Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Posts Tagged ‘ethics’

August 21 roundup

  • NYC criminal defense lawyer and TV commentator Robert Simels convicted of witness tampering in closely watched case [NY Daily News and more, NYLJ, Greenfield, Simon/Legal Ethics Forum]
  • Title IX suit says harassment by other students pushed school girl into anorexia, school should pay [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]
  • Federal judge upholds some Louisiana restrictions on lawyer advertising, but says rules on Internet communication unconstitutionally restrict speech [WAFB, Ron Coleman]
  • “Woman Claims Display Was So Distracting, She Fell Over It” [Lowering the Bar; Santa Clara County, Calif. Dollar Tree]
  • Associated Press now putting out softer line on blogger use of its copy, but is it a trap? [Felix Salmon, earlier]
  • Update: Google ordered to identify person who set up nasty “skank” blog to attack NYC model [Fashionista, earlier here and here]
  • Some speak as if lawsuits over “alienation of affections” a thing of the past, alas not so [Eugene Volokh, more, yet more; earlier]
  • Connecticut: “State Holds Hearing On Whether Group Can Hand Out Food To The Poor” [Hartford Courant; “Food Not Bombs” group at Wesleyan]

Note: post was mistakenly titled as “August 22 roundup” at first, now fixed; thanks to reader Jonathan B. for catching.

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Feds charge lawyer with embezzling $950K

Prosecutors accuse Benjamin Eichholz of varied misdeeds, among them diverting pension fund moneys into inappropriate outlays that include a $56,100 Flora Danica fine china set on display at his home. “Eichholz maintains the china was an investment by the pension plan, according to News3OnYourSide.” Eichholz’s Savannah firm, like many others, has used actor Robert Vaughn as a TV pitchman. [ABA Journal; Tom Barton, Savannah Morning News (“probably Savannah’s best-known lawyer” owing to “cheesy” ads)]

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“Legal Bills Swayed Palin, Official Says”

High cost of the ethics wars? Today’s New York Times quotes Alaska’s lieutenant governor on the reasons for the governor’s surprise departure:

At the news conference, Ms. Palin cited numerous reasons for quitting, including more than $500,000 in legal fees that she and her husband, Todd, have incurred because of 15 ethics complaints filed against her during her two and a half years as governor. She said all of the complaints had been dismissed, but she still had to pay lawyers to defend her.

More: Lawrence Wood/Examiner, Anchorage Daily News and earlier.

Further: WSJ Law Blog with letter from Palin lawyer Thomas Van Flein (outlining possible after-the-fact state indemnification of cost of officials’ legal counsel when complaints are found without merit).

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Consolation prize: script rights?

Noting that a litigant’s choice of counsel is to be given weight in such matters, a court in Stamford, Ct. has ruled against a husband’s request to disqualify the opposing attorney on the grounds that that attorney “simultaneously represents the defendant’s first and second wives”. [“Motion To Disqualify Lawyer Representing Both Wives Denied,” Connecticut Law Tribune, May 11 (pay section of site)(Voruganti v. Voruganti, Malone, J.)]

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“If your attorney is colluding with the person you are suing, that’s a problem”

By tortuous steps, the dispute continues to advance in a New Jersey courtroom over whether, as part of a settlement of discrimination claims by some of its employees, Prudential made a side payment to the law firm representing the workers, and if so whether that was proper. Both the giant insurer and the law firm, Leeds Morelli & Brown, have disputed the clients’ accounts and denied wrongdoing. [Newark Star-Ledger via ABA Journal, earlier]

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Breaking: Guilty verdict in Kentucky fen-phen criminal retrial

You may recall the earlier trial of the Kentucky fen-phen attorneys who had stolen tens of millions of dollars from their clients ended in a mistrial for two and an acquittal for their third compatriot. This time around, a federal court jury, after ten hours of deliberation, found William Gallion and Shirley Cunningham Jr. guilty of eight counts of fraud and one count of conspiracy. A streamlined prosecution case no doubt helped make a difference; defense attorneys sought to blame the matter on Stan Chesley, who negotiated the underlying settlement and received millions more than he was contracted to receive, and it remains mysterious why he was not charged. [Courier-Journal]

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March 23 roundup

  • Probate court in Connecticut: bad enough when they hold you improperly in conservatorship, but worse when they bill you for the favor [Hartford Courant]
  • Does “Patent Troll” in World of Warcraft count as a character type or a monster type? [Broken Toys]
  • 102-year-old Italian woman wins decade-long legal dispute, but is told appeal could take 10 years more [Telegraph]
  • “This Cartoon Could Be Illegal, If Two Iowa Legislators Have Their Way” [Eugene Volokh]
  • David Giacalone, nonpareil commentator on attorneys’ fee ethics (and haiku), has decided to end his blog f/k/a. He signs off with a four-part series on lawyer billing and fairness to consumers/clients: parts one, two, three, four, plus a final “Understanding and Reducing Attorney Fees“. He’s keeping the site as archives, though, and let’s hope that as such it goes on shedding its light for as long as there are lawyers and vulnerable clients. More: Scott Greenfield.
  • Even they can’t manage to comply? Politically active union SEIU faces unfair labor practice charges from its own employees [WaPo]
  • Judge in Austin awards $3 million from couple’s estate to their divorce lawyers [Austin American-Statesman]
  • “Keywords With Highest Cost Per Click”, lawyers and financial services dominate [SpyFu]

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Annals of public employee tenure, cont’d

Assume a false identity and file a bogus misconduct complaint that gets your boss fired. Claim whistleblower protection and transfer to a nice job in another department. When the imposture is discovered, the state won’t be able to do more than slap your wrist. That’s been the happy experience of a lawyer with Connecticut’s state ethics bureau (!) in a case provoking considerable, though apparently futile, outrage in the Nutmeg State. (Point of Law, Nov. 25; Dan Schwartz, Nov. 17).

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