Misbehaving in style

"Every profession has its black sheep. But when lawyers misbehave, they tend to do it in style, and it's already been a banner week for lawyers behaving badly." - American Law Daily.

October 27, 2010 12:31 PM
More Lawyers Behaving Badly
Posted by Brian Baxter

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Every profession has its black sheep. But when lawyers misbehave, they tend to do it in style, and it's already been a banner week for lawyers behaving badly.

A New Jersey lawyer has been censured for repeatedly stealing from a blind concession operator, according to sibling publication the New Jersey Law Journal. Elwood John Walzer received the penalty--the strongest verbal punishment under New Jersey's legal ethics system--following the findings of a disciplinary review board that called the offense "particularly repugnant."

The NJLJ reports that a "strong censure" has been recommended for another New Jersey lawyer who allegedly aided in land-flip frauds. John Frohling had practiced for a half century doing municipal bond work before he and his firm, Frohling & Hudak, were caught up in three fraudulent house-flipping deals, the NJLJ reports.

The recent misdeeds aren't just limited to the Garden State. The New York Law Journal, a sibling publication, reports that a lawyer with New York state's department of civil service has been arrested for making threatening and racist phone calls to a black woman over the summer. James Hennessey, Jr., was charged in Albany City Court on Friday with two counts of second-degree aggravated harassment and released on $15,000 bail.

Across the country, in Newberg, Ore., Gunn Cain & Kinney partners Kevin Kinney and Jessica Cain have been accused by the Oregon State Bar of violating professional standards of conduct, according to the Newberg Graphic. Kinney and Cain, who are represented by Dayna Underhill of Hinshaw & Culbertson in Portland, allegedly charged excessive fees, made false statements to a court, used the names of former associates in the firm's professional invoices, and misrepresented fee petitions.

The State Bar of Arizona is looking at a Phoenix lawyer accused of telling a client he was channeling his dead wife and then allegedly lying about it at a disciplinary proceeding, according to sibling publication The National Law Journal. In June, a hearing officer with the Arizona Supreme Court recommended that Charney Johnson receive two years of probation and have her law license suspended for six months.

And for any Big Law readers inclined to turn up their noses, it's clear from recent headlines that Am Law 200 lawyers are not above similar shenanigans.

Last week Chicago Now's law blog picked up a notice from the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin on 11 Illinois attorneys losing their license to practice law, including former Mayer Brown partner Joseph Collins and Lawrence Wick, a former partner at Wildman, Harrold, Allen & Dixon.

Collins's troubles have been covered in this space before; Wick used to practice IP law at Wildman before the firm began an internal investigation into his billing to two clients. Citing a report by an Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission Review Board in Wick's case, Chicago Now reports that Wildman ended up returning $945,000 and forgiving an outstanding bill for $350,000 for Wick's clients.

The NYLJ also reported last week that a former Jenkens & Gilchrist lawyer, Erwin Mayer, pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy and tax evasion as part of an agreement with federal prosecutors. Mayer admitted helping market and defend illegal tax shelters that prosecutors claim cost the government millions in lost revenue.

Mayer admitted taking part in the scheme, which ran from 1994 until 2005, while at now-defunct Chicago firm Altheimer & Gray and Jenkens & Gilchrist, which folded in March 2007 after the firm reached a non-prosecution deal on the tax shelters.