- No imprisonment for debt, except when owed to a lawyer? Texas man who didn’t pay $1,750 attorney fee jailed for 30 days [ABA Journal; Jonathan Skero]
- Exploding-bra claim against Victoria’s Secret “does not specify how the injury occurred” [Greenville, S.C. News]
- We’re all set to close on your mortgage refinance, and while we’re at it could I interest you in a class action over courier fees? [Madison County Record]
- So long we elect state court judges, they’ll never escape taint associated with need to campaign [J.D. Hull, What About Clients?]
- Milberg now argues any forfeiture of proceeds from tainted cases should be confined to its actual net profits, not gross fee revenue — would it have let off defendants it sued so easily? [Gerstein, NY Sun]
- Tom Goldstein of Akin Gump (SCOTUSblog) has a spoof “Call 1-CER-TIORARI” TV ad hawking his Supreme Court advocacy [YouTube]
- New at Point of Law: Colorado unions’ revenge initiatives; Dennis Quaid at Congressional hearing on federal pre-emption; guess why Orlando isn’t getting commuter rail; drafting docs for ER duty; court green-lights suit blaming U.S. business for South African apartheid; what we can learn from defunct causes of action; Rhode Island high court mulls lead paint suit; and Ted on Massachusetts med-mal study and on reversal of $32 million Garza v. Merck Vioxx verdict.
- Managers at Tim Horton may have been ninnies to fire worker who quieted crying child by giving out free mini-donut, but today’s law does tend to ninnyize those in authority [Cosh/National Post, Canada]
- Jonathan Rauch isn’t overjoyed at California high court marriage ruling [Independent Gay Forum; more from Kmiec, Lederman and others at Slate and from Eugene Volokh] More: Steve Chapman via Sullivan and Dale Carpenter @ Volokh.
- Road delayed at £1million expense, and then great crested newt turned out not to be there [Leicester, U.K.; Ananova]
- Why trial lawyers were pleased when Boeing moved its HQ from Seattle to Chicago [seven years ago on Overlawyered]
Posts Tagged ‘Milberg Weiss’
May 6 roundup
- Raelyn Campbell briefly captured national spotlight (“Today” show, MSNBC) with $54 million suit against Best Buy for losing laptop, but it’s now been dismissed [Shop Floor; earlier]
- Charmed life of Florida litigators Stanley and Susan Rosenblatt continues as Miami judge awards them $218 million for class action lawsuit they lost [Daily Business Report, Krauss @ PoL; earlier here, here, and here]
- Lerach said kickbacks were “industry practice” and “everybody was paying plaintiffs”. True? Top House GOPer Boehner wants hearings to find out [NAM “Shop Floor”, WSJ law blog]
- It’s Dannimal House! An “office rife with booze, profanity, inappropriate sexual activity, misuse of state vehicles and on-the-job threats involving the Mafia” — must be Ohio AG Marc Dann, of NYT “next Eliot Spitzer” fame [AP/NOLA, Adler @ Volokh, Above the Law, Wood @ PoL; earlier]
- Sorry, Caplin & Drysdale, but you can’t charge full hourly rates for time spent traveling but not working on that asbestos bankruptcy [NLJ] More: Elefant.
