By: Scott Barancik
Three more lawyers are leaving Holland & Knight’s Tampa office,
bringing its net loss to 10 percent since an internal struggle over
sexual harassment allegations came to light in late March.
Richard M. Blau, an expert on alcohol law, is leaving Holland &
Knight’s Tampa office to join a rival firm. He’s taking 14 members of
his national team with him, including Tampa partner Elizabeth A.
DeConti and Tampa associate Grace H. Yang.
Yang, along with eight other Tampa lawyers, last year requested an
internal investigation of Holland partner Douglas A. Wright over
alleged sexual harassment. But Blau insisted newspaper coverage of
Wright’s …
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-133622673.html
Archive for January, 2009
Holland & Knight loses 3 lawyers after internal sexual harassment probe.
In 1 on January 30, 2009 at 6:52 pmWhither Holland & Knight?
In 1 on January 30, 2009 at 6:41 pmDemocratic gubernatorial candidate Bill McBride, the former managing
partner of Holland & Knight, took the microphone last month at a
campaign rally in front of a rustic bed-and-breakfast in New Smyrna
Beach.
“I’m the only person in this campaign who’s run a business,” he said
in his soft Central Florida drawl to about 150 senior citizens
standing on the lawn. “And I ran a pretty good one. … The way you
create great states is the way you create great companies or great
organizations. You make sure everyone has a seat at the table.”
Maybe. But the talk around that table that he left last June has taken
a contentious turn.
Holland & Knight, Florida’s largest law firm and one of the largest in
the nation, is facing serious financial challenges. McBride led the
firm with a strong hand from 1992 to 2001, engineered its expansion
from 275 lawyers to more than 1,275 and carried the banner for its
socially conscious policies. Now, some current and former Holland
lawyers, as well as outside observers, are saying that the
organization McBride steered to national prominence has arrived at a
critical juncture.
A Jan. 21 memo from a Holland partner to Robert R. Feagin III,
McBride’s successor as managing partner, charged that the law firm
made an error by emphasizing expansion over profitability. The memo,
written by Martin J. Jaron Jr., a partner based in McLean, Va.,
predicted that many partners would jump ship within weeks — sending
the firm toward possible “demise” — unless management increased
profits and pay by cutting jobs and programs and shrinking the firm in
size.
“Our reduced profitability is the source of the intense and negative
reaction you have been seeing from partners over the past weeks,”
wrote Jaron, 51, a litigator whom McBride hired in 1998. He said that
a Jan. 17 memo from Feagin to the partners did not “show an
appreciation for the actual source of the problems.”
“… As the firm’s financial situation has gone from bad to worse over
the past two years — and especially in the past four months … partner
confidence in the firm’s expansion-driven model, direction, and
management is low and cynicism about the future of the firm is high. …
Moreover, the firm has unrest among equity partners and general
concern about the survival of the firm at all employee levels.”
Holland’s management seemed to agree with Jaron’s drastic cost-cutting
prescriptions. In recent weeks, the firm has taken dramatic steps to
control costs. Its most visible move, though ostensibly temporary, was
to suspend annual pay increases for associates and to reduce expected
bonuses. People who completed a year as fourth-year associates, for
instance, didn’t get bumped up a step to fifth-year pay, and so on.
That freeze represents a pay cut of $10,000 or more for senior
associates.
In addition, firm managers say they’re planning an overhaul of the
firm’s entire associate compensation program. The target date for
completion of that overhaul is June 1.
Jaron’s confidential memo, obtained by the Daily Business Review,
contended that the law firm is burdened with too many offices,
overpaid associates, underproductive veteran partners and excessive
pro bono expenses. Many Holland partners now earn less than
associates, Jaron complained to Feagin. “That is an outrage,” Jaron
wrote. “We are in trouble. These and other poor management practices
have placed the firm in peril.”
Feagin had invited the input. Jaron’s 14-page memo was written in
response to a series of requests by Feagin over the previous two
months to the firm’s 730 partners for input. Feagin says the requests
elicited about 85 responses.
While Jaron is just one of 1,279 lawyers at Holland, his memo echoes
broader concerns within the ranks about the financial health and
mission of the firm, whose roots trace back to the Tampa law practice
of Peter O. Knight in 1889.
In interviews with about two dozen current and former Holland
partners, legal consultants and outside attorneys — few of whom were
willing to comment for attribution — what emerged was a picture of a
firm engaged in a passionate internal debate. The struggle is over how
to preserve the firm’s identity as a organization committed to
charitable causes and social justice while significantly boosting
profits.
“It’s a fight between the eat-what-you-kill guys and the guys who care
as much about pro bono as they do about making more money,” says one
longtime partner who requested anonymity.
In an interview, Feagin downplayed Jaron’s gloomy predictions. “I am
not fearful of the kinds of defections from Holland & Knight that you
heard about,” he said, adding that 2002 could be the firm’s best year
ever, with billings and collections already showing significant
improvement over last year.
Still, the question of how deeply to cut costs played a central role
in the elections this month at the firm’s annual partners meeting in
Orlando. Eight of the 24 Director’s Committee seats were up for grabs.
Roughly half — the firm would not confirm this — went to candidates
known to favor aggressive cost-cutting, known jocularly inside the
firm as the Taliban.
Feagin insists he isn’t worried. He gauged the mood at the Orlando
partners meeting, he says, and found the attorneys’ commitment to the
firm remained strong. Their confidence, he said, “reflects the
strength in our firm right now and the prospects we have for continued
success.”
He expressed optimism about the firm’s future. “I am committing to my
owners that I am going to give maximum effort to improving owner
profitability,” Feagin said. “I would like us to be at the top of the
ranks.”
Holland is hardly the only law firm feeling the chill of the economic
recession and the dot-com debacle, along with the post-Sept. 11
trauma. Around the country, many firms are dumping lawyers, freezing
pay and rolling back costs.
But at Holland, there appears to be considerable internal dissent —
with part of the unhappiness directed at Feagin, who served as
chairman for 10 years before being named managing partner last June.
There’s also a lot of implied criticism of the previous managing
partner, a dominant figure who left Holland in June to try to unseat
Gov. Jeb Bush this November. McBride makes his case as the future
leader of the state partly on the claim that he successfully led a
large business.
Though still an underdog in his challenge to former U.S. Attorney
General Janet Reno for the Democratic nomination, McBride is outpacing
her in fund raising.
McBride, 56, a former Marine captain and decorated Vietnam veteran who
grew up in Leesburg, joined Holland in 1975 as a protege of
then-managing partner Chesterfield Smith, and took over as the firm’s
chief executive in 1992. Following his vision of taking the Florida
firm national, the firm grew from 10 offices, eight of them in
Florida, to 32 offices in 11 states, the District of Columbia and
seven foreign countries.
All the while, critics derided Holland as “McFirm,” harping that the
growth didn’t make the firm a major national player and that its
partners made dramatically less money as a result of the expansion.
But McBride burnished Holland’s image as a good corporate citizen. The
firm was a leader in providing spousal benefits to gays and lesbians
and establishing a “living wage” for its janitorial and mailroom
workers. Three years ago, Bill Clinton presented McBride as a featured
speaker at a national civil rights conference at the White House.
