Attorney Misconduct, Legal Ethics

Things Get Worse For A Disgraced Lawyer (Who's Married To A Federal Judge)

You'd think that after he was disbarred, got ordered to refund excessive legal fees, and had his law firm dissolved and placed into receivership, not much else bad could happen to Stan Chesley -- but you'd be wrong.

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Stan Chesley, once considered a top litigator, is not having a good few years. You’d think that after being disbarred, being ordered by a court to refund excessive legal fees in a class action, turning government witness against former colleagues, and having his law firm dissolved and placed into receivership, not much else bad (professionally) could really happen to the man. But you’d be wrong.

As noted in Morning Docket and reported by the Louisville Courier-Journal:

A Boone Circuit Judge issued a warrant for Chesley’s arrest Thursday after he failed to appear for a hearing on his refusal to pay on a $42 million judgment won by former clients in Kentucky’s notorious fen-phen case.

That… doesn’t seem great. Though one of Chesley’s attorneys noted he did not know if the former litigator would surrender or move to quash the warrant.

Chesley, who used to be called the “Prince of Torts” and “Master of Disaster,” first came under fire two years ago for fees collected in the the fen-phen diet supplement case:

He was disbarred two years ago by the Kentucky Supreme Court, which found that he took a $20.5 million fee in the fen-phen case, about $7.6 million more than he should have gotten, and orchestrated a scheme to cover up misdeeds by Lexington lawyers William Gallion, Shirley Cunningham and Melbourne Mills, all of whom also have been disbarred. Gallion and Cunningham are serving long prison terms for fraud while Mills, who said he was too drunk to have knowingly participated, was acquitted. Chesley testified for the prosecution and never was charged.

The clients involved in that case have since won a $42 million judgement, only $17 million of which has been paid to date. All of which brings us to the current warrant for Chesley’s arrest.

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This is all a heaping helping of schadenfreude for the former plaintiffs’ attorney. As David Lat noted when Chesley’s legal troubles first came to light, he wasn’t always admired in legal circles. Here are selected opinions about him:

  • “[A]n opportunist and just a nasty son of a bitch.”

  • “[W]hat [Chesley] does is evil.”

  • “The ultimate grotesque, exaggerated perversion of what it means to be a lawyer.”

  • “He has balls as big as brass bells.”

But Chesley still has a federal judge as a wife (the Honorable Susan J. Dlott (S.D. Ohio)), as well as a 27,000-square-foot mini-castle to call home. So even given this latest dip in his fortunes, he is doing alright.

Warrant issued for ex-lawyer Chesley’s arrest [The Courier-Journal]

Earlier: Lawyer of the Day: Stan Chesley, Disbarred Husband of a Federal Judge
Disgraced Plaintiffs’ Lawyer Stan Chesley: He’s Baaack….

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