Law Firm Partner Charged After Pretending To Be A Lawyer For A Decade

By Staci Zaretsky

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/ Mar 31, 2015 at 12:02 PM

‘My fake career! Nooooooooooo!’

Many students trudge through law school for three years with big dreams, hoping to someday slip the brass ring of law firm partnership onto their finger. With up to six figures of student loan debt later, recent graduates will put their nose to the grindstone and study endlessly prior to taking the bar exam. Those who pass the test will toil away as young attorneys at their firms for years and years, wishing, wanting, and waiting for the moment when they’ll be able to make the victorious leap from associate to partner. When that day finally comes, it will be a glorious occasion, if only because they’ve worked so hard to achieve it.
But why bother wasting away in law school and law practice for all those years — and not to mention accumulating all of that debt — when you can just tell people you’re a lawyer?
That seems to be exactly what Kimberly Kitchen, a Pennsylvania woman who was recently elevated to the partnership of BMZ Law Offices, is accused of having done. We wrote about Kitchen last year when news of her alleged transgressions first broke, and now she’s been formally charged with forgery, unauthorized practice of law, and felony records tampering.
As we noted previously, Kitchen claimed to have graduated from Duquesne University School of Law in 2005, and then worked for BMZ Law for about 10 years before being promoted to partner in April 2014. She also claimed to have taught as a professor at Columbia Law School. Prior to these charges being brought, she claimed to have worked as a paralegal at Reed Smith for more than a decade on her LinkedIn profile (which has since been taken down). This is what her bio on the BMZ Law website used to look like:

Unfortunately for Ms. Kitchen, the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office just wasn’t buying what she was selling. Here are some additional details from NBC News:

Kitchen allegedly forged numerous documents attesting that she was a licensed attorney, including an attorney’s license for 2014, supposed bar examination results, supposed records of her law school attendance and a check purporting to show she’d paid her registration fees.
Duquesne University told NBC station WJAC of Johnstown in December, when the state investigation began, that it had no record of Kitchen’s having attended. The state attorney’s registration office shows no listing for her.

Despite the fact that Kitchen had no attorney records on file with the state to speak of, that didn’t stop her from becoming president of the Huntingdon County Bar Association. Perhaps the only prerequisite for local bar membership in Pennsylvania is a pulse.
When partners at BMZ Law first caught wind of Kim Kitchen’s alleged lack of a law degree or bar admission, the firm released a statement: “Sadly, it would appear that our firm was the last, in a long line of professionals, to have been deceived by Ms. Kitchen into believing she was licensed to practice law.” The firm is currently going through all of the files she worked on to make sure nothing that was left in her unlearned hands was screwed up.
Kimberly Kitchen is looking at a few years in jail over this decade-long debacle. It’s a shame she didn’t specialize in criminal law, because she could have represented herself.
Huntingdon Co. woman charged for misrepresenting herself as a Commonwealth-licensed attorney [Pennsylvania Office of the Attorney General]
Pennsylvania Woman Charged After Making Partner With a Fake Law Degree [NBC News]
Pa. woman charged with forging docs to claim she was an attorney
[Pittsburgh Tribune-Review]
Authorities: Woman posed as lawyer for decade, named partner
[Seattle Post-Intelligencer]
Earlier: Oops! Law Firm Promotes Associate Who Likely Wasn’t A Lawyer To Partner

Topics

Attorney Misconduct, BMZ Law Offices, Crime, Duquesne University School of Law, Kimberly Kitchen, Legal Ethics, Partner Issues, Pennsylvania, Reed Smith, Whoops

Boalt Hall, California, Drugs, Kids, Midsize Firms / Regional Firms, Partner Issues

A Law Firm Partner and His Boalt Hall Wife Stand Accused of Planting Drugs on an Elementary School Volunteer

By Staci Zaretsky

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/ Jun 20, 2012 at 1:16 PM

Parenting can be an extremely difficult task, but an even more difficult task is proper helicopter parenting. It’s got to be an intense job to keep an eye on your child’s every move, day and night, wherever he may roam. In fact, some people have started to call these people lawnmower parents — after all, why choose to hover overhead when you can destructively mow down all obstacles that you perceive to be in your child’s way on the road to success?
Today, we’ve got a story about an attractive California couple who stand accused of being textbook examples of the worst kind of lawnmower parents, and they just so happen to both be lawyers. Daddy is (or was) a securities litigation partner at a midsize firm, and Mommy is a graduate of top law school. Trust us when we say that you do not want to mess with their kid, because you may wind up facing drug charges….
Please note the UPDATE at the end of this post.

Kent and Jill Easter, parents of an elementary-school student, allegedly conspired to get Kelli Peters, a parent volunteer at their son’s school, arrested in order to “teach her a lesson.” The couple stands accused of planting drugs on the volunteer whom mommy dearest asserts was guilty of failing to “properly supervis[e]” their child. That definitely had to be the worst Easter basket ever.
UPDATE (2:42 p.m.): Kent Easter apparently sued Peters in 2010 on behalf of his son, alleging false imprisonment and intentional infliction of emotional distress on Peters’s part. Easter alleged that Peters locked his son out of the school building after a tennis class in an “intentional and malicious” fashion. The case was ultimately dismissed, but you can access the full complaint here.

