Attorney Misconduct

Morning Docket: 05.01.07

University of Virginia School of Law UVA Law School Above the Law blog.jpg* These guys get a case at the Supreme Court before they even graduate. They really are the coolest law school! [The Daily Progress via How Appealing]
* Cho loophole supposedly now closed. [CNN]
* Bush telling Texas it has to comply with international law? Seems a little ironic… [Jurist]
* A fool for a client… [WSJ Law Blog]
* Yes, what’s going in Darfur is genocide, ok people? Geez. [The Christian Science Monitor via Yahoo!]

frontlynnestewart.jpg
And now she’s disbarred. Convicted in 2005 for conspiracy and providing material support to terrorists, Lynne Stewart was disbarred by the New York Bar yesterday. Her request to voluntarily resign was rejected. From AP via Boston.com:

The appellate panel said Stewart became subject to losing her law license immediately upon being convicted of a felony.
Her request to resign was in a letter dated Nov. 14, 2006, after she was convicted, and therefore could not be accepted, the court said.
Stewart was convicted of one count each of conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to provide and conceal material support to terrorist activity and providing and concealing material support to terrorist activity. She also was convicted of two counts of making false statements.
The state appellate court said the federal convictions of making a false statement were analogous to a state felony statute against filing a false written statement.
“Accordingly, the federal convictions provide a proper predicate for automatic disbarment,” the appellate judges wrote.

And this from Jurist:

Stewart has insisted that she “is not a traitor” and has said that she was only advocating for her client. She remains free pending appeal of her conviction.

A list of Fortune 250 general counsels who are practicing law without a license appears here. An article explaining it appears here.
This shouldn’t come as a big surprise. If a successful nominee to the exalted D.C. Circuit couldn’t keep track of the licensing requirements of his jurisdiction, why should we expect any better from general counsels?
Best comment, from Vernon Baker II of ArvinMeritor Inc.: “You got me.”
Almost all of these are just paperwork problems. But one situation is more mysterious:

Todd DuChene at Solectron, an electronic systems manufacturer based in Milpitas, Calif., was alone among the GCs in our survey in declining to confirm or deny his status. DuChene is not listed in the State Bar of California’s database as a licensed attorney, according to bar official Diane Curtis.

Might DuChene be another Brian Valery?
Which Leading GCs Are Operating Without a License? [Corporate Counsel via Law.com]
Something’s Missing [Corporate Counsel via Law.com]

Non-Sequiturs: 03.23.07

Pregnant Belly 2 Above the Law blog.JPG* With the advanced state of medical technology, it won’t be long before some pol subjects every pregnant woman to a recording of her fetus pleading, “Please, Mommy, don’t kill me!” [MSN]
* What on earth was he planning on doing with all that money? I’m thinking a tragic Gatsby-esque scenario. [ABA Journal E-Report]
* Did Craigslist receive a threatening phone call from the Starbucks legal department? I’ve never been a barrista, but even I could not help but shake my head in amusement and utter, “So true, so true.” [Starbucks Gossip]
* In law school, I stuck to those guys in the backrooms of dive bars, who lent me tuition money on a handshake. Now that’s honest business… Of course, now they’ve pimped me out to a law firm. [New York Times]

Snell Wilmer LLP Character Comes Through Above the Law blog.jpgWe have obtained a letter that Snell & Wilmer partner Tracy Fowler sent to Judge Dale Kimball (D. Utah) concerning Timestampgate.
Our source for the letter expressed the following opinion (opinion! opinion! no verifiable statement of fact!):

Attached is a letter Tracy Fowler sent to Judge Kimball explaining that he is “shocked and embarrassed” that his firm was caught for the SECOND time [allegedly] trying to deceive the court. Not surprisingly, Fowler claims to have no knowledge of what transpired and assures the court that Snell & Wilmer is undertaking a thorough investigation.

The fact that the letter came from Fowler, the partner on the case in question, rather than the managing partner of Snell & Wilmer is kind of like the fox assuring the farmer that he will conduct a thorough investigation into the hens missing from the hen house.

We hope you noticed the colorful rhetoric and hyperbole employed by our source’s “hen house” comparison — which, as noted, is merely opinion (opinion! opinion! no verifiable statement of fact!).
One could hold a very different opinion based on the same facts. For example, one could argue that it was most logical for the letter to come from Tracy Fowler, rather than some other Snell & Wilmer partner, because Fowler is lead counsel in this case.
Okay, enough preliminaries. The letter appears after the jump.

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Timestampgate: Snell & Wilmer’s Letter to Judge Dale Kimball”

Snell Wilmer LLP Character Comes Through Above the Law blog.jpgLast week, we did an item on Judge Dale Kimball (D. Utah) benchslapping some Snell & Wilmer lawyers for allegedly engaging in questionable conduct involving the court’s time stamp machine and outside drop box.
Yesterday the WSJ Law Blog put up a post on the controversy. Most of their post will be familiar to readers of our earlier item. But here’s a new tidbit they unearthed:

The Law Blog spoke with Alan Sullivan, managing partner of Snell & Wilmer’s Salt Lake City office, who said that his law firm took responsibility for the improperly dated court filings. He also confirmed said that a Snell & Wilmer associate staffed on the Yamaha matter resigned from the law firm on Friday.