Both McBride and Feagin long have been advocates for the progressive
social vision of Chesterfield Smith, the former managing partner and
American Bar Association president and a 52-year veteran of the firm.
At age 84, Smith still maintains an active presence as a senior
partner in the firm’s Miami office. But keeping elderly partners like
Smith on the Holland payroll comes in for strong criticism in Jaron’s
memo.
Holland is known within the legal community as a firm willing to
accept somewhat lower profits to enable its lawyers to take on unpaid
work that benefits the underprivileged.
“If you want to maximize your income in a law practice, you probably
would go somewhere else,” says Ward Bower, a principal at Altman Weil
Inc. in Philadelphia, a consulting firm that lists Holland & Knight
among its clients.
Despite Holland’s phenomenal growth, its profits per partner put it in
the bottom tier of the nation’s largest firms, according to the Am Law
100 rankings for fiscal year 2000, published by American Lawyer
magazine last July.
While ranking as the country’s 27th largest law firm in gross
revenues, Holland’s $395,000 in profits per equity partner puts it in
the bottom 11 percent on that list. Compensation per partner, equity
and nonequity partners combined, averaged $290,000 at Holland — 98th
out of 100 firms.
By comparison, Miami-based Greenberg Traurig, another fast-growing
firm, ranked 61st in profits per equity partner, at $635,000, and 64th
in compensation per partner, at $500,000.
According to figures that Jaron’s memo attributed to Feagin, Holland
earned $157 million in profits last year, on collections of $466
million and expenses of $309 million. That’s a 34 percent profit
margin — not great, but not terrible, by law firm standards. “A little
weak,” says legal consultant Peter D. Zeughauser, principal of
ClientFocus in Newport Beach, Calif.
Last year, according to one longtime partner, equity partners at
Holland took a pay cut of 10 percent to 12 percent. And, if Jaron’s
memo is correct, the firm engaged in its long-standing practice of
borrowing from current-year revenue to pay even that reduced amount.
The practice, known at the firm as “the push,” is neither unethical
nor uncommon, but it is sometimes seen as a sign of financial
weakness.
“Horrendous” is how the managing partner of one Miami firm describes
the practice of paying partners out of current revenues. In his view,
it could indicate that “you’re living beyond your means and your
business model isn’t working. It has to come home to roost at some
point.”
Other lawyers and law firm consultants are less critical. They see
such borrowing as a matter of practicality for firms that might have
strong earnings but not a lot of cash on hand at the start of a year.
For his part, Feagin says that “we’re mindful of the need to restrain
[borrowing], and we do.”
One reason Holland’s profits weren’t great was that throughout the
’90s, McBride led the firm in a strategy of rapid expansion by
acquiring smaller firms and opening offices around the country. That
carried big costs and diluted per partner profits, in anticipation of
future financial growth.
Multiple-office firms spend more per lawyer than smaller firms, due to
replication of functions, says Altman Weil’s Bower. They have more
receptionists, libraries and waiting areas.
But Feagin insists that the extra costs associated with expansion are
worth it. “You have to invest in growth to make it happen,” he says.
“We believe that growth is going to provide partners of the firm a
return in terms of increased profits going forward.” On the other
hand, he says, “the expenses we have incurred in connection with that
growth are under constant examination.”
He vows that the firm will continue to build its national platform.
“We’re well on our way to completing and filling out that plan and,
yes, it is working,” he says. “More and more of our clients are served
by a wider range of lawyers out of more offices, representing more
practice areas than ever before.”
One of the major reasons to establish a national presence is to
attract national companies which need a law firm which can provide the
appropriate legal skills wherever they are needed. But it’s not easy
to quickly move up the scale of corporate clients to the Fortune 500
or Fortune 150 companies targeted by Holland, experts say.
The managing partner of a prominent Miami law firm, who did not want
to be identified, says Holland’s strategy of developing a Fortune 500
client list was misguided. Two-thirds of those corporations are locked
in with New York lawyers, or with law partners the corporate
executives went to school with, says this attorney. “You can open a
New York office and stand on your head until you’re blue in the face
and never get in,” he explains.
Meanwhile, Holland faces growing competition for the mid-range
corporate work on which it has relied, this managing partner says. By
mid-range work, he means legal work that comes, for example, from a
banking lawyer’s relationship with a mid-level bank loan officer
rather than with the bank’s CEO. With competition increasing for these
price-sensitive clients, there’s a temptation to accept
less-creditworthy clients. That can lead to accounts receivable
problems, the lawyer says. “It’s a dangerous slope.”
Radical cost-cutting urged
In his memo, Jaron criticized Holland management’s financial
turnaround plan for focusing excessively on improving efficiency, for
instance using more knowledge management, and for relying on outside
consultants. “Follow that plan and the firm will be history and a maze
of creditor claims and lawsuits in two years,” he warned.
Instead, he outlined a radical series of cost-cutting measures. He
described himself as qualified to make such recommendations — even
though he wasn’t privy to full management data — based on his seven
years of previous experience as assistant manager of a Virginia county
with 6,000 employees and an operating budget of nearly $1 billion.
Among the changes he urged:
• “Right-size” the firm by eliminating attorneys and offices. Jaron
suggested that the firm has 200 more attorneys than it has work for.
• Reconsider the national strategy. “We don’t seem to be attracting
many [large national] clients. … [W]e need to ask ourselves whether
the basic model is flawed.”
• Freeze hiring. Entry-level recruiting should be slashed this year,
if not eliminated, and the firm should consider rescinding or delaying
job offers extended last summer, he said.
• Stop allowing associates to apply pro bono work as credit toward
bonuses for billable hours. “We have institutionalized and rewarded
moderate productivity for associates with higher compensation and have
reduced compensation for many highly productive partners to pay those
associates,” he wrote.
• Consider mandatory retirement. Holland has too many Class A, older
partners who do not bill, yet receive “significant compensation,” he
wrote. If they’re doing nonlegal tasks, then those tasks might be
handed to less expensive, nonlawyer professionals, he added.
• Take a hard look at Holland’s ancillary consulting business, H&K Consulting.
• Reduce secretarial support.
• “Drastically” reduce or eliminate support for pro bono work,
including the firm’s full-time Community Services Team. But pro bono
work by individual lawyers should continue to be encouraged.
• Restrict the managing partner’s unilateral authority for spending
and borrowing decisions over $500,000 dollars. “No single person,
including the managing partner, should have the authority to incur
that obligation for the firm without board approval,” Jaron wrote.
• Use more conservative revenue forecasts in budgeting.
• Share more financial data with partners, rather than just summary
budget information.
Jaron concluded on a slightly more optimistic note, by jokingly
quoting comedienne Lily Tomlin: “Things are going to get a lot worse
before they get worse. All kidding aside, I don’t think that is true
in our case.”
In response to requests from the Daily Business Review for comment,
Jaron faxed a letter on March 5 retracting some of his statements in
the memo and denying permission to publish any part of the memo on the
grounds that it was proprietary to Holland & Knight. He wrote that he
had learned since Jan. 21 that management “was engaged in initiatives
on many fronts.” He said he now believes that the firm has “a strong
plan in place for continued success.”
Indeed, Holland recently has embarked on some major cost reductions.
But its new curbs on associate pay increases and its planned
compensation review come two years after the firm adopted policies
that sharply hiked costs.