The prestigious couple: Jillianne B. Easter and Kent W. Easter

Kent W. Easter, a 1998 graduate of UCLA Law and former associate at Wilson Sonsini, is a securities litigation partner at Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth, a midsize California firm, where he serves as the chairman of the firm’s Recruiting and Summer Associates Committee. But as we noted in Morning Docket, the only thing that Easter seems to be straddling now is jail time.
Have the allegations against Kent Easter resulted in his departure from the firm? Stradley Yocca has made every effort to wipe its website clean of his now-sullied name (Google cache can only do so much; see what’s left of his former bio here). We’ve provided Easter’s full LinkedIn profile on the following page.
His wife, Jillianne B. Easter, is a 1998 graduate of Boalt Hall, but she allowed her bar membership to lapse. (And with an email address like “licensetojill,” perhaps her husband should have known he was in for some trouble.) According to her bio on her former firm’s website, Easter & DeLeon, L.L.P., she also served as an associate at Wilson Sonsini, where she presumably met her husband.
The Orange County Register has the scoop on this alleged Bonnie-and-Clyde duo:

A husband and wife were arrested Tuesday and charged with planting drugs in the car of an unsuspecting school volunteer who the wife thought was not properly supervising their son, according to prosecutors.
Kent Wycliffe Easter, 38, and Jill Bjorkholm Easter, 38, were arrested by Irvine police and are charged with conspiracy to procure the false arrest of the elementary-school parent volunteer, false imprisonment and conspiracy to falsely report a crime.

According to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, Kent Easter allegedly drove to Peters’s home on February 16, 2011, and placed a potpourri of drugs and drug paraphernalia — including Vicodin, Percocet, and marijuana — behind the driver’s seat of her unlocked vehicle. He then called the police and used a fake name to report Peters, claiming that he had seen her stash a bag of drugs in the car.
After detaining Peters for two hours and conducting an investigation that yielded no no evidence to support drug use or possession, detectives began to search for other leads:

Irvine detectives investigated the possibility that someone planted the drugs in the woman’s car and discovered that the call that alerted them was placed by Kent Easter from a phone in a business center of a Newport Beach hotel, according to prosecutors. The hotel’s surveillance cameras captured images of him at the time the call was placed, prosecutors said.

Ahh, the things a man will allegedly do for a lovely and intelligent trophy wife. The Easters are free on $20,000 bail each, and they’re scheduled to be arraigned on July 17 in Orange County. Talk about some bad eggs.
Flip to the next page to see Kent Easter’s LinkedIn profile, various news clippings on the couple’s arrest, and some video coverage….
UPDATE (06/25/13): The criminal charges against the Easters are ongoing, with a trial scheduled for October 28, 2013, but they are now suing several parties for defamation. Click here for additional coverage.

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Boalt Hall, California, Drugs, Easter & DeLeon, Helicopter Parents, Irvine, Jill B. Easter, Jill Bjorkholm Easter, Jill Easter, Jilliane B. Easter, Jilliane Bjorkholm Easter, Jilliane Easter, Kelli C. Peters, Kelli Peters, Kent Easter, Kent W. Easter, Kent Wycliffe Easter, Kids, L.L.P., Lawnmower Parents, Midsize Firms / Regional Firms, Parenting, Parents, Partner Issues, Plaza Vista School, Stradling Yocca, Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth, UCLA Law School, Wilson Sonsini, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati

Which firm recently found out that one of its partners was involved in a sexist email scandal, and is doing absolutely nothing about it?

21 May 2014 at 11:51 AM

Biglaw, Email Scandals, Gender, Partner Issues, Rudeness, Sexism, Sports, Women's Issues

Biglaw Partner Avoids Punishment For Participation In Lewd, Crude, Sexist Email Scandal

By Staci Zaretsky

‘Have spent all day fending Edna off my graphite shaft.’

We already knew that Biglaw firms aren’t exactly the most friendly places for women. We already knew that some male lawyers are still quite miffed that women invaded their good old boys’ clubs. What we didn’t know was that some Biglaw firms would go so far as to essentially sign off on their partners’ extremely sexist views.
Which firm recently found out that one of its partners was involved in a sexist email scandal, and is doing absolutely nothing about it?

The firm in question is DLA Piper, which may want to consider opening a DLA NO MA’AM outpost. Earlier this month, one of the firm’s sports law partners in the London office was caught exchanging incredibly lewd, crude, and sexist emails with one of his clients, Richard ­Scudamore of the U.K. Premier League.
The Sunday Mirror first covered the story on May 10, without naming the lawyer involved. A little more than one week later, that lawyer has been named thanks to reporters over at the Am Law Daily. Say hello to Nicholas West, whose DLA Piper bio has been completely wiped clean of his credentials.
Here’s one of West’s darling email exchanges with Scudamore, leaked by the Sunday Mirror:

Nicholas West

In one crude email exchange the lawyer bragged to ­Scudamore: “Have spent all day fending [Premier League planning and projects director Peta Bistany, aka “Edna”] off my graphite shaft. She is terribly relentless isn’t she?!”
The football chief and father of five who lives with his wife Catherine in a £1.8million home in Cirencester, Glos, replied: “Terribly! Must keep her off your shaft… graphite, sausage meat or flimsy sponge.” Yesterday a Premier League source said the pair claim to have been referring to golf clubs. The lawyer also told Scudamore to “save the cash in case you find some gash”.

