UPDATE: Entirely unsurprisingly, the underlying article misstates one pretty important detail — check out below.
There’s a wild writeup in the Miami Herald covering the disbarment of attorney Christopher Brady and yet somehow the story leaves us with one fairly glaring question.
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Brady, a Nova Southeastern grad, worked with the Barak Law Group but after the firm let him go, he tried to start a rival firm with the same (arguably) name:
Brady quickly started the website www.baraklawgrouppa.com. He tried to register “Barak Law Group P.A.” with the state of Florida and claimed his former employer wasn’t a professional association because there were no periods in the registered firm name’s “PA.” Later, he also tried to use punctuation to claim the restraining order wasn’t valid as the firm put the periods in when filing for it.
The courts did… not agree with the punctuation theory. However, the Barak Law Group P.A. iteration of the firm apparently took an unconventional approach to its management.
[Opposing Counsel Edwin] Valen also wrote his most recent phone call was with Christopher Brady’s twin brother, Matthew Brady, “in which I was told they had a shareholder meeting at 4 a.m. and that they were at a Walmart camping aisle spending corporate resources on knives? Very strange.”
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To be honest, that’s exactly how the Wachtell executive committee operates.
Both the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office and the referee say surveillance video caught Christopher and Matthew Brady tethering the front door handles to the rear of Christopher Brady’s Ford F250 and punching the gas. With the doors ripped open, the Bradys swiped a safe, a computer server and a key to the Barak Law Group’s storage unit.
Take that Chevy! Seriously, this is some old West stuff right here and it earns my complete respect. In any event, it’s the key to the storage unit where things pique my curiosity.
UPDATE: Tony Barak wrote in to clarify that despite the Herald’s wording, the key was to Barak’s “personal storage unit, not the law firm’s unit.” This makes the whole story make a lot more sense of course. One could envision a world where a firm held firearms for a client in escrow — say, in an inheritance context — but that didn’t mesh with Barak’s practice.
Getting the key allowed the Bradys to walk into the Barak Law Firm unit at Midgard Storage in Bradenton on Aug. 15 and, after finding out which unit the firm rented, walk out with two office chairs and a Colt AR-15, .22 caliber rifle in its original cardboard box.
Midgard hasn’t protected that kind of firepower since Odin hid Mjolnir. That joke was for about 10 of you, but you’re welcome. When arrested, Brady admitted to stealing the AR-15 and currently faces two counts of burglary of an unoccupied structure and one count of grand theft firearm.
[So I’m confused as to why the law firm has a storage arsenal. Why is this not fleshed out in this Miami Herald piece?] UPDATE: Obviously the firm didn’t have a storage unit, but this only supercharges the underlying point — why wouldn’t this strike a Florida publication as something sufficiently out-of-the-ordinary to flag for more detail?
It seems like every time I read a “Florida lawyer…” story there’s some really eye-popping detail that gets thrown out there and never explained as if it’s something we’re supposed to assume is totally normal:
A Florida attorney has received a three-month suspension for commingling funds and other trust account related violations. He admitted the error and said his mistake stemmed from his efforts to cross-breed his cat with a raccoon. The firm, which specializes in white-collar criminal defense, states that no client funds were lost and expects to maintain client services because of the firm’s deep bench of talented litigators.
A law firm fired an attorney. He became the firm’s stalker and stole an AR-15, cops say [Miami Herald]
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.