Like other large Florida firms, Holland jumped onto the nationwide
associate pay hike bandwagon in 1999, raising first-year pay to about
$100,000. In late 2000, with considerable fanfare, Holland instituted
a living wage policy for support staff. It boosted hourly pay for
janitorial, filing and mailroom employees across the country by as
much as 50 percent, from $8 to $12.
Responding to Review questions about cost-cutting, Feagin says the
firm is considering “all the things you would normally review in
connection with your business plan and practices.” He declined to
speculate about what actions the firm might take as far as job cuts
and other options. According to one source, the firm already has a
“right-sizing task force” hard at work, consulting with practice area
heads and considering individuals’ performance.
Pay cutbacks for attorneys, however, do carry risks, experts say. With
the associate pay freeze, which disproportionately hurts senior
associates, Holland risks losing some of its most experienced young
lawyers. But if it doesn’t cut costs, it risks losing equity partners,
who sources say are impatient with the flat revenues and relatively
low profit margins.
One type of cost-cutting Feagin seems to rule out, however, is
reducing compensation to partners who reach retirement age. “It’s not
on my schedule of things under serious consideration,” he says.
Pro bono culture at risk?
In his memo, Jaron warned that Holland had only weeks “to take
decisive action demonstrating that the firm has adopted clear
financial goals, understands the problems and has a serious and
credible plan in place to solve them. Much longer than that, and I
think the firm runs the risk of losing many highly productive
partners.”
So far, Jaron’s prediction of mass defections hasn’t come true. The
firm has about 50 more lawyers now than a year ago. “It hasn’t
happened, and from everything I saw in Orlando, it isn’t going to
happen,” Feagin says, referring to this month’s partners meeting.
But the situation in Holland’s Orlando office shows that danger lurks
if the profit picture doesn’t improve. Over the past year, 15 out of
87 full-time lawyers in that office left for various reasons.
One of those who departed told the Review that the heavy expenses
associated with expansion and pro bono work meant longer hours and
lower quality of life for the firm’s lawyers. “It’s not that each of
us is greedy,” says the lawyer, who did not want to be identified.
“But with lower costs, you can make the same money without working as
many hours.”
But Feagin argues that a strong pro bono policy makes good business
sense for his law firm. “Clients find it appealing,” he says. “To the
extent it makes us distinguish ourselves from other firms to clients,
it damn sure generates revenue.”
More than half of Holland’s lawyers do pro bono work, including four
who are assigned full-time to pro bono projects. The firm ranked 34th
on last year’s Am Law 100 on quantity of pro bono work.
Stephen F. Hanlon, a Tallahassee-based partner who has run Holland’s
Community Services Team since its inception in 1990, says that even
that impressive ranking understates the challenging pro bono caseload
Holland has taken on.
Last year, after a 10-year effort, the firm settled a lawsuit filed in
U.S. District Court in Miami against the Florida Department of
Juvenile Justice and Department of Children & Families. The firm was
lead counsel representing 45,000 children in the foster care and
juvenile justice systems who were not receiving needed mental health
services. The class action required the state to develop a system for
providing those services.
Holland also is heavily involved in pro bono representation of
immigrant detainees in Florida, Death Row inmates in Alabama and
HIV-afflicted prisoners in Mississippi.
Still, Hanlon says he’s already overseen a partial pullback on pro
bono work because of the economic recession. The firm, which has a
goal of 50 pro bono hours per lawyer each year, went from an average
of 45 hours per lawyer in 1999 to 32 hours in 2000, and held it to 36
in 2001. “It’s prudent management,” he says.
The firm’s patriarch, Chesterfield Smith, expresses no worries about
the spirit of public service continuing at Holland & Knight. “Making
the justice system work for everyone is a lawyer’s responsibility,
even if it means making reasonable sacrifices,” Smith says. “Holland &
Knight has been doing that a long time. I don’t think we’ll quit.”
And speaking from the campaign trail, Bill McBride defends his
previous stewardship of the firm. The firm, he says, is following a
sound business plan that he and Feagin established before he left on
his political quest.
“The firm is really strong,” McBride says. “Holland & Knight is
positioned, as best I can tell, to have a great future.”
Tony Doris can be reached at tdoris@floridabiz.com or at (305) 347-6657.
http://www.dailybusinessreview.com/AwardStories/Holland.html
Agency and law firm entangled (Enterprise Florida and Holland & Knight)
In 1 on January 29, 2009 at 6:10 pmThe hiring of Enterprise Florida CEO Darrell Kelley by legal giant
Holland & Knight is the latest in a list of close, lucrative
connections.
By SYDNEY P. FREEDBERG and SCOTT BARANCIK
While Darrell Kelley was chief executive of Florida’s top economic
development agency, it paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal
and consulting fees to the Holland & Knight law firm.
Now he’s joining the giant law firm as a top executive.
Kelley, 63, starts his job as chief operating officer at Holland &
Knight on Nov. 15. His appointment is the latest example of the close
and lucrative ties between the law firm and Enterprise Florida, a
tax-exempt, nonprofit arm of state government that received
$16.7-million in taxpayer funds last year to lure high-wage jobs to
Florida.
Among the more conspicuous examples:
–Since 2001, Holland & Knight has held an open-ended, apparently
no-bid contract to serve as general counsel to Enterprise Florida at
rates as high as $425 an hour. Fees paid to date total $588,600,
according to agency spokeswoman Erin Heston. Kelley joined Enterprise
Florida in June 2002.
–In 2003, Holland & Knight won an additional $475,000 contract from
Enterprise Florida to assess the state’s vulnerability in the coming
round of military base closures. Only one other company submitted a
bid.
–This year, Holland & Knight began serving as Enterprise Florida’s
official representative in China. Though the law firm is providing its
services largely for free, the role affords it entree to the world’s
fastest-growing economy as well as many potential clients.
The ties go both ways.
Howell Melton Jr., Holland & Knight’s managing partner, sits on
Enterprise Florida’s board of directors, as did his predecessors at
the 1,250-lawyer firm. Melton also is chairman of the three-person
committee that sets salaries for agency executives like Kelley, who
earned nearly $350,000 in total compensation during the 2004-05 fiscal
year.
This won’t be the first time Kelley has called Melton “boss.” Melton
served as chairman of the Orlando area’s economic development
commission several years ago when Kelley was the not-for-profit’s
president and chief executive officer.
On Monday, both men declined to be interviewed. But in a news release
issued by Holland & Knight after inquiries from the St. Petersburg
Times , each warmly praised the other.
Said Melton: “Darrell’s exceptional reputation for client service,
relationship building and commitment to high values make him a perfect
fit for our firm. He brings with him significant expertise in business
generation and client service, which will complement Holland &
Knight’s approach to the delivery of legal services.”
Said Kelley: “Having worked with Howell Melton as a committee chair
and member of the (Enterprise Florida board) and during his term as
Chairman of the Metro Orlando EDC, I know him to be an exceptional
leader with whom I share common values. I look forward to joining
Howell at Holland & Knight, a firm whose national platform offers many
great business opportunities.”
Kelley’s role at the law firm, one of the nation’s largest, is not
clear. Holland & Knight created the chief operating partner slot last
year for Douglas A. Wright, a Tampa lawyer who quickly resigned after
the Times reported he had been reprimanded for harassing young, female
colleagues.