DLA Piper launched an inquisition against West after catching wind of his involvement in this extravaganza of crude comments, but ultimately decided to do nothing. Here’s more information from Am Law Daily:

A DLA spokesman told [said] that while the firm had determined that West’s actions represented “a failure to meet the high professional standards in which we take pride,” no further action will be taken.
“We have accepted Mr. West’s assurances that these emails are not reflective of his beliefs and values and that there will be no recurrence of this behavior,” the firm said in a statement.
West released a statement of his own in which he “sincerely apologize[d]” for his actions and admitted that he had “let myself, my firm and its clients down.”
“I have an obligation to uphold the highest professional standards and I give my assurance that this will be the case going forward,” he added.

Here’s what seems to be a more accurate translation of West’s statement: “I let myself, my firm, and its clients down by getting caught. I have an obligation to uphold the highest professional standards, and because I am a lad with true honor, I give my assurance that this will be the case going forward because I won’t be so daft as to put how I really feel down in writing ever again. This is so f’ckn easy! Go United!”
It’s good to know one of the top law firms on the planet doesn’t want to discipline its partners for engaging in sexist behavior — but then again, perhaps DLA Piper feels that Nicholas West’s own embarrassment is good enough. Either way, this can’t be good for public (or pubic, amirite Nick?!) relations.
DLA Clears Partner Caught Up in Sexist Email Furor [Am Law Daily]
England football supremo Richard Scudamore made sexist slurs in a string of emails to soccer pals
[Sunday Mirror]

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Topics

Biglaw, Email, Email Scandals, Emails, Gender, Nicholas West, Partner Issues, Partners With Issues, Peta Bistany, Rudeness, Sexism, Sports, Sports Law, Women's Issues

Editor's note: Readers, please close your eyes and imagine how a ProbateShark owned law firm would effected the corrupt Probate Court of Cook County. Well, we can fanaticize, can't we?  Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com

30 Jan 2014 at 2:02 PM

Biglaw, Dewey & LeBoeuf, Heller Ehrman, Howrey LLP, Legal Ethics, Money, Partner Issues

Should Non-Lawyers Own Firms? Do They Already?

By Joe Patrice

‘So it’s decided – we’ll be Cravath, Swaine, Moore, & Doritos.’

All those professional responsibility lectures, and bar prep, and boring CLEs that I attended after becoming a lawyer, and all the boring CLEs I dutifully watched on the Internet after I escaped the probationary period, consistently preached the evils of non-lawyer ownership of law firms.
It raises ethical concerns! It dilutes what it means to be a lawyer! This is a profession, not a business! All the usual complaints from a profession convinced that it’s made up of beautiful and unique snowflakes with unimpeachable judgment.
But with the rest of the world embracing new structures to permit non-lawyer ownership — and empirical evidence suggesting that those models raise fewer ethical concerns than the alternative — some argue that the U.S. firm model stifles innovation and cripples international competitiveness.
But the better question is, “Don’t non-lawyers own law firms already?” And to the extent the answer is “of course,” shouldn’t the profession be bending over backwards to approve ownership models that better serve the firms and their clients than the status quo?

Non-lawyer firm ownership is mostly barred in the United States (D.C. allows limited non-lawyer financial stakes in firms). But when considering the question of radically altering the model of law firms, the standard approach is to compare a future dominated by outside corporate management to idyllic “L.A. Law” independence, where partners dictate the course of their firm with no outside interference. To think the latter universally reflects American law firms is just crazy talk. As Casey Sullivan of Reuters Legal reports (sub. req.), more than a few experts recognize that certain non-lawyers already wield immense power over law firm business decisions:

The recent spate of big U.S. law firm bankruptcies should make state bars reconsider an idea they have long resisted, allowing non-lawyer investment in law firms, legal experts said Wednesday.
At present law firms largely rely on financing from banks, but, if they could tap into more flexible sources of capital, they could provide relief to the troubled corporate law industry, according to Duane Morris partner Jonathan Armstrong and New York lawyer James Duffy.
Armstrong and Duffy, who were part of a panel discussion at the New York State Bar Association’s annual conference titled “Non-Lawyer Ownership of Law Firms,” did research on the subject for the association in 2012.
They said that defunct firms like Howrey, Heller Ehrman and Dewey & LeBoeuf went bankrupt partly because of a reliance on hefty bank loans that were quickly pulled after the firms violated the strict terms of their loan agreements.
“Too many firms are controlled by their bank,” said Armstrong, adding that the lenders often dictated how a firm should conduct its business in exchange for financial support.

When law firms have to rely on banks for loans, they’ve already forfeited some measure of firm control. The article notes that Citi Private Bank and Wells Fargo have even taken to dictating the practice areas firms should concentrate in before coughing up capital. These moves may or may not be in the best interest of the firm, but it puts the lie to the notion that in the status quo American law firms are free from non-lawyers dictating management decisions.
Non-lawyer ownership might not have saved Dewey, Howrey, and Heller, but if each had had the opportunity to bring in investment partners committed to the long-term success of the business instead of relying on banks concerned only with getting their loans repaid quickly and efficiently, who knows? Maybe you’d never have had to read a stupid “Dewey Think” or “Howrey Gonna” pun in these pages.
That would’ve been worth it.
Experts in N.Y. argue for non-lawyer funding of law firms [Reuters Legal (sub. req.)]
Is it Time for Non-Lawyer Ownership? [Lawyerist]
Will continuing to ban nonlawyer ownership make US firms and clients less competitive? [ABA Journal]

