ethics team, violated the service’s policy and standards of ethical conduct. But the US attorney’s offices in Boston and the Eastern District of Virginia declined criminal prosecution. A spokeswoman for the USMS says Band has resigned, though she did not say when.

Band, who has worked part-time as a statistician for the Washington Redskins for about 30 years, has also done work for various networks besides Fox, including ESPN and CBS.

Band’s lawyer, Jacob Stein of Stein, Mitchell & Muse, said his client had no “control, knowledge or decision making discretion with respect to the use of any government vehicle or government personnel.”

Via BLT.

Appellate Court Upholds Denial of “Incompetent” Lawyer’s 6-figure Fee

Erik Even — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 18:43:20 +0000

A federal appeals court has upheld a lower court ruling that former lawyer Steven F. Goldman should be denied almost $400,000 in fees. Goldman won a $2.4 million medical malpractice case, but was found to have failed to investigate the future needs of his child client, and to have overcharged his client.

The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the discretion of Eastern District Judge Edward Korman to refuse Goldman’s application for $388,000 in fees.

In a per curiam opinion, the panel said the case was “instructive with respect to the nature of the conduct that may merit the denial [of fees].”

In 2003, Zuhua Chen retained Goldman to represent her and her infant son, David, who suffered severe brain damage and other medical problems at birth that will require ongoing supervision and treatment for the rest of his life.

Goldman obtained a settlement with the hospital and doctors involved. He then filed a stipulation of settlement and infant compromise order directing that he be paid $408,000 in fees and $20,000 in expenses, and that Chen be paid $250,000 for her loss of services claim, and $1.7 million as trustee for her son’s special needs trust.

But Judge Korman found that Goldman negligently failed to provide documentation for his fees, and for the child’s current medical condition and a projection of his expenses for future medical care.

The judge appointed a special master, attorney Steven North, who found that Goldman “provided for a sliding scale legal fee in excess of the statutory maximum and additionally contained an agreement of doubtful propriety that the client would consent to a one-third fee if the case ‘goes to trial.’”

A frustrated Korman said in February 2005 that he had “never had a case in which the presentation of an infant’s compromise has been so poorly presented by plaintiff’s counsel” and decided to retain his own medical expert. One month later, he appointed a guardian ad litem for David.

The judge said he had “seen lawyers who are small time practitioners who settle slip and fall cases put together an infant’s compromise that is 10 times or 100 times better than this.”

In April 2005, Goldman resigned from the bar during a disciplinary investigation unrelated to the matter before Korman.

Via New York Law Journal. Also, from 2006.

Jack Thompson Hopes SCOTUS Will Save His Legal Career; Has One Vote So Far (Guess Whose?)

Erik Even — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:24:24 +0000

From GamePolitics, the best place to follow the ongoing saga of batcrap-crazy ex-lawyer Jack Thompson:

Jack Thompson is hoping that the United States Supreme Court will consider his appeal of the Florida Supreme Court ruling that disbarred him for life.

In mid-December the anti-game attorney requested from the U.S. Superme Court an extension of a Christmas Eve deadline in which to file what is known as a petition for a writ of certiorari.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has granted Thompson’s request, meaning that the embattled anti-game violence advocate will have until February 18th to petition for cert with the Supreme Court.

I’m not surprised that Thomas would back Thompson — they’re both famous, media-friendly lawyers, terrible at their jobs, who subscribe to the dumbass Sarah Palin wing of the Conservative movement.

Via GamePolitics.

8,000 Claims in Madoff Fiasco?

Erik Even — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:12:40 +0000

The Securities Investor Protection Corporation and the trustee handling the liquidation of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC have mailed more than 8,000 claim forms to customers who lost money in the alleged investment fraud scheme of Bernard Madoff.

Madoff is accused of running a giant Ponzi scheme that could have duped investors out of as much as $50 billion.

The bankruptcy court overseeing the liquidation has set an initial deadline of March 4th for claims to be filed. Any forms received between March 4th and July 2nd will be subject to delayed processing and possibly less-than-favorable satisfaction of terms.

Forms and instructions are also available on the SIPC’s Web site.

Trustee Irving Picard will oversee the liquidation of assets from Madoff’s investment firm, as the SIPC attempts to help investors recoup their money. The SIPC was created by Congress in 1970 to protect investors when a brokerage firm fails. Funds can be used to satisfy the remaining claims of each customer up to a maximum of $500,000. The figure includes a maximum of up to $100,000 on claims for cash.

Aside from recovering money through the liquidation of Madoff’s investment firm and the SIPC, investors could get some money back if some of Madoff’s personal assets are sold. Last week, Madoff provided a list of his personal assets to the SEC. Details of the asset list were not disclosed.

Madoff’s personal wealth is said to be substantial. He has mansions in the Hamptons and Palm Beach, a penthouse in Manhattan and a handful of luxury yachts. His firm operated proprietary stock trading desks in New York and London that were supposedly investing the family’s vast fortune.

Madoff, 70, a former Nasdaq stock market chairman, is accused of running a scheme that paid fictitious returns to certain investors out of the principal received from others. Madoff remains under house arrest in his apartment in New York as part of an earlier bail agreement.

Lakin Law Firm Renamed In Wake of Drug Scandal

Erik Even — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:52:35 +0000

The Lakin Law Firm has been renamed LakinChapman LLC, and former Appellate Court Judge Charles Chapman will join Brad Lakin as a named minority partner in the Wood River, Illinois firm.

Chapman, 66, was a Madison County circuit judge from 1979 to 1988, when he has elected to the 5th District Appellate Court in Mount Vernon.

Following his retirement from the bench in 2001, Chapman has been engaged in a trial practice as an attorney associated with the Lakin Law Firm.

The firm will be divided into seven practice areas: maritime law, railroad law, class action, nursing home abuse, workers compensation, personal injury and appellate law.

In October, Tom Lakin, founder of the Lakin Law Firm, was sentenced to six years in prison for drug charges. Lakin pleaded guilty to drug charges of possession with the intent to deliver cocaine, distributing cocaine to a person under 21 and maintaining a drug house.