The position, which ranked third on the firm’s corporate ladder and
put Wright atop all business operations, including the firm’s human
resources department, has remained vacant.
Kelley, a longtime Sprint Corp. executive, is not a lawyer. But thanks
to his three-year tenure at Enterprise Florida, whose board includes
executives representing many of the state’s top businesses, he has the
potential to give an already powerful firm an extra edge in securing
clients.
Under then-Gov. Lawton Chiles, the Legislature created Enterprise
Florida in 1992 as a tax-exempt partnership between the public sector
and private businesses. Today it gets 82 percent of its funding from
taxpayers. Holland & Knight has contributed more than $200,000 since
2000, assuring the law firm a seat on Enterprise Florida’s 63-member
board of directors, which is chaired by Gov. Jeb Bush.
The board approved Holland & Knight as its general counsel at a
November 2000 meeting. Other than former managing partner Bill
McBride, who abstained, the vote was unanimous. The agency is
permitted to award contracts to companies represented on its board so
long as two-thirds of the board approves.
Since then, Orlando partner Jonathan Rich and others have provided
Enterprise Florida with hundreds of hours of legal advice.
Among other things, they have advised the group on how to tailor its
lobbying activities so as not to jeopardize its tax-exempt status.
They have briefed board members on their financial disclosure
requirements. They have researched the agency’s legal obligations
under Florida’s Open Meetings Law. And they have drafted or reviewed
numerous agency contracts.
Ben Wilcox, executive director of the public interest group Common
Cause Florida, said Holland & Knight’s close relationship with
Enterprise Florida raises its own ethical concerns.
“The fact that (Kelley) is moving in and out of public service and
taking a position with someone that (Enterprise Florida) had a
contractual relationship with, and now stands to personally benefit
from being employed by that law firm, is troubling,” he said.
Last week Enterprise Florida said it was negotiating with John Adams
Jr., a Laredo, Texas, economic development official, to replace
Kelley.
–Times computer-assisted reporting specialist Connie Humburg and
staff researcher Carolyn Edds contributed to this report.
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/11/08/Business/Agency_and_law_firm_e.shtml.
Holland & Knight lawyer making fool of himself and his firm in little league episode
In 1 on January 29, 2009 at 5:44 pmThis would be hard for me to believe but for some of the pieces of
work I met while coaching little league and practicing law.
From the St. Pete’s Times, Fred Grady, a lawyer at Holland & Knight in
Tampa, was coaching his son’s little league team. A spectator said
Grady hit one of the kids with a water bottle which he then denied. As
Peter Lattman of the WSJ Law Blog, my source for this post, explains,
things didn’t stop at that.
…Grady was asked to leave the premises. According to the account, a
series of e-mail exchanges followed between Grady and in which Grady
threatened legal action if he didn’t receive a letter of apology.
Grady reportedly wanted the letter sent to all parents, players and
coaches on his son’s team, and he wanted it in time for the
end-of-the-season party so he could read it aloud. Later, Grady
reportedly sent league president Monica Wooden a letter on Holland &
Knight stationery, which stated that the league officers’ actions and
accusations damaged him.
Lattman thought it strange that a letter would come out on Holland &
Knight stationery. But of course, ‘It is Holland & Knight’s policy
that firm letterhead be used only for firm business and in
representation of firm clients,’ said a firm spokeswoman. ‘In this
case, Mr. Grady complied with firm policy and followed proper
procedures. Holland & Knight has been engaged in this matter. As such,
we cannot further comment on a pending matter.’
Grady and the law firm ought to see the favorable impressions they’re
making on what I am sure is the most widely read blog by America’s
in-house counsel. From one commentator already:
As for this “attorney” being “damaged”, one hopes that his trousers
weren’t “damaged”. Then this little league would surely be bankrupted
by the mighty Holland & Knight! In any case, I think I will cross
Holland & Knight off of my list of candidate law firms for our
corporate work.
Source: http://kevin.lexblog.com/2007/07/articles/cool-stuff/holland-knight-lawyer-making-fool-of-himself-and-his-firm-in-little-league-episode/
Bill padding, and lots of it
In 1 on January 29, 2009 at 1:08 pmTwo-thirds of lawyers queried in a new survey say they’ve seen specific instances of bill padding, a figure that hasn’t changed much since 1995. On two related questions, the numbers are actually getting worse, as Nathan Koppel notes at the WSJ Law Blog (May 1): “54.6% of the respondents (as compared with 40.3% in 1995) admitted that they had sometimes performed unnecessary tasks just to bump up their billable output”, and “the percentage of attorneys who admitted that they had double billed rose from 23% in 1996 to 34.7% in 2007. And only 51.8% regarded the practice as unethical in 2007, as compared with 64.7% in 1995,” although most ethical authorities not surprisingly frown on that practice. Ted has some further thoughts at Point of Law; the study data, gathered by Cumberland/Sanford lawprof William Ross, is here (PDF).
Billing issues in a copyright matter of Holland & Knight
In 1 on January 28, 2009 at 10:12 pmFurther to an earlier IPBiz post on Holland & Knight, a reader pointed to a link concerning billing issues in a copyright case.
The
link is to an article by Nathan Koppel of the Wall Street Journal, reproduced in the Pittsburgh Gazette, and concerns charges made by Matthew Farmer, once a junior partner in the Chicago law offices of Holland & Knight LLP.
The article includes the text:
After the trial, Mr. Farmer reviewed the firm's bills. The first invoice struck him as odd, he says. It claimed he worked 6.5 hours on Aug. 7, 2002, the day he learned of the suit. Mr. Farmer says he distinctly recalls hearing about the case late that day and spending only 15 minutes on it.
(…)
In one instance, Mr. Farmer says, Mr. Ryan sent a bill to Pinnacle claiming that partner Scott Petersen had worked 89.8 hours over a 17-day period in March 2003. Mr. Farmer says internal firm records show the lawyer didn't work on the case at all during that time.
The article also includes the text:
It's difficult to know how widespread billing fraud is, but Stephen Gillers, an ethics professor at New York University School of Law, says "there is a general consensus that billing fraud has increased" as law firms seek to increase profits and attract top lawyers.
Lawyers From Holland & Knight LLP Join Morris, Manning & Martin, LLP
In 1 on January 28, 2009 at 9:51 pm
A former partner and a former senior counsel of Holland & Knight's Atlanta office have joined Morris, Manning & Martin, LLP. James “Mac” Hunter joined Morris Manning & Martin as a partner and Jason P. Wright will be of counsel; Bruce Strothers will be a contract associate. A senior paralegal of Holland & Knight, Claudette Grooms, also joined them at Morris Manning & Martin.
Holland & Knight Committee for Effective Government
In 1 on January 28, 2009 at 9:49 pmTea Leaves, at the Federal Election Commission
Last year the Federal Election Commission heard from Holland and Knight, a limited liability law partnership organized under Florida law, that asked whether, having elected tax treatment as a corporation under federal tax law, it could operate its political committee as a corporate PAC and pay without limit for its PAC administrative expenses. The Commission could not then come up with the four votes needed for a decision.