31 Dec 2013 at 3:37 PM

Admin, Announcements, Asians, Bar Exams, Biglaw, Bonuses, Celebrities, Divorce Train Wrecks, Law Schools, Magic Circle, Money, Partner Issues, Pro Se Litigants, Racism, Rankings, Reality TV, Sexism, Small Law Firms, U.S. News, Videos, Women's Issues, YouTube

Above the Law’s Top 10 Most Popular Posts of 2013

By David Lat

As 2013 draws to a close, let’s look back at the 10 biggest stories in the legal profession over the past year. This is an annual tradition here at Above the Law, which we’ve done in 2012, 2011, 2010, and 2009. We’ll fire up the old Google Analytics machine to get data on our most popular posts, based on pageviews, and share the results with you.
Before turning to specific stories, let’s look at the top general discussion topics here at ATL. For 2013, our most trafficked category page was Biglaw, which bumped Law Schools out of the top spot — a spot that Law Schools held from 2010 through 2012. Now that the word is out about the perils of getting a law degree, leading to plummeting applications, perhaps it’s time to move on from the “don’t go to law school” narrative.
After Biglaw and Law Schools, our third most-popular category page was, as usual, Bonuses. This wasn’t a terribly exciting year for bonuses — there were no spring bonuses, and Cravath and its many followers paid out the same bonuses as last year — but people still want to know the score.
Our fourth most-popular category page was small law firms. Small firms, including boutiques, are an area of increasing focus and readership for us — and also where many of the job opportunities are these days.
Moving on from the topic pages, what were the 10 most popular individual posts at Above the Law in 2013?

Here are our top 10 stories for 2013, in ascending order of popularity, measured in pageviews.^[1] Click on the title of each post to be taken to the original story.
10. The Racist Law Firm Ad Update — The Maligned Law Firm Speaks: After a racist law firm advertisement went viral, we played a role in clarifying the situation. We published a statement from the law firm in question — McCutcheon & Hamner, a small personal-injury firm in Alabama — denying its involvement in producing the highly offensive YouTube clip.
9. Did Lamar Odom Cheat On Khloe Kardashian With A Lawyer? Reality TV star Khloe Kardashian recently declared that she’s “excited for this year to be over” — just like her marriage to NBA player Lamar Odom, which ended in 2013. A contributing cause: Odom’s alleged affair with a gorgeous California lawyer, Polina Polonsky, who allegedly asked Odom to help her review client files. Oy!
8. Nationwide Layoff Watch: Major Cuts Come To Weil Gotshal: The Kardashian-Odom split wasn’t the only soap opera that generated headlines this past year. People tuned in for As The Weil Turns — upheaval at the high-powered law firm of Weil Gotshal, kicked off by large-scale layoffs in June. The following months witnessed a slew of partner defections, especially in Texas (although the firm maintains that this is strategic and intentional shrinkage). Can Weil stop the bleeding in 2014?
7. Breaking: Cravath Announces Year-End Bonuses; Let the 2013 Bonus Season Begin! The bonus announcement of Cravath, the extremely prestigious and profitable law firm that sets the market for Biglaw bonuses, always lands in the top 10 stories (last year it was #5). This year, Elie Mystal and I argued over whether the bonus glass was half-empty or half-full.
6. Which State Has the Most Difficult Bar Exam? Professor Robert Anderson of Pepperdine Law developed a methodology for ranking bar exams by toughness. Which state’s test took the top spot? Hint: it wasn’t New York (which didn’t even make the top 10).
5. Lawyer: Apple Should Protect Me From My Porn Addiction: Blocking web users from accessing porn: there’s an app for that? Well, if not, there should be — or so claims lawyer Chris Sevier, who filed a pro se lawsuit that, as Joe Patrice put it, “seeks damages and injunctive relief against Apple for making devices that can display porn, or as the rest of us call it, the Internet.” More recently, Sevier sued President Obama for alleged involvement in the Duck Dynasty debacle.
4. The 2014 U.S. News Law School Rankings: Lawyers love rankings — and U.S. News’s closely watched law school rankings are the biggest game in town. As law schools fight over a shrinking pool of law students, a law school’s position on the prestige totem pole is more important than ever.
3. Biglaw Memo From Top Firm Advises That Women ‘Don’t Giggle,’ Don’t ‘Show Cleavage’: Clifford Chance, a member of the elite Magic Circle, is one of the world’s top law firms — not just in profits and prestige, but also in generating juicy memos. Last year, its famous Law Firm Mommy Memo took the #3 spot; this year, the firm holds on to third place, with a controversial collection of “Presentation Tips For Women” that Staci Zaretsky described as “one of the most sexist Biglaw memos we’ve ever seen.”
2. The ATL Top 50 Law School Rankings (2013): The U.S. News law school rankings might be the biggest game in town (for now), but they aren’t the only one. In our inaugural law school rankings, we stripped out dubious factors like library size or money wasted spent per student to focus on what really matters: employment outcomes, i.e., jobs for graduates. Based on the great traffic and reader feedback we received, our rankings were a huge hit, and we’ll be doing them again in 2014.
1. A Great Response to a Cease and Desist Letter: The cease-and-desist response heard round the world, this rip-roaring rebuttal — a delicious combination of snark and substance — went viral. What could be more satisfying than watching a bullying lawyer get a taste of his own medicine? The letter kicked off a trend of awesome C&D responses — see, e.g., here and here.
We hope you enjoyed this look back at the 10 most popular stories of 2013. If you have a favorite Above the Law story from the past year that didn’t crack the top ten, please feel free to give it a mention in the comments.
And now for a brief programming note: Since Wednesday is the federal holiday for New Year’s Day, we won’t be publishing much (if at all) between now and Thursday, January 2. Happy New Year, and we’ll see you in 2014!
[1] For purposes of this listing, intended to serve as a look back at 2013′s biggest stories, we did not count posts published in 2012 that racked up major traffic in 2013 — e.g., Cam Girl Pleasures Herself In A Top Law School’s Library.
Earlier: Above the Law’s Top 10 Most Popular Posts of 2012
Above The Law’s Top 10 Most Popular Stories of 2011
Above The Law’s Top 10 Most Popular Stories of 2010
Above The Law’s Top 10 Most Popular Stories of 2009

