Patricia Hynes, who spent 24 years at now-disgraced Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach and more than ten on its executive committee, is now slated to become the next president of the New York City bar association. The favorable assumption is that Hynes, a former prosecutor who became a name partner in the firm, was systematically duped by her former colleagues, as Roger Parloff at Fortune notes:
While being a dupe is not unethical, and certainly not illegal, it’s no badge of honor, either. For idealistic young law students making their career choices, it must have been reassuring if not inspirational to see former Manhattan executive assistant U.S. attorney Pat Hynes’s name so prominently displayed on Milberg’s letterhead. It vouched for the integrity of the whole operation. Whether she knew it or not, part of what she was being paid to do there for 24 years was to lend the firm an aura of integrity that, judging from three top partners’ guilty pleas, it didn’t deserve.
Before assuming the high professional honor of a bar presidency, Parloff wonders, shouldn’t Hynes be more willing to answer questions about her time at Milberg? (cross-posted from Point of Law).
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Before assuming the high professional honor of a bar presidency, Parloff wonders, shouldn’t Hynes be more willing to answer questions about her time at Milberg?
Isn’t that stuff pending? It seems like Hynes couldn’t comment without either implicating herself in something bad or going out of her way to throw her old firm under bus. Perhaps the nominating committee should have asked some tougher questions, but now that she’s been nominated, it seems strange to suggest that she should still comment on the Milberg Weiss thing.