In July, the new Commission did decide the case. It voted, 5-1, that state law, not federal tax law, controlled, and that Holland Knight was not a corporation, and its political committee not a corporate PAC, for federal campaign finance purposes. Under Florida law, the firm remained a partnership, though it is taxed as a corporation in states other than Florida and Massachusetts.
Now few may care—the regulatory status quo was preserved. It is interesting to note, however, that for this new Commission, the choice before it was one between a formalistic and a functional reading: between focusing on state law, which it has been generally the agency’s practice to do, and considering the actual character of the entity before it. The Commission chose the formalistic reading.
On the more functional reading, and as the General Counsel noted in one of the alternative drafts, the law firm was in its essential features like a corporation, "putting itself in a position ‘to accumulate capital at the corporate level, … to take advantage of favorable tax treatment of corporate losses and dividends received’", and to extend limited liability protection to its owners. OGC Draft, Alternative B, at 4. The Commission has previously taken factors such as these into account in promulgating rules to treat limited liability companies (LLCs) as either corporations or partners, depending on the entity’s election of federal tax treatment. 11 C.F.R. § 110.1(g)(2)-(3).
In the case of LLPs such as Holland and Knight, the Commission has now chosen to stay with the formalistic reading, based on how the firm was organized under state law. Since the Holland and Knight PAC is therefore not a corporate PAC of a "connected" corporate sponsor, the firm can contribute to its PAC, up to the lawful limits ($5,000 per calendar year), but it cannot provide unlimited funding for PAC operations. But restricted in one way, it is liberated in another: unlike a corporation or its PAC, a "non-connected" PAC can solicit whomever it pleases for contributions to its PAC.
But, of course, the Holland and Knight political committee is "connected" to the partnership: it has been named "The Holland and Knight Committee for Effective Government." It has been established to carry out the political program, and to effectuate the political will, of the firm. The firm, electing corporate tax treatment, presents as a corporation—"in effect ‘telling the IRS that its organizational structure and functions are more akin to a corporation than a partnership’", OGC Draft, Alternative B at 3.
The Holland and Knight Committee for Effective Government is not, however, a corporate PAC. This new Commission approved this result by a decisive margin. These are not much in the way of tea leaves, but some will read into them what they will.
Bob Bauer Source
Seven Leave Holland & Knight
In 1 on January 28, 2009 at 12:31 pmBy Debra Cassens Weiss Source
Seven lawyers at Holland & Knight have announced they are leaving the firm’s Miami office to start their own boutique firm.
Six of the lawyers are partners, the Daily Business Review reports. The publication says the partner departure is the largest since the firm experienced financial problems several years ago. The firm took several steps to get back on good financial footing, by downsizing, cutting expenses and reconsidering its extensive pro bono work.
"I don't think money was the driving force for [the six partners leaving] at all,” said partner Jose Sirven, who will replace departing partner Alcides Avila as head of the firm’s banking and finance group.
Other departing partners had expertise in immigration; finance; and international banking, litigation and arbitration.
Holland & Knight Bill Padding
In 1 on January 27, 2009 at 11:51 pmLawyer's Charge Opens Window On Bill Padding
By NATHAN KOPPEL
The career of Matthew Farmer, a junior partner in the Chicago law offices of Holland & Knight LLP, was on the upswing in December 2004. He had just won a monthlong trial for Pinnacle Corp., a Midwestern home builder accused of copyright infringement, and gotten kudos from many of his partners.
But weeks later, after reviewing billing records in the Pinnacle matter, he decided to leave the 1,200-lawyer firm. Mr. Farmer, 42 years old, believed his own hours on the case had been inflated by the partner in charge of billing, 62-year-old Edward Ryan. Fearing he would violate state ethics rules if he kept quiet, Mr. Farmer blew the whistle to Holland & Knight lawyers.
The firm, which has 24 offices in the U.S. and abroad, took no action and denies Mr. Ryan or the firm did anything wrong. "The amount billed by Holland & Knight in the litigation was reasonable and appropriate," says L. Kinder Cannon III, the firm's general counsel. Mr. Ryan declines to comment.
Last October, Mr. Farmer took a 7% pay cut to join Cohn Baughman & Martin, a 12-lawyer firm. He says he moved of his own accord because he was upset that Holland & Knight wasn't acting against Mr. Ryan.
While the facts of the case are still in dispute, Mr. Farmer's billing allegations offer a rare window into the tricky and emotional issue of inflated billing by law firms. It's difficult to know how widespread billing fraud is, but Stephen Gillers, an ethics professor at New York University School of Law, says "there is a general consensus that billing fraud has increased" as law firms seek to increase profits and attract top lawyers.
"Bill-padding is the perfect crime," adds William Ross, a professor at Samford University's Cumberland School of Law in Birmingham, Ala. It is seldom detected because it is almost impossible for clients to know whether "an attorney really spent three hours doing research instead of five hours," he says. He says that in a billing survey he conducted in 1996, two-thirds of the attorneys (and three-fourths of the clients) reported knowledge of bill padding. Earlier this year, a partner at Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP left the firm and was suspended from practicing law due to bill fraud.
Meanwhile, Mr. Farmer is still pressing his claims against Holland & Knight. In February, he sent a letter detailing his charges to a Minnesota state court judge, Janet Poston, accompanied by internal Holland & Knight billing records. Mr. Farmer's letter led Pinnacle's insurer, Connecticut Specialty Insurance Co., to file claims against Holland in May, stating that "Ryan and Holland & Knight inflated and falsified legal bills." Last month, the insurer reached a confidential settlement with Holland & Knight, withdrawing the fraud claims. But Connecticut Specialty's outside counsel, Robert Haugen, believes the original motion was credible. "I have a standard to live up to in [Minnesota] when I file pleadings," he says.
Mr. Farmer, who joined Holland & Knight in 2000, became involved in the Pinnacle case in the summer of 2002. A competitor had filed suit in Minneapolis federal court, claiming Pinnacle built homes that infringed on copyrighted designs and seeking more than $30 million in damages. (The jury's finding in favor of the defendant was later reversed due to an evidentiary ruling at trial; the case may be retried in the future by someone other than Mr. Farmer.)
After the trial, Mr. Farmer reviewed the firm's bills. The first invoice struck him as odd, he says. It claimed he worked 6.5 hours on Aug. 7, 2002, the day he learned of the suit. Mr. Farmer says he distinctly recalls hearing about the case late that day and spending only 15 minutes on it.
Over the next two days, Mr. Farmer says, he checked further to see if the first entry was an aberration. He finally quit probing, he says, after discovering some 60 instances of bill padding. Mr. Farmer believes that from August 2002 through September 2003, Mr. Ryan inflated his time — and that of three other lawyers in the case — by more than 450 hours, an overcharge that Mr. Farmer says exceeded $100,000. Mr. Farmer believes his discovery may have been the tip of the iceberg, for he says he analyzed only a "sampling" of the more than $3.5 million of Pinnacle bills.
In one instance, Mr. Farmer says, Mr. Ryan sent a bill to Pinnacle claiming that partner Scott Petersen had worked 89.8 hours over a 17-day period in March 2003. Mr. Farmer says internal firm records show the lawyer didn't work on the case at all during that time. Mr. Farmer also accuses Mr. Ryan of creating "fictitious" narratives using such phrases as "review key documents" and "analyze defense strategy" to describe work that Mr. Petersen never performed. Mr. Peterson didn't return calls seeking comment. The two other lawyers on the case declined to comment.
