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Lawyers in the News

There are blogs that have been keeping track of the large number of attorneys getting the ax at big law firms around the country because of the state of the economy. A number of large law firms have cut salaries and partners' draws, and some have even demanded that partners ante up and pay cash to keep the operation going. A couple firms have gone belly up. Many big law firms have delayed the start dates for many new attorneys they have hired, and many are cutting back on or totally eliminating summer intern positions, positions prized by many a law student for the wining and dining that was standard fare.

Doesn't that just make you almost well up and start crying ...

So, some attorneys take financial matters into their own hands.

For instance, a Chicago attorney, Nathan Billmaier, was convicted last week of delivering marijuana, tobacco, matches, and some ecstacy that were hidden in a stack of legal documents he was bringing into the jail for his client to review. He was charged with making only one delivery even though he had apparently done the same thing on five other occasions. Oh, he got paid, by the way. Now, he will find out that cigarettes are available at the prison commissary, as is Vaseline.

And please know that being charged with a crime doesn't mean that the person is actually guilty of anything, even if the act is caught on videotape; so, don't assume that Las Vegas attorney Gary Guymon did anything wrong. Apparently, Mr. Guymon was visiting a gift shop at the Sundance Resort a couple weeks ago, looked around, took a necklace off a mannequin, put it in a shopping bag, and then forgot to pay for it. So, he's up on a theft charge in Utah. When he was a prosecutor in Vegas a few years ago, upon the recommendation of a local organized crime figure, he would regularly hit up Cheetah's night spot for a lap dance or two before heading home to his wife and kids.

Then, there is Troy Ellis, who was the big shot attorney of Invista, the world’s largest producer of nylon and spandex. He was publicly reprimanded by the Kansas Supreme Court last week for getting his lunch in the company cafeteria and not paying for it, not once, but a number of times. The company installed a video camera and got him eight times over a five-day period, piling food on his tray and not paying. At his new job at SemGroup, at which he advises new businesses on structuring commercial transactions, I wonder if he tells them to install video cameras to tape commercial transactions. He wasn't prosecuted, but do you think he told his new employer about his eating disorder?

Posted by Bill at April 20, 2009 08:30 PM