20 Dec 2013 at 3:25 PM

Allen & Overy, Biglaw, Crime, Kids, Nauseating Things, New Jersey, Partner Issues, Pornography, Sex

It Gets… Worse: Ex-Biglaw Partner Who Possessed Kiddie Porn Pleads Guilty To Child Sex Trafficking

By David Lat

Edward De Sear

A story that we thought couldn’t get uglier just did. Edward De Sear, a former partner at several top law firms who stood accused of child pornography distribution, pleaded guilty to four counts of distribution of child pornography and to sex trafficking of a child.
One could argue that federal sentences for mere possession or even distribution of child pornography are too high. As noted in a 2012 article in USA Today, in some cases “offenders who possess and distribute child pornography can go to prison for longer than those who actually rape or sexually abuse a child.”
But if you possess child pornography, distribute child pornography, and sexually abuse children in real life, you deserve to go away for a very long time. What kind of sentence did Edward De Sear receive?

Here’s a report from NJ.com:

A prominent Bergen County corporate lawyer has pleaded guilty to the sex trafficking of a six-year-old boy across Europe, while separately admitting that he had distributed hundreds of graphic images and videos of child porn, some of which depicted small children being raped.
Edward M. De Sear, 67, of Saddle River, was sentenced in Newark federal court on Thursday to 17.5 years in prison, and was ordered to pay $1.2 million in restitution to his victims, U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said Thursday. He pleaded guilty to one count of sex trafficking of a child and four counts of distribution of child pornography.

That’s a hefty sentence. But given the gravity of his crimes, even an “affluenza” defense wouldn’t have helped the wealthy lawyer. And he’s not as wealthy as he once was: right after the sentencing, his lawyers turned over checks totaling $1.2 million, with $1.1 million going to the abused boy and $100,000 going to the victims whose images De Sear distributed.
I feel uncomfortably close to this story. I grew up in Saddle River, where my parents still live, and I served as an AUSA in the office that prosecuted De Sear (where I was colleagues with De Sear’s defense lawyer, John Vazquez, a former federal and state prosecutor who’s now at Critchley Kinum and Vazquez).
But many other people in the legal profession have crossed paths with De Sear. The UVA Law graduate practiced at a plethora of leading law firms, including Allen & Overy, Bingham McCutchen, McKee Nelson, Orrick, and Milbank Tweed.
Here are the awful details about Edward De Sear’s sex trafficking:

According to federal prosecutors, De Sear, who was formerly a partner at New York firm Allen & Overy, paid a man cash in June of 2011 to travel with his six-year-old son from Paris to Brussels, Belgium, where he sexually abused the boy.

One has to wonder what kind of parents would sell their six-year-old son to a sex trafficker. And note that this transaction took place in Paris, not the developing world. (But such crimes can happen anywhere; France was the setting for the film Taken.)
UPDATE (3:45 p.m.): More about those parents, from the Bergen Record:

Assistant U.S. Attorney Leslie Faye Schwartz told the judge that the government could prove that DeSear facilitated the child’s international travel by, among other things, paying cash to the boy’s fathers, a same-sex couple who were sentenced in Indiana earlier this year to 30 and 40 years in prison. The couple, Mark J. Newton and Peter Truong, both citizens of Australia, bought the infant from his Russian mother for $8,000 in 2005, took him to various countries where they allowed other men to abuse him, and made hardcore videos that were distributed across a global pedophile network known as the Boy Lovers network, according to authorities.

A former colleague of De Sear previously praised him to us as friendly, normal-seeming, and a font of helpful advice. But these days one probably wouldn’t take advice from him, except for a lesson that De Sear learned the hard way: stay away from child porn.
Saddle River lawyer admits to sex trafficking of young boy across Europe, child porn distribution [NJ.com]
Once-prominent Saddle River lawyer sentenced to prison for sex trafficking charges [Bergen Record]
Former BigLaw partner gets 17 years in sex-trafficking case, says FBI may have saved him from hell
[ABA Journal]
Ex-A&O, Bingham Partner Gets 17 Years for Child Porn Plea [Am Law Daily (sub. req.)]
Earlier: Former Allen & Overy Partner Indicted on Additional Kiddie Porn Purveyance Charges
More About the Former Biglaw Partner Accused of Child Porn Distribution
Allen & Overy Partner Accused of Kiddie Porn Purveyance
Quotes of the Day: Way Harsh

10 Dec 2013 at 4:01 PM

Biglaw, Crime, Gay, Oral Sex / Blow Jobs, Partner Issues, Quote of the Day, Rape, Real Estate, Sex

A Partner Accused Strikes Back

By David Lat

Stanley B. Stallworth

The allegation is completely unfounded, and we look forward to defending vigorously Stan’s good name and reputation. Stan is a pillar of the community, and he has tirelessly worked on behalf of young people for the past 25 years.