Mr. Farmer reported his findings in early 2005 to Colin Smith, a firm partner charged with ethics oversight, suggesting that Holland & Knight file a report with the state's attorney-ethics commission. "Don't go there," he says Mr. Smith warned him. "Why would you want to do this to Ed Ryan?" Mr. Smith declines to comment.
Colleagues describe the tall, white-haired Mr. Ryan as a genteel litigator. "I always found Ed to be an excellent lawyer and a gentleman of the highest character," says Michael Kanute, a former Holland & Knight partner. Another former partner, Julie Shelton, says she "can't imagine that he would do anything unethical." At Chicago office functions, another former partner recalls, Mr. Ryan liked to offer positive messages to lawyers. "He would use the sort of catch words that were expected by headquarters, like, 'We are so glad to gather together as the Holland & Knight family.' "
Soon after the meeting with Mr. Smith, Mr. Farmer says he had a "very awkward" 10-minute meeting with Mr. Ryan. He says Mr. Ryan told him that he himself had billed time internally to Pinnacle for which he hadn't charged the client and that he therefore inflated other lawyers' hours on the case to compensate for his uncharged time. In the final tally, Mr. Farmer says Mr. Ryan told him, Pinnacle's total bill reflected the actual time the firm worked on the case.
But Mr. Farmer says he found the explanation "unpersuasive." He says Mr. Ryan occasionally offered strategic advice and edited briefs for the case but never performed routine tasks. "He never stepped foot in a courtroom, never drafted any legal papers, never deposed a witness," says Mr. Farmer, who worked full-time on the matter from the start.
"The amount billed was consistent with the value of the time worked," Mr. Cannon, Holland & Knight's general counsel, said in response to questions about Mr. Farmer's allegations.
Early last year, Pinnacle was acquired by home-builder Hovnanian Enterprises Inc. "These issues occurred well before we were associated with" Pinnacle, a Hovnanian spokesman said. "We have no independent knowledge of the facts."
After his meeting with Mr. Ryan, Mr. Farmer waited for an investigation into his allegations. "I figured at some point, someone would register disbelief or disgust," he says. When that didn't happen, Mr. Farmer moved to the less prestigious Cohn Baughman. "If you look at Matt's résumé, you realize this was not a lateral move," says William Elward, a former classmate of Mr. Farmer's at Loyola University Chicago School of Law.
Late last year, still convinced it was his ethical responsibility, Mr. Farmer reported his bill-padding claims to the Illinois Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission. (The commission's chief counsel, James Grogan, won't comment on the pending investigation.) Then, Mr. Farmer sent the seven-page letter and billing records to Judge Poston. "Edward F. Ryan . . . frequently inflated far beyond the hours that the timekeeping attorneys had actually recorded," he wrote the judge, who was then presiding over a lawsuit brought by Connecticut Specialty against Pinnacle regarding the legal bills.
Though Mr. Farmer says he is happy in his new job, he concedes he is dazed by the turn his life has taken. Before that, "if you told me I would be out of my firm in a handful of months, I'd never have believed it," he says.
Write to Nathan Koppel at nathan.koppel@wsj.com
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page B1 Source
Holland & Knight – Minh VU – charged in a sweeping federal indictment with money laundering and trafficking in counterfeit goods.
In 1 on January 27, 2009 at 11:37 pmCache of knockoff bags triggers federal case
Chelsea residents accused in fraud
 Thousands of counterfeit designer purses crowded the shelves of a Revere storage facility unit. |
By Shelley Murphy, Globe Staff | November 4, 2005
Three sisters from Chelsea, and the boyfriend of one, were allegedly running a brisk business selling knockoff handbags of designers like Gucci, Kate Spade, and Louis Vuitton for $40 apiece at ''purse parties" hosted by suburban moms and at a weekly flea market.
Then last November, after more than 200 purse parties over 16 months, one of the sisters, Katherine Luong, 26, reported to police that a locker she rented at Extra Space Storage in Revere had been broken into by another renter who stole 75 handbags, valued at $1,500.
The alleged thief struck back.
He tipped off the Suffolk district attorney's office that he suspected Luong was running a counterfeit handbag ring at the storage facility.
When State Police raided 13 units that Luong rented there in January, they found cartons stacked to the ceiling, stuffed with counterfeit handbags and wallets bearing labels from Louis Vuitton, Prada, Kate Spade, Coach, Burberry, Gucci, and Fendi. The inventory totaled 46,000 bags and wallets, worth an estimated $1.4 million, according to police.
The real designer purses can cost from $200 to more than $1,000 apiece.
The raid, touted as one of the biggest counterfeit seizures in New England, drew the attention of the US Department of Justice, which has made cracking down on counterfeit goods a national priority in the same category as pirated software and CDs.
And yesterday, Luong, her sisters Camphung Luong, 24, of Chelsea, and Kim Luong, 22, now of Quincy, along with Katherine's boyfriend, Minh Vu, 25, of Chelsea, were charged in a sweeping federal indictment with money laundering and trafficking in counterfeit goods. Federal authorities have seized their cars and homes in Chelsea and Texas.
Katherine and Camphung Luong and Vu had been arrested in April on state charges of selling counterfeit goods but those charges will now be dropped.
Defense lawyers said yesterday the Luongs and Vu are hardworking young people who weren't hurting anybody with their business and shouldn't be charged in federal court.
Boston attorney Francisco Napolitano, who represents Vu, said, ''I don't think Mr. Gucci or Mr. de la Renta have anything to fear from somebody who is selling a $30 or $40 bag. It's not the same product."
Napolitano said that anybody who bought a purse from the Luongs or Vu knew they were buying a knockoff. He also said the sellers weren't attempting to hide anything; they sold their goods openly and accepted checks.
''This is a waste of the government's time and money to prosecute these people in the federal court," said Dorchester attorney Michael Doolin, who represents Camphung Luong and described her as a college student. ''These allegations against her are completely ridiculous. She isn't involved in any money-laundering or anything like that."
The indictment handed down yesterday by a grand jury in US District Court in Boston alleges that the Luong sisters and Vu ran a ring that bought counterfeit bags in New York, then peddled them weekly at the Revere flea market for two years and at some 230 purse parties — where people gathered to eat, drink, and shop — between July 2003 and last December.
The indictment details parties last year in Lowell and West Bridgewater, at which the hostesses were given free knockoff bags. When one recipient complained that her purse quickly ''fell apart," it was promptly replaced the indictment said.
''The public needs to know that when they buy a counterfeit purse at a house party or on the street, their dollars are ultimately helping to finance large-scale counterfeiting organizations," said Matthew J. Etre, the acting special agent in charge of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Boston. ''And every time they buy a knockoff purse, they are contributing to legitimate companies losing billions of dollars in revenue to counterfeiting every year."
Affidavits filed in federal court in Boston in July, when the government initially moved to forfeit homes, cars, and cash belonging to the Luongs and Vu, disclosed additional details about the alleged operation. The papers say that Vu, who worked for two years as a clerk at the Boston law firm of Holland & Knight, told co-workers he was resigning last November because he could no longer handle both that job and his ''retail business."