A question: Was the associate in question entirely responsible for the alleged conduct? Or did partner Tracy Fowler, who remains at Snell & Wilmer, know anything about it?
In case you’re curious, we believe that this individual is the associate who resigned last week. Her bio on the Snell & Wilmer website was functional as of Friday, but it has since been taken down. If you go to where her bio used to be, you’re informed that “the current record has been deleted.”
Thank God for Google Cache and Archive.org. For those of you who are curious — nobody’s forcing you to look at it — a screenshot of this associate’s bio appears after the jump.

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Timestampgate: Snell & Wilmer Associate Resigns”

Aaron Charney 2 headshot Aaron B Charney Aaron Brett CharneyWe just woke up from a nice little nap, to see that we’ve been given a delightful gift from the WSJ Law Blog: a copy of Sullivan & Cromwell’s motion to dismiss. To access it, click here (PDF).
Please post your thoughts on it in this open thread. We haven’t had a chance to read it yet. But one of you advises us by email:

Dude! You’re “one commentator”! (page 7 of complaint). But they wouldn’t give you the satisfaction of citing the name of the web site!!!

No name-check. Oh well. Are the Paul Hastings and S&C lawyers too embarrassed to admit that they read this fine website?
(But hey, we’re just lowly bloggers — we’ll take what we can get.)
P.S. Here’s the language in question:

Charney’s propensity toward wholesale disclosure was succinctly summarized by one commentator, who on February 2, 2007 stated as follows “Plaintiff Aaron Charney…. is usually an INSTANT emailer…. In the past he has been very cordial and chatty with us.”

S&C Files Motion to Dismiss Charney’s Lawsuit

Aaron Charney 2 headshot Aaron B Charney Aaron Brett CharneyWe’re still trying to get the motion papers in Sullivan & Cromwell v. Charney, the lawsuit S&C has filed against its (former) associate. Unfortunately, we haven’t had any luck just yet.
We’ve contacted some MSM friends who have been following the case, but they either don’t have the documents or aren’t willing to share them. We contacted S&C’s counsel, Zach Fasman of Paul Hastings, to see if he might be able to provide us with copies — which, as we noted in our email, are publicly filed. He wrote back: “No comment” (and with no attachments).
We’re coming up to New York on Thursday, to attend the hearing before Justice Bernard Fried. So we will try to get the documents ourselves, in person, at that time. But we would obviously appreciate it if someone could get copies to us earlier.
In the meantime, we’re curious to see whether S&C’s going on the offensive has affected public opinion. Ever since we opened our Charney v. S&C poll, Aaron Charney has been polling between 60 and 65 percent. But maybe this will change, now that S&C has turned the tables on Charney, accusing him of wrongdoing and misconduct in court filings of its own.
The poll appears below. Please note that you are permitted to change your vote (so feel free to do so if S&C’s countersuit has affected your views):

And, of course, there’s our second poll, concerning the possible monetary value of Charney v. Sullivan & Cromwell. We previously thought the poll might be an interesting gauge of the case’s settlement value. But in light of S&C’s apparent brass-knuckles approach, what Charney’s case might settle for is just a matter of academic curiosity.
Earlier: Prior ATL coverage of Aaron Charney and Sullivan & Cromwell (scroll down)

Sullivan & Cromwell S&C Sully Above the Law.jpgWell before Charney v. Sullivan & Cromwell was ever filed, the venerable law firm was dealing with some serious issues. As aptly summarized by New York Magazine’s Intelligencer, “Sullivan & Cromwell lost about 30 percent of its associates in 2004 and 2005. It might take more than a raise to fix that.”
From a fascinating rather interesting Wall Street Journal article by Peter Lattman (which we meant to write about yesterday, before we got swamped by all the pay raise news):

Faced with a surge in turnover of its associates, the prestigious law firm Sullivan & Cromwell LLP has been putting on a charm offensive to hold onto junior lawyers.

The crash course in etiquette went into high gear at a partners meeting last February. To deal with low associate morale and high attrition, a confidential slide presentation reviewed by The Wall Street Journal urged partners to say things like “thank you” and “good work” to associates they supervise.

What else should partners do? “Return associates’ phone calls as quickly as you would a partner’s or client’s,” said one bullet. “Be sensitive to not canceling associates’ vacations,” said another.

Additional bullet-points made these helpful suggestions:

“Don’t tell gay associates that they like taking it up the ass (because they might be tops rather than bottoms).”

“Refrain from subjecting associates to profanity-laced tirades in which you tell them they should be fired.”

Guess Eric Krautheimer and Alexandra Korry missed that meeting.
Discussion continues after the jump.

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Sullivan & Cromwell: Because Charney v. S&C Is Just the Tip of the Iceberg”

Larry Charles naked girl.jpgPeople celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day in different ways. Some attended remembrance services for the slain civil rights leader. Some participated in public service projects.
And some tried to get busy with adolescent girls:

A criminal defense lawyer was arrested after a sheriff’s deputy found him naked with a 14-year-old girl in a courthouse conference room, authorities said Tuesday.

Larry Charles, 49, has been charged with solicitation, attempted statutory sexual assault and related counts, said Lt. Dan Bagnell of the Police Department’s Special Victims Unit.

A sheriff’s deputy making his rounds in the Criminal Justice Center on Monday afternoon looked into a lawyers’ conference room on the third floor and discovered Charles and the girl, Bagnell said.

This reminds us of the story of Kweku Hanson. But at least he had the decency to wait until the girl turned 16.
Attorney Found Naked In Courthouse With 14-Year-Old [NBC10.com (Philadelphia)]
Earlier: What’s a Little Kiddie Porn Between Friends?

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