– The Stallworth family, in a statement issued to Am Law Daily regarding the sexual assault charges filed against Stanley Stallworth, a real estate partner in the Chicago office of Sidley Austin, and his nephew, Therrie Miller.

(The full statement and additional commentary, after the jump.)

Here is the rest of the statement from the Stallworth family:

As a former teacher, current member of several nonprofit organizations focused on improving the circumstances of underserved youth and their families, and a major university scholarship donor, Stan remains undaunted in his commitment to improving society by creating more educational, cultural and social opportunities for underserved segments of his community. We are confident that justice will prevail and Stan can resume his normal life.

When we first reported about the story on Friday, Sidley Austin informed us that Stallworth would be taking a leave from the firm so he could fight the charges. And it looks like he’s fighting them vigorously, if his choice of counsel says anything: Am Law reports that he has hired Henderson Adam, a well-known criminal defense boutique in Chicago that is led by former Holland & Knight partner Victor Henderson and local trial attorney Sam Adam Jr..
Victor Henderson used to lead Holland & Knight’s Chicago office. Sam Adam Jr. received his law degree from the University of Wisconsin, which happens to be Stan Stallworth’s alma mater. Their firm, Henderson Adam, has grown to six attorneys since its founding in 2011.
Sam Adam Jr., working together with his father, a prominent Chicago trial lawyer, has experience getting high-profile figures out of legal hot water:

The father-and-son legal team represented disgraced Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich at his first corruption trial, which ended before a hung jury. The two Adams stepped back from the ex-governor’s defense in late 2010 after their client ran out of money to pay his legal fees. (Blagojevich is currently appealing his conviction on corruption charges at a second trial.)
The duo also helped Chicago native and R&B singer R. Kelly win an acquittal on child pornography charges in 2008.

If Adam’s good enough for R. Kelly, he’s good enough for S. Stallworth. There are some similarities between the cases: both involve rich and successful African-Americans accused of naughtiness involving young people.
As noted in our earlier story, the Sidley sources we’ve heard from have expressed shock at the charges against Stan Stallworth. If you have information to share with us about the case or about Stallworth, feel free to email us or text us (646-820-8477). Thanks.
Sidley Partner Hires Prominent Lawyer in Sex Assault Case [Am Law Daily via Morning Docket]
Earlier: A Biglaw Partner In Big Trouble, Charged With Sexual Assault — Along With His Nephew

06 Dec 2013 at 10:52 PM

Biglaw, Crime, Gay, Oral Sex / Blow Jobs, Partner Issues, Real Estate, Sex

A Biglaw Partner In Big Trouble, Charged With Gay Sexual Assault — Along With His Nephew!

By David Lat

Stan Stallworth and Therrie Miller (click to enlarge)

It’s almost law school exam time, so let’s run through some hypotheticals. An uncle having sex with his niece: should that constitute illegal incest?
What about an uncle having sex with his nephew? Does the fact that it’s “gay incest,” with no possibility of procreation, make it less troubling?
What about an uncle and his nephew allegedly getting a teenage male drunk and tag-teaming him? Whether or not it’s “incest,” it sounds problematic.
According to Chicago prosecutors, such a situation unfolded last week. And the oldest man in the threesome is a partner at one of the world’s leading law firms….

Here’s a report from the Chicago Tribune:

A real estate attorney at a major Chicago law firm and his nephew were charged with sexually assaulting an 18-year-old man who told authorities he blacked out after consuming one-and-a-half drinks at the attorney’s South Side home last week.
Bail was set at $150,000 each for Stanley Stallworth, 50, a partner at Sidley Austin [and a lawyer there] for more than 20 years, and his nephew, Therrie Miller, 22, of Dolton.
The alleged victim told authorities he met Miller at a South Holland barbershop on Nov. 27 and that the next day Miller texted him and asked if he wanted to hang out at his uncle’s home, said Assistant State’s Attorney Elizabeth Dibler.
At Stallworth’s Bronzeville home in the 3300 block of South Calumet Avenue, the teen alleged he was pressured into consuming a drink, Dibler said. After drinking one and part of another, he lost consciousness and woke up to find Miller performing a sex act on him, she said. The teen alleged he tried to fight off the assault but then Stallworth performed a sex act on him as well, she said.

Wow — those are quite the claims. Additional allegations appear in the Chicago Sun-Times:

The victim woke up the next morning naked, prosecutors said.
Miller then drove the victim, where he informed his mother and was taken to St. Margaret Hospital in Hammond, Ind., where a rape kit was performed, according to court records.
Stallworth and Miller are charged with one count each of criminal sexual assault, according to court records.

The Tribune and the Sun-Times are annoyingly coy about the specifics. But according to DNAinfo (via the ABA Journal), Stallworth and Miller allegedly performed oral sex on the victim.
Stallworth’s lawyer described his client as an attorney with “strong ties to the community” and told Judge Israel Desierto that Stallworth would promptly post bail. As a longtime partner at Sidley, Stallworth should have no problem posting the $300,000 in bail for himself and his nephew (a student at St. Xavier University and employee of Harris Bank).
We reached out to Sidley Austin, which issued the following statement through a spokesperson:

The Firm just became aware of certain criminal charges filed today concerning Stan Stallworth, a partner in the Firm. We understand that Stan has entered a plea of not guilty and intends to vigorously contest those allegations.
While the charges do not relate to the Firm or the practice of law, Stan has requested and has been granted leave from the Firm to devote his full attention to addressing these charges.
The Firm will have no further comments.