The Luongs and Vu have yet to appear in federal court and will be summonsed for arraignment at a date yet to be set. None of them could be reached for comment yesterday.
US Attorney Michael J. Sullivan said the public can expect to see more cases like yesterday's indictment because John Ashcroft, the former US attorney general, formed task forces around the country to go after intellectual property violations, and his successor, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, recently affirmed that commitment.
Counterfeit goods, including designer bag knockoffs, fall under the category of intellectual property because they represent stolen trademarks, Sullivan said.
''It's probably tens of billions of dollars a year that legitimate businesses have lost and oftentimes consumers have been defrauded by the purchase of what they think is a legitimate product, only later to find out it's counterfeit."
Andrea Powers, of Powers & Associates, a Sandwich-based private investigative firm that represents Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and all of the other trademark owners whose products were counterfeited, said they want the public to know that if you buy counterfeit bags ''you are funding criminal activity."
But David Procopio, a spokesman for Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley, said the state decided to hand the case over to federal authorities for prosecution because the ring was allegedly funneling money to Texas and appeared to be large in scope.
The federal indictment and documents filed in federal court suggest the operation was a huge money maker.
Some 600 e-mails that Vu generated while at Holland & Knight, which were subpoenaed by federal prosecutors, reveal that he was scheduling purse parties every week and sending large sums of money to his sister in Texas, according to an affidavit.
In one e-mail, Vu's sister asked him to send $100,000, in addition to the $50,000 he had already sent, so she could purchase a dry cleaning business, according to an affidavit.
The affidavits also allege that Katherine Luong deposited $236,784 into one bank account between August 2003 and January 2005.
Holland and Knight attorneys help Osama Bin Laden’s brother Khalil wrap up his business interests before leaving the country.
In 1 on January 27, 2009 at 10:42 pmFederal Law Enforcement, Corporate Counsel and Private Practice Lawyers Knew of Mohammed Atta’s Continuing Presence in Orlando, Florida in Early 2001
February 8, 2008 by Robby Scott Hill
The Secret Service’s Preisdential Advance Team ran across Atta in Orlando while preparing for a visit by President Bush and the US Customs Service knew that Osama Bin Laden’s brother Khalil who lived in West Orange County had provided Atta and his friends with financial assistance including sham marriages to American women, so they could maintain their residence in the United States. Further, we knew that he had been radicalized by the untimely death and possible assasination of his distant cousin Egyptian businessman Dodi Al Fayed, the boyfriend of Princess Diana, in 1997 among other incidents. The private law firm of Holland and Knight whose attorneys also worked for Florida East Coast Industries would later help Khalil wrap up his business interests in the US and help sell his mansion before leaving the country at about the same time that the 9/11 Commission began to formally look into his activities in the US.
Most embarassing is that CIA Activity Orlando was fully aware of Mohammed Atta’s presence in Orlando, Florida and it allowed him to continue operating without providing reports to the FBI, the NSA or other federal agencies.
THE WHISTLEBLOWER
In 1 on January 26, 2009 at 7:25 pmIt was a simple act, copying documents and mailing them to local newspapers.
But it was a bold one. And one that publicly embarrassed Florida’s largest
law firm, Holland & Knight, and led it to rescind its brazen promotion of
Douglas A. Wright, a partner who had been reprimanded for sexual harassment.
The anonymous whistleblower accomplished what nine female employees who had
complained about Wright’s behavior could not.
The women had bravely stepped forward to describe how Wright had repeatedly
questioned them about their sex lives, commented inappropriately about their
clothing and urged them to “feel his pipes.” An internal investigation
concluded that Wright had violated company policy by his actions. Howell W.
Melton, the firm’s managing partner, agreed Wright’s actions were
“inappropriate and unacceptable.”
Six months later, Melton promoted Wright to chief operating partner, the No.
3 position in the firm.
The promotion undoubtedly upset many at Holland & Knight. It moved one
person to blow the whistle, inciting a firestorm of negative publicity about
the firm and pressure on Wright. Wright stepped down from his position as
chief operating partner, but he remains with the firm.
But there may be a heavy price to pay. In its initial response, the law firm
raged against the breach of confidentiality. And though it later toned down
its rhetoric against the whistleblower, Holland & Knight continues to
aggressively search for the source of the leak to this day.
- KRIS HUNDLEY, Times staff writer
Source
Blagojevich – Holland & Knight Memorandum of Understanding
In 1 on January 24, 2009 at 5:08 am
Holland & Knight will also broadly identify possible policy objectives and strategies relating to these policy areas.
Holland & Knight will coordinate the development of a step-by-step action plan to address each selected initiative.
The action plan will include recommendations for: (i) other external partners that can assist with the implementation of the initiative; (ii) necessary staffing and/or contractual support needed to carry out the initiative; and (iii) identifying and obtaining the other necessary resources to carry out the initiative.
Holland & Knight will coordinate directly with members of ISBE and the Governor's Office to assist with the management and implementation of policy change. Holland & Knight will provide semiannual detailed reports to the Governor, State Board, and State Superintendent on the status of the partnership's initiatives and anticipated activities during the next six months, providing an opportunity for the State's leadership to evaluate outcomes and future policy directions. More frequent reports on specific issues will be provided upon request.
The services provided by Holland & Knight within the scope of this partnership will be at no cost to the State.
The Governor's Office and ISBE agree that the state-specific policy planning arising out of the partnership can be shared with Foundation staff, other states, and other core partners assisting the Foundation on its national college and work readiness initiatives.
The partnership formed under this Memorandum of Understanding will extend until June 30, 2008, with an option for renewal by all parties dependent on a review of the services performed, State needs, and policy outcomes.
H&K’s handling sets a troubling standard
In 1 on January 24, 2009 at 2:11 amBy ROBERT TRIGAUX
The firm is committed to fostering a collegial work environment in which all individuals are treated with dignity and respect. – from Holland & Knight's policy prohibiting sexual harassment.
I do not recall asking her to "feel my pipes' numerous times or even asking her to do so at all, but I may have done so because I've done it before. – from the April 15, 2004, statement of Doug Wright, the No. 3 partner at Holland & Knight in Tampa.
A former college football player with a frat-boy personality offensive to more than a few female attorneys has nevertheless climbed the corporate ladder and this month became the chief operating partner of the prominent Holland & Knight law firm in Tampa.
Douglas A. Wright, 44, is a successful lawyer catering to wealthy and pro sports clients. He is also known for his locker-room humor, a burly physique and a bullying style – intimidating at least to a number of young female lawyers at the firm's Tampa office.
Confidential company documents obtained this week and first reported Tuesday by the St. Petersburg Times reveal Wright was the subject last year of an internal Holland & Knight investigation and a reprimand for violating the firm's sexual harassment policy.
The documents, which normally never would see the light of day in a newspaper, offer a glimpse of the behind-closed-doors treatment of sexual harassment complaints and the abuse of power that occurs far too often in U.S. businesses.
The story told by the Holland & Knight documents is shameful. Even if only half of the allegations are true, here is a major U.S. law firm with a blind eye to a good ol' boy way of doing things. Young female lawyers, some on their very first jobs, are tyrannized by an older, bigger, richer and more powerful male lawyer who can make or break a career.
