Lawyer of the Day: Samuel A. Fishman
With respect to our earlier post, about a rumor that Latham & Watkins represents the Church of Scientology, we have our doubts. See this comment (at 2:53 PM).
But here’s some bad news about Latham that appears to be more reliable. From the WSJ Law Blog:
[Samuel A. Fishman (pictured)] has pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud and is slated to be sentenced in June….The criminal information and papers from the U.S. attorney’s office say Fishman, 51 of New Jersey, was a lawyer in the corporate department of a major U.S. law firm with offices in the U.S., Europe and Asia. SEC documents show a Samuel A. Fishman was a lawyer at Latham & Watkins….
The criminal information says that, upon discovering the scheme, the law firm reimbursed its clients hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenses. The information says Fishman was the billing partner for a number of the firm’s institutional clients, including clients in banking, utilities, telecommunications and entertainment.
From 1993 through 2005, it says, Fishman mischaracterized on invoices certain expenses, such as non-reimbursable meals and parking fees, as reimbursable expenses, such as photocopying and express mail, amounting to more than $200,000 of mischaracterized expenses. He also sent client invoices that inflated actual costs to the firm, amounting to $100,000 of non-existent expenses, the information says. It says that he also falsely represented personal expenses, such as hotel bills, as reimbursable business expenses.
In case you’re wondering, Samuel Fishman is a 1981 graduate of NYU Law School. See here. Harvard Law School’s two-day winning streak for Lawyer of the Day has been broken.
Update (4:20 PM): Here is the firm’s official statement about the Sam Fishman matter, from David Gordon, managing partner of Latham’s New York office:
“As reflected in the statements from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, our firm discovered the issues relating to Mr. Fishman in 2005, immediately acted to protect our clients fully, and disclosed the matter to appropriate law enforcement authorities. Mr. Fishman resigned from the firm at the time the issues were discovered. Since that time, we have cooperated fully with the investigation.”
Samuel A. Fishman [Latham & Watkins via Archive.org]
Lawyer Pleas in Case Charging that He Bilked Firm and Clients [WSJ Law Blog]
Lawyer at Major Firm Charged with Bilking Firm and Clients [WSJ Law Blog]
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Comments
Yep - that is latham's very own. He was found out about two years ago and was quietly booted. It was great. He was a total tool.
Lat, for someone who works on the internet, you're less than great at finding info out about people. Here is what was previously posted on Latham & Watkins website.
Samuel A. Fishman
Partner
Corporate Department
Education:
JD, New York University, 1981
BA, City College, New York, 1978
Experience:
Samuel A. Fishman is a partner in the New York office of Latham & Watkins. He is a former Chair of the Mergers and Acquisitions Group and the Venture and Technology Group of the New York office. He has represented buyers, sellers and financial institutions in all types of acquisitions and dispositions, including power generating assets and companies, health care related companies, e-commerce companies, information technology services and products companies, communications related businesses and many types of industrial and financial services companies. His practice also focuses on general corporate, SEC, venture capital and finance matters. He has represented major venture capital investors in numerous types of investments, acquisitions and dispositions. He has also served as outside general counsel to public companies and has significant experience in corporate counseling as to SEC and disclosure matters, restructurings and a wide variety of business-related legal matters. He has extensive experience representing distressed public companies and their boards of directors in restructurings and bankruptcies.
AFFILIATIONS
Mr. Fishman is a member of the Board of Directors and Executive Committee of Sinai - The Learning Disabilities Program of Metropolitan New Jersey, Inc. and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy. He is a member of the New York Bar and a member of the American Bar Association, the New York State Bar Association and the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.
Hat tip to 4:04 who beat me to it with better information.
According to the NYSBA, Samuel Aaron Fishman lwas admitted to the bar in 1982 and went to NYU.
https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/attorney/AttorneyDetails?attorneyId=5411105
4:04 - Where did you find that?
4:04 = Lat?!?
lat to google training?
It's a copy of the cached webpage. You people don't really think things go away when you "take them off the internet" do you?
Thanks for the hat tip Contrarian.
You can seriously get prosecuted for exaggerating expense reports? This guy must be a Democrat.
yes, but how is what fishman did any different from firms charging mega for faxes and copies?
"Lawyer at Major Firm Charged with Bilking Firm and Clients"
??
More like: "Lawyer at Major Firm Fired for Not Bilking Clients Enough"
will this hurt recruiting?
4:25 - because faxing and copying are things that you CAN bill to your clients as they are business related. Personal and inflated expenses are the types of things you can/should not bill, and it is considered fraud.
I see where you're going; clients get billed exorbitant amounts of $$ for mundane/stupid tasks. But that's part of the deal. Paying for services that they are not receiving isn't.
See, I divulge the method and Lat takes away the credit he gave me for the find!
Typical big-shot standing on the shoulders of the little guy and giving him no credit. ;-)
The real question is, how did he get caught?
what happened to SEN?
Who cares about SEN?
What happened to KASH?!?
No, the real question is why the hell is a partner who pulls in millions a year fucking around with low-level fraud that brought in only an additional $16,666 a year (some of which apparently went to firm revenues and not directly to him anyway)? He must be some kind of compulsive.
That's what it takes to be a partner 5:03.
$300k over 12 years when you make a million or more a year. WOW!
former chari of M&A? ouch...
former chair of M&A? ouch...
Damn, given how LB post started, expected crimes to be juicier!
What a giant loser this guy is. It's like Winona Ryder shoplifting. He must be mentally ill.
I bet he is full of other nasty secrets.
http://cache.viewimages.com/xc/73986036.jpg?v=1&c=ViewImages&k=2&d=17A4AD9FDB9CF19318A31BE3974C4F05AF6AD487EB004F27284831B75F48EF45
I was once so in love with Winona Ryder that I carved a beautiful home-made tattoo of her name across my abdomen.
Now I rarely take off my shirt without someone telling me that she pled guilty to shoplifting -- as though I were on another planet in 2001.
Anyway, when I look at her name in the mirror -- throbbing in blue ink -- I am always reminded of her dreamy eyes and that old-soul smirk she wore throughout Heathers....
I think maybe I'll write her another letter today.
Maybe the firm just wanted to "get rid of him" and made something up since 300k is not that much, just enough to make people notice
Sure. A cabal of Latham partners hatched a conspiracy to dump an unpopular member of the partnership by alleging the unpopular partner enagged in criminal behavior to which the unpopular partner later pleas guilty.
Brilliant.
You're a fine lawyer.
Yeah, 7:47, that's not the way things work. Having been in a room when a scandal was uncovered, I can tell you how it really works -- "We have to keep this quiet, because if this got out, it would make us look really bad. So, we're all in agreement this doesn't go beyond this room? Good. Now we're going to ask person X to resign and pretend he simply found a better opportunity elsewhere."
No, there's another reason this went public, because it was certainly not because Latham wanted it to.
Can we legally protest against a law firm? It's a business after all. The public can complain it's unethical or unfair practice via protest, right?
We have reason to believe that the L&W letters contains evidence that they are being used in the Fair Game policy, officially didn't exist, but being carried out anyway, of the Church of Scientology. We don't need to win any law suits, or win any bar complains, but we just need enough to win public opinion and grab some headlines.
Can Lat ever post about a person without having to gloat over what school he/she went to. Why don't we just value the person for who she/he is instead of incessantly labeling.
12:08 - are you a native english speaker? were you sober when you wrote that?
I saw this story before...
It was called "The Firm."