Stanley B. Stallworth

According to Chambers and Partners, Sidley has one of the top real estate practices in Chicago (Band 1). But some of the individual partners in the practice group have had… issues. Remember the tale of Lee Smolen, former head of the practice group, who got hit with legal ethics charges concerning more than $100,000 in allegedly improper reimbursement requests. (Smolen, who’s now a DLA Piper partner, is challenging the charges.)
Back to Stanley Stallworth. As you can see from his Sidley bio — already updated to note that he’s “on leave” — he is an impressive and accomplished individual. After graduating from Alabama A&M (summa cum laude) and the University of Wisconsin Law School, he joined Sidley in 1990, where he has spent his entire career. He served as firm-wide co-chair of the firm’s Diversity Committee and also served on the firm’s Diversity Task Force and on the Recruitment Committee.
The Sidley sources we’ve heard from so far expressed shock at the charges against Stan Stallworth. “He’s very nice,” one tipster told us. “Very involved in the summer program. Would never have expected this.”
Remember that right now we’re dealing with mere allegations. And given how lurid and surprising the charges are, my own suspicion is that we’re missing some big pieces of the puzzle.
We’ll continue to monitor this story. If you have additional information to share about Stanley Stallworth, please email us or text us (646-820-8477). Thank you.
UPDATE (11:45 p.m.): The website of the Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA) contains an interesting profile of Stallworth. The story, from the November/December 2007 issue of Diversity & The Bar, doesn’t mention him having a spouse or partner or kids, but it does provide some background about his upbringing:

The product of small town Evergreen, Alabama, Stallworth was encouraged to succeed by his parents. His mother was a high school librarian, and his father was a high school coach and principal with business interests on the side. Stallworth graduated salutatorian from the local high school and went on to attend his father’s alma mater, Alabama A&M University, in Huntsville, on an academic scholarship. At the historically black college, Stallworth was elected student body president and became a member of Alpha Phi Alpha, the nation’s first fraternity for African American men, and later graduated summa cum laude with degrees in English and biology.
He entered law school at the largely white University of Wisconsin in 1987 with plans for returning to Evergreen soon after graduation to help his father grow the family’s successful slaughtering business. Preparing for a lifetime of corporate law and billion-dollar deals was not on his radar, but real estate law struck him as something practical — even in a small town, he could always buy and sell property. (Today, he owns more than 160 acres of real estate in Evergreen, including a home where he displays more than 20 pieces of African American art.)

The profile focuses on Stallworth’s interest in the art world. He’s an avid collector, part-owner of an art gallery, and a painter himself.
UPDATE (12/7/2013, 12:10 a.m.): A commenter’s dismissive attitude towards Stallworth’s Bronzeville neighborhood piqued my curiosity about his lawyerly lair, so I did some snooping. It appears that Stallworth purchased it in March 2005 for $170,000, Cook County estimates its value at $465,250, and Zillow estimates its value at $685,370. So this real estate lawyer sounds like a savvy real estate investor. But even assuming a value at the high end of the range, a $700,000 home is not particularly impressive, at least by Biglaw partner standards. Perhaps more of his net worth is tied up in his art collection and his real estate holdings in Alabama.
Chicago attorney, nephew charged in sexual assault [Chicago Tribune]
Attorney, nephew charged with sexually assaulting man [Chicago Sun-Times]
Chicago Lawyer, Nephew Charged With Sexual Assault [DNAinfo Chicago]
BigLaw partner charged in rape case [ABA Journal]
Earlier: Mystery Departure Solved: Ex-Sidley Austin Partner Hit With Ethics Charges
Sidley Austin Turned DLA Piper Partner Responds To Ethics Charges

Editor's note: Cannibalistic lawyers eating their own!  Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com

19 Nov 2013 at 10:15 AM

Biglaw, Old People, Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe, Partner Issues, Partner Profits, SNR Denton

Biglaw’s Sticky (-Handed?) Seniors

By Anonymous Partner

Biglaw firms have a problem. They can’t get their senior partners to retire. Or to pass along their clients to younger partners fast enough.
The reasons for this unwelcome phenomenon are straightforward. First, today’s Biglaw senior partners are making too much money. Would you retire if you were making seven figures and billing 1200 to 1500 hours a year? Of course not. Especially if you are helping to support your children. Or in this age of the 70-year-old rainmaker, a grandchild’s “education” as a communications major at the top party school in this year’s rankings.
Kidding aside, I know that many senior partners have very valid reasons for continuing to maintain their Biglaw practices. But that does not mean that what works for them at an individual level is what is good for Biglaw as a whole. In fact, I think the “sticky senior” issue is the greatest long-term threat to the continued viability of many Biglaw firms….

In fact, many of the non-lockstep global behemoth (modern?) Biglaw firms already treat their senior attorneys with the same level of consideration as they give their junior partners. As a partner in those firms, you are welcome as long as you are producing, and unwelcome within two or three quarters of you not producing. Simple. In contrast, the uber-prestigious lockstep firms have done the best job of holding the line on enforcing mandatory retirement ages, even in the absence of hard and fast rules on the issue. It is a lot easier to get your partners to retire early when you have been paying them very well throughout the duration of their partner careers. (Remember how much better partners at lockstep firms do than at closed-compensation shops. The primary beneficiaries under the lockstep system are service partners, who tend to be either new-ish or old-ish partners in firms that follow that model.) It is much harder to get a rainmaker to retire at 55 when you made him wait until he was 50 with a solid $3 million dollar book before you started paying him anything close to the firm’s “reported” profits-per-partner figure.
Like many things in Biglaw, things are murkiest for firms in the middle of the pack. Particularly if the firm’s partnership is diffuse, and decisions are primarily made through some form of centralized management. In such a “culture,” especially in this “Leaden Age” of Biglaw, any arguments about preserving the long-term viability of the firm that even smell of being anti-rainmaker (senior or not, but at many firms seniority and rainmaking go hand-in-hand) are anathema. Simply put, the idea of doing anything that would convince a senior rainmaker that they would be more “appreciated” at another firm is a toxic one. But that fact does not make the conversation any less necessary for Biglaw firms to have with their partnerships. Nor does it provide a wholesale excuse to the senior Biglaw partners of today, for the betrayal of trust they have perpetrated on some level to the profession as a whole.
And a betrayal of trust it is. Many of the senior denizens of Biglaw today have achieved their positions thanks to precisely the sort of institution-sustaining behavior that they are now turning their back on. They have benefited from senior partners who preceded them at the firm turning over the reins of client relationships, in addition to the mentoring that was part and parcel of the partner experience perhaps just a generation ago. Firms today ignore the cost of this betrayal of trust at their peril. For many firms, it is fair to say there exists an inverse relationship between the “stickiness” (in terms of addiction to compensation and hoarding of clients) of its senior partners and the “stickiness” (in terms of loyalty to the firm as an institution) of its largest clients.
Put another way, a good way to assess the long-term viability of a firm or practice group is to analyze the depth of the relationship that firm or group has with its largest clients. Barring a well-thought-out and executed succession plan, the more those client relationships are dominated by senior partners, the more susceptible those relationships are to being lost. We could learn a lot from firms just by getting some disclosure regarding the age distribution of the firm’s equity partnership. (The fact that such information is not readily available speaks volumes about how Biglaw truly operates when it comes to disclosure.)
Perhaps the problem is not the presence of senior (55+, but even drawing the line at particular age can surely spur serious debate) attorneys at firms, but rather the fact that they tend to dominate the equity partnership ranks. As a litigator, I have personally benefited from the training of older lawyers, and continue to enjoy watching (usually with envy, but in a healthy inspiring sense) masterful senior litigators practice their craft in open court. But as much as we have to respect the contributions of the older Biglaw generation, and search for ways to allow them to serve their firms with dignity and while being compensated fairly, we also need to seek out ways to give the next generation of partners its chance.
Many Biglaw firms are grappling with this issue, with varying success. What I find interesting it that while many firms are caught in a bit of inertia when it comes to a real strategic plan that looks at what the firm will be even five years hence, some firms are trying to write their futures for themselves. In this group I put firms like Orrick and Dentons, which may not share much in common other than a lot of lawyers under management and being the subject of ongoing merger talk. They also, however, share something else in common: firm leaders who are young by Biglaw standards, with horizons for their own careers that are forcing them to take near-term steps to ensure the viability of the enterprises they run. Their dissatisfaction with the status quo is undoubtedly shared by a lot of younger Biglaw partners.
The heads of Orrick and Dentons are now in a position to act, and they are doing so. Biglaw firms need to get more serious about addressing the sclerotic effects of failing to transition senior partners, and their clients, out of their equity partner roles so that the younger generation can advance. If they don’t, they can expect to see more younger partners look for alternatives to practicing in Biglaw, just as they can expect clients to look for alternatives to their current Biglaw firms. The firms that get this issue right, with appropriate sensitivity for all involved, will be in a much stronger position as Biglaw tries to exit this leaden age for a new golden one.
What incentives should be offered to senior partners to encourage them to pass along their clients? Let me know by email or in the comments.

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Anonymous Partner is a partner at a major law firm. You can reach him by email at atlpartnercolumn@gmail.com.

25 Oct 2013 at 2:18 PM

Deaths, Family Law, Partner Issues

Bitter Dead Lawyer Bans Former Law Partners From His Funeral

By Elie Mystal

U mad bro?

“To the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee.” — Every pissed off former partner ever.
Everything that ends, ends badly. That’s true of law partnerships as much as anything. Partners split up, somebody takes the high profile clients, somebody else ends up holding a fish and a box of Renée Zellweger DVDs.
Today, we’ve got a partner who had a falling out with his former colleagues and took his bitterness to his grave…

The story on the New York Post’s Page Six documents hardcore butthurt:

Norman Sheresky, the prominent New York divorce attorney who died Oct. 19 from pneumonia, made a dying wish banning his partners from his former firm, Sheresky Aronson Mayefsky & Sloan, from his funeral…
Sheresky had a dramatic falling out with them and left the firm in 2010.

I respect this. Nobody wants people who weren’t nice to you while you were alive crying crocodile tears at your damn funeral. In fact, here’s a tip to the trusts and estates lawyers out there: start telling your clients to put a guest list in their wills. It’s your (last) party, you should decide who gets their grieve on.
Ex-partner ban at lawyer’s funeral [Page Six / New York Post]

19 Comments

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• Tags: Deaths, Family Law, Funerals, Norman Sheresky, Partner Issues, Sheresky Aronson Mayefsky & Sloan