It's doubly disturbing because the same female lawyers who should be praised for standing up to Wright – and whose names are now public – may very well end up branded as troublemakers by the close-knit legal world.
Since 2000, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has investigated and attempted to resolve more than 25,000 sexual discrimination claims each year. In this Holland & Knight case, the female associates apparently never took their claims to the EEOC.
An estimated 90 percent of sexual harassment victims decide the cost of fighting back would be higher than giving in or getting out, says Catharine A. MacKinnon, professor of law at the University of Michigan and author of the recently published book Women's Lives, Men's Laws.
"This is a common set of affairs, including these confidentiality agreements," MacKinnon said Tuesday. "Often, if women are to get any relief from sexual harassment, they are silenced in the process."
What is most disturbing in this Holland & Knight tale is that Wright was promoted this month to chief operating partner, the No. 3 position of power, at Holland & Knight. The firm once headed by former managing partner Bill McBride is not just a major Tampa Bay law firm or simply the No. 2 firm in the state. It ranks among the 15 largest law firms in the world and – ironically, it seems today – has long touted its social awareness and advocacy of women's issues.
Complaints allege Wright routinely asked some of the firm's young associate women to "feel his pipes" or "feel his guns" – sexually suggestive slang for feeling his biceps. Complaints also allege Wright repeatedly questioned, taunted or ridiculed female employees about their clothing, sexual habits and sex partners, and periodically threatened to fire them.
One young female associate joined Holland & Knight in 2002 right out of law school only to become one of Wright's favorite targets. Sarah Pellenbarg recalled how Wright pestered her relentlessly about her boyfriend, spending 30 to 40 minutes in her office three to four times a week. He regularly talked of firing her, according to Pellenbarg's statement.
"Doug Wright is the stereotypical schoolyard bully with an obsessive-compulsive twist," she stated. "He bullied and bullied and bullied me, and finally one day, he broke me. I got to the point where I dreaded going to work and cried at night. He was relentless."
In his defense during the investigation, Wright said he did not target women, and this week denied the harassment allegations to this newspaper.
"I joke and tease with everyone," he stated last year. "I suppose some might think that makes me an indiscriminate jerk."
Holland & Knight's investigative team, known as the "fair employment practices committee," concluded "jerk" did not go far enough. Wright violated the firm's sexual harassment policy, the committee decided.
"The majority of the committee found it baffling that (Wright) could believe that such a statement ("feel my pipes") was an icebreaker" to help start a conversation, the group concluded.
It made 13 recommendations to Holland & Knight managing partner Howell Melton Jr. Among those recommendations, Wright should: be reprimanded; be instructed not to ask or require employees to "feel his muscles, guns and/or pipes, and similar types of touching of his body"; refrain from personally monitoring the attire of employees; stop asking associates about their sexual lives and undergo sexual harassment counseling or management training; and not engage in any retaliation against anyone who complained.
To its credit, the committee also urged that Wright's behavior be monitored, especially because the attorney "has been entrusted with leadership positions" and "has made questionable use of the power inherent in those positions."
That's an understatement.
Wright has some fans at the big law firm. One of his peers suggested Wright has a "strong personality" combined with an ex-football player's imposing presence. Partner Stacy Blank, a woman, stated that Wright's "feel my pipes" line was just a "self-deprecating "shtick' that he adopted."
Thirteen days ago, on March 17, managing partner Melton sent a companywide e-mail announcing Wright had been promoted.
The e-mail also sends a troubling message. Man wins. Women lose.
Holland & Knight needs a higher standard.
Robert Trigaux can be reached at trigaux@sptimes.com or 727 893-8405.
Holland & Knight – Waiver of Conflicts – Place Based Trust
In 1 on January 24, 2009 at 12:48 amRichard Dunnells – A partner in the DC office of Holland & Knight (after the dissolution of Dunnells & Duvall in the early- to mid- 90s) specializing in HUD matters.� He represented Hamilton Securities in various HUD related matters while it served as Financial Advisor to HUD and also as counsel to HUD in connection with certain "portfolio reengineering" matters (after HUD agreed to waive any conflicts that might arise by reason of his representation of many clients before HUD), including the "place based trust" being structured when Hamilton's contract was cancelled.� In the Spring of 1997, an article appeared in the Wall Street Journal reporting that Holland & Knight had been fired by HUD for conflicts of interest relating to its portfolio reengineering representation of HUD. Dunnells had been retained by Hamilton's first lien creditor, Franklin National Bank, to advise the bank regarding its lien on Hamilton's HUD receivables.
Virginia State Bar Disciplinary Board public reprimand terms to Theodore Scott Silva Jr.of Holland & Knight
In 1 on January 24, 2009 at 12:27 amFebruary 1, 2008
Theodore Scott Silva Jr., Holland & Knight, LLP, Suite 400, 2100 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20034-3202
VSB Docket No. 08-000-073253
On January 23, 2008, the Virginia State Bar Disciplinary Board issued a public reprimand with terms to Theodore Scott Silva Jr., who pled guilty in December 2002 in the Arlington County Circuit Court to a charge of possession of cocaine. The court dismissed the criminal charge after Mr. Silva complied with its conditions. Mr. Silva also currently faces terms imposed by a District of Columbia disciplinary tribunal in another matter. The Virginia board ordered him to comply with those terms. This is an agreed disposition of disciplinary charges against Mr. Silva, who is an associate member of the Virginia State Bar.
view Silva order (pdf posted 02/07/2008)*
Holland & Knight could be held liable by investors claiming they were misled about Nadel’s background
In 1 on January 24, 2009 at 12:05 am
Missing investor kept N.Y. disbarment a secret, Sarasota's Art Nadel Paid $50,000 to Mob Loan Sharks From Clients Escrow Account. Susan Taylor Martin, Times Senior Correspondent In Print: Wednesday, January 21, 2009. To pay off loan sharks, New York attorney Arthur G. Nadel violated a basic tenet of legal ethics — he dipped into an escrow account and took $50,000 that did not belong to him.
That was in the late 1970s, and Nadel was subsequently disbarred for "dishonesty, fraud, deceit and misrepresentation."
But in 2004 by which time Nadel was living in Sarasota he never disclosed his legal disgrace to investors in his Scoop Real Estate Limited Partnership. Thus, many were blindsided last week when the 75-year-old Nadel vanished, along with an estimated $350-million managed by him and his companies.
Had prospective investors known of Nadel's past, they might have been far more wary about entrusting their money to a man who promised unusually high, steady returns even as the stock market tanked. And should Nadel ever turn up, he, his partners and even Holland & Knight, the law firm for Scoop Real Estate, could be held liable by investors claiming they were misled about Nadel's background.
"Absolutely," Lizabeth Moody, former dean of Stetson University College of Law, said when asked if Nadel's disbarment for fraud and dishonesty should have been disclosed. "You have to decide if this is something a reasonable investor would consider in making a decision, and in my estimation it certainly is."
In a case strikingly similar to that of Bernard Madoff — accused of bilking clients out of $50-billion in history's biggest Ponzi scheme — dozens of investors and non-profit groups been left wondering how $350-million managed by Nadel could seemingly evaporate overnight.
According to records obtained by the St. Petersburg Times, Nadel in 1978 represented CCN Realty Corp. and its president, Richard Sanchez, in the