- Fire employee after rudely asking if she’s had a face-lift? Not unless you’ve got $1.7 million to spare [Chicago Tribune]
- Daniel Schwartz has more analysis of that Stamford, Ct. disabled-firefighter case (May 1); if you want a fire captain to be able to read quickly at emergency scene, better spell that out explicitly in the job description [Ct Emp Law Blog]
- As expected, star Milberg expert John Torkelsen pleads guilty to perjury arising from lies he told to conceal his contingent compensation arrangements [NLJ; earlier]
- Case of deconstructionist prof who plans to sue her Dartmouth students makes the WSJ [Joseph Rago, op-ed page, Mindles H. Dreck @ TigerHawk; earlier]
- How’d I do, mom? No violation of fair trial for judge’s mother to be one of the jurors [ABA Journal]
- First sell the company’s stock short, then sue it and watch its share price drop. You mean there’s some ethical problem with that? [three years ago on Overlawyered]
April 17 roundup
- “I did not know what kind of monster we were dealing with”: dramatic testimony from Judge Lackey on Scruggs corruption [Folo; and repercussions too]
- New at Point of Law: Pork-barreling Albany lawmakers shell out for just what NY needs, three more law schools; Sarbanes-Oxley unconstitutional? Ted goes after JAMA on Vioxx; sadly, appeals court overturns Santa Clara opinion that nailed ethical problems with govt.-paid contingency fee; legal aid lawyers, to subprime borrowers’ rescue? and much more;
- Cadbury claim: we own the color purple as it relates to chocolate [Coleman]
- A world gone mad: Innocence Project directors include… Janet Reno? [Bernstein @ Volokh]
- Not unrelatedly: Can a California prosecutor be held liable for wrongful murder conviction of man freed after 24 years? [Van de Kamp versus Goldstein, L.A. Times via Greenfield]
- With all his lawyer chums from Milberg-witness days, you’d think Ben Stein could have saved the makers of his creationist movie from stumbling into textbook IP infringements [Myers, again, WSJ law blog]
- Groggy from dental anesthesia, plus a half a glass to drink: then came the three felony DUI counts [Phoenix New Times, Balko via Reynolds]
- Shell says boaters had years of notice that mandated ethanol in fuel was incompatible with fiberglass marine gas tanks, which hasn’t stopped the filing of a class action [L.A. Times via ABA Journal]
- Terrorism asymmetry: “They say ‘Allahu Akbar!’ we say ‘Imagine the liability!'” [McCarthy/Lopez, NRO]
- Deborah Jeane Palfrey convicted [WaPo; earlier]
- David Neiwert truly born yesterday if he thinks Kevin Phillips is noteworthy for his record of being right [Firedoglake; some correctives]
Quoted in today’s Times
I’m quoted on the Melvyn Weiss guilty plea, and on the way certain crooks have successfully been passing themselves off as white knights in press coverage of shareholder and consumer litigation. (Jonathan D. Glater, “High-Profile Trial Lawyer Agrees to Guilty Plea”, New York Times, Mar. 21). For more on Weiss’s plea, see yesterday’s post.
More Weiss reactions include a NY Sun editorial:
Mr. Weiss and his partners made their careers, and their fortunes, casting those they were suing — insurance and tobacco executives, Swiss bankers — as crooks. Some of them may have been, though many were not. Now these lawyers are admitting to the court that they are crooks, too. … Congress has already acted to reform the class-action system from the “first-to-file” system that engendered the Milberg Weiss abuses. But until Congress and the state legislatures act further to reform the civil litigation system, the costs of Weiss’s career will be borne by all of us.
Interviewed by the L.A. Times, Columbia lawprof Jack Coffee (who’s done a lot of work for Milberg, right?) thinks Mel Weiss got a “uniquely good deal” in the plea. Similarly: Greenfield.
Mel Weiss to plead guilty
WSJ: “Melvyn Weiss, the onetime powerhouse shareholders lawyer, has struck a deal to agree to plead guilty in a case alleging improper kickbacks, according to a person familiar with the investigation.” We’ve been covering the Milberg Weiss scandals on this site since they broke; my WSJ op-ed “Inside Milberg’s Credenza” is here. More:
According to a statement released Thursday by the defense lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, Mr. Weiss will plead guilty to participating in a criminal conspiracy to pay a share of legal fees to plaintiffs in shareholder suits brought by Milberg Weiss. Such kickbacks are improper because they give plaintiffs representing a class of all shareholders an incentive to accept a deal that might not be best for the class.
Under the terms of the plea agreement, Mr. Weiss faces a sentence of up to 33 months in prison. Mr. Weiss has also agreed to pay a total of $10 million in fines and penalties, according to the statement.
(Jonathan Glater, NYT). More at WSJ law blog (Weiss: “I deeply regret my conduct”) including a copy of the plea agreement and government statement, both PDF.
The firm of Milberg Weiss, formerly Milberg Weiss Bershad & Schulman LLP, famous for shedding indicted names as an ecdysiast sheds clothes on stage, is now down to plain old Milberg LLP, and will presumably be able to stop there, the Milberg after whom it was named being nearly twenty years deceased. (Bumped 1:50 p.m.)
And: World-class chutzpah morsel from the NYLJ: “If Mr. Weiss had proceeded to trial, his defense was expected to argue that he was so preoccupied with humanitarian and charity work during the charged period that Messrs. Bershad and Schulman had been able to carry on the kickback scheme without his knowledge.” In the plea agreement, Weiss stipulates that he was in effective control of the firm and its operations and party to the conspiracy, and agrees to forfeit a sum of nearly $10 million which he acknowledges is less than what he gained from the illegal conduct.
Plus: Portfolio:
Weiss made staggering profits from the kickback scheme. According to the indictment, his share of the law firms profits from 1983 to 2005 amounted to more than $209 million. …
Sanford Dumain, a member of the Milberg L.L.P. executive committee, said, “Having previously believed former leaders’ assurances of their innocence, the firm is now seeking to find a fair and appropriate resolution of remaining issues so that we can continue to work on behalf of injured investors and consumers.”
The firm added in a statement: “Milberg L.L.P. apologizes to all judges, lawyers, clients, and class members, who deserve full and complete adherence to all legal and ethical norms.”
Portfolio also reports that the Milberg firm is intent on obtaining a deferred prosecution agreement: “If the firm pleaded guilty to a federal criminal offense, it is highly unlikely that a judge would approve the law firm to serve as lead counsel for the plaintiff in a class action.” More on the firm’s renaming: Lat. And Carter Wood at NAM notes the silly encomia with which Weiss’s lawyer is still attempting to gild his crooked client.
New at Point of Law
If you’re not keeping up with our sister site, you’re missing out on stories about how expert evidence standards help plaintiffs too (and more); animal rights more voguish at many law schools than those dull old humans; Ohio Supreme Court commended; implications of recent plunge in carpal tunnel cases; 93% enrollment in Vioxx settlement; attorney faces criminal charges after his clients quit their nursing jobs; extensive coverage of Gov. Spitzer’s downfall; more trouble for Florida lawyer accused of bribing defendant’s adjuster to obtain settlement target numbers; ballot measure would abolish employment at will in Colorado; judicial seminars by the securities class action bar; and much more.
Torkelsen Lerach scandal, cont’d
Turns out when Bill Lerach cut his plea deal with the feds, they not only agreed to spare him prosecution on other matters, but also agreed not to press charges against former Milberg lawyers (and current Coughlin Stoia partners) Patrick Coughlin and Keith Park over their dealings with Torkelsen. Another sign, perhaps, that Lerach managed to cut himself and his circle a good deal in the plea negotiations. (WSJ law blog, Mar. 6; earlier).
Special master: Coughlin Stoia paid for “stolen” Coke documents
Do they often do business this way? The law firm of Coughlin Stoia, known as Lerach Coughlin before the departure of now-disgraced Bill Lerach, has been vying for lead counsel status in a shareholder class action against Coca-Cola. Now Roger Parloff at Fortune “Legal Pad” (Feb. 28) reports that a special master on the case has recommended that the firm be disqualified for “extremely troubling” conduct which it then defended after exposure using “pretextual” arguments. It seems two former Coke executives approached the law firm of Milberg Weiss (predecessor before its split of Coughlin Stoia), one of them in possession of more than 3,000 company documents he’d taken on departure, many stamped “confidential”. The law firm then agreed to pay the execs at least $75,000 to serve as “consultants”, part of the deal consisting of access to the documents, which it then used in its complaint.
When the consulting agreement came to light more than a year ago, Coughlin Stoia lawyers backed [Greg] Petro’s claim that neither he nor they had thought he was taking Coke documents without authority because, among other things, Petro had been ordered, when terminated, to “clean out his office.” Special Master [Hunter] Hughes found that such a command could not “rationally be construed to authorize Petro to walk off with company documents, any more than it authorized him to take the company’s desk, chairs, and computer.”
Hughes also rejected arguments that the firm was not really buying the documents, just entering into a consulting agreement, and a public-policy style argument that Petro’s conduct should be condoned because he was a whistleblower trying to expose corporate wrongdoing.
In a footnote, Hughes found that public policy arguments weighed in the other direction: “On a very practical level, for the Court to give Plaintiffs’ counsel a pass on this conduct, would simply invite terminated employees, particularly of public companies, to on a wholesale basis remove company documents following their termination in hopes they can sell them should the company be sued.”
More: San Diego Union-Tribune, ABA Journal, WSJ law blog (where several comments defend the law firm’s conduct).
March 4 roundup
- Judge allows lawsuit to go forward as class action claiming consumers defrauded because gasoline expands in summer heat and so there’s less in a “gallon” [KC Star, TodaysTrucking.com; earlier at PoL]
- Online speech: when a lawprof says it silences someone not to let them sue for defamation, it’s time to check definitions [Reynolds, Bainbridge, Volokh]
- Should a law school invite Lerach of all people to teach legal ethics? [Massey/Faculty Lounge; earlier] Plus: Congress should investigate how widespread Lerach-style abuses were at other law firms [Columbus Dispatch editorial]
- Usually no one gets hurt when a physician dodges having to deal with a litigious patient, but then there are those emergencies [Brain Blogger]
- A lesson for Canada: judged by results in places like Kansas, the American approach to hate speech (i.e., not banning it) seems to work pretty well [Gardner/Ottawa Citizen]
- “Way way too egocentric”: a marketing expert’s critique of injury law firm websites [Rotbart/LFOMA via ABA Journal]
- More students are winding up in court after parodying their teachers on the Internet [Christian Science Monitor]
- Money in the air? It happens the quiet little Alaskan Native village suing over global warming is being represented by some lawyers involved in the great tobacco heist [NY Times]
- Ninth Circuit panel hands Navy partial defeat in enviro whale sonar suit; ditto federal court in Hawaii [Examiner; earlier]
- Le Canard Noir “Quackometer” flays pseudo-science, some of its targets complain to ISP which then yanks the site: “We do not wish to be in a position where we could be taken to court” [Orac; earlier]
- Hans Bader guestblogged at Point of Law last week, on such subjects as: courts that decide punishment before damages; presumed guilty of child abuse? inconsistent straight/gay treatment in sexual harassment law; and signs that today’s Supreme Court doesn’t exactly show a pro-business bias in discrimination cases.
Milberg expert Torkelsen pleads guilty to perjury
This looks pretty major, pattern-and-practice-wise:
John B. Torkelsen, a former expert witness for Milberg Weiss, has agreed to plead guilty to perjury, admitting he lied to a federal court judge in a securities class action case about how he was getting paid.
Prosecutors in the Milberg Weiss case have been eyeing Torkelsen for years.
I wonder whether this will put a crimp in the image rehabilitation op-ed stylings of Bill “My Only Sin Was To Love the People Too Much” Lerach. The implications could ripple out to other class-action firms as well: “In an announcement about the plea agreement on Thursday, prosecutors claim that Torkelsen was retained by several firms” and that the other firms engaged in misbehavior akin to that of Torkelsen’s handlers at Milberg. (Amanda Bronstad, “Former Milberg Weiss Expert Witness Agrees to Plead Guilty to Perjury”, National Law Journal, Feb. 29). Our earlier coverage of Torkelsen is here.