Biglaw

Was The Dewey Trial Fair?

'These long trials are just not fair.'

By  
on
Steven Davis, Joel Sanders, and Stephen DiCarmine

Steven Davis, Joel Sanders, and Stephen DiCarmine

Dewey & LeBoeuf was once a thriving, prestigious law firm with 26 offices, over a thousand lawyers, and a diverse set of clients. But that is very much in the past. When the firm filed for bankruptcy in 2012, all those lawyers, and the staff that supported them, had to find new jobs, and four members of the firm’s management were charged with crimes for their role in the firm’s downfall.

Of course, there were lots of legal wrangling to be done before a jury would convict anyone of anything related to Dewey & LeBoeuf. The client relations manager, Zachary Warren, who got caught up in this mess had the charges against him dropped in exchange for community service. He’s now an associate at Williams & Connolly (though why he decided to return to the world of Biglaw is beyond me). And there was that pesky hung jury — in 2015 a jury was unable to reach a verdict for the most serious changes against Joel Sanders, former CFO, Stephen DiCarmine, former Executive Director, and Steven Davis, former Chairman, and returned not guilty verdicts for the most serious charges against them while returning not guilty verdict on multiple counts of falsifying business records.

But Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance was not deterred.

For the second trial, the list of defendants and charges were winnowed down. Davis received a deferred prosecution agreement, and for Sanders and DiCarmine, there were only three charges a piece (the first trial featured ~50 charges for each of the three defendants). The retrial was (partially) successful for the DA’s office: earlier this week, Sanders was found guilty of two felony fraud charges and a misdemeanor count of conspiracy, while DiCarmine was acquitted of all charges.

But nearly five full years since Dewey went into bankruptcy, and folks in the legal community are asking if the time and effort to get the guilty verdict against Sanders was really worth it. Law.com spoke with a while-collar Biglaw partner to get his take:

“I think Cy and his office had a good faith belief that something bad happened here and they needed to bring these criminal charges. They did, and they were dogged in pursuing them,” said Charles Stillman of Ballard Spahr.

But even if the prosecution wasn’t misguided, Stillman added, the procedural background—two lengthy trials, a hung jury and dropped charges—supports the view that the case was too broad. He also said a case of this magnitude puts a strain on everyone involved.

“What the history of the case reveals is that they should have narrowed it before it got started,” said Stillman. “These long trials are just not fair; they’re just not fair to the defendant; they’re not fair to the jury; they’re not fair to the system. You need to find a way to circumscribe the evidence.”

Sponsored

Of course reasonable people’s opinions can differ, and the DA is playing up the import of going after financial crimes, even though they can prove challenging to prosecute:

“Joel Sanders used his position as chief financial officer to mask the failing financial health of Dewey & LeBoeuf, leading insurers and lenders to believe the firm was still above water,” Vance said in a statement. “This office is committed to prosecuting financial criminals at all levels of an organization, whether it is a small business, a major corporation, or a prestigious law firm.”

While the defense side of the table sees the proliferation of charges as evidence something is really wrong:

Not surprisingly Rita Glavin, a partner at Seward & Kissel who led DiCarmine’s defense in the retrial, had a similar take.

“I just think this case from the beginning was flawed. I don’t think there should have been a case—not a criminal case—here,” she said. “They certainly bit off more than they could chew. It makes it much harder to defend, because it was almost schizophrenic.”

But no sentence can undo the professional, financial, and psychological harm that was done to all those who lost their livelihoods when Dewey went under.

Sponsored

Post-Gaming the Dewey Trial: A Win for Cyrus Vance? [Law.com]

headshotKathryn Rubino is an editor at Above the Law. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

Topics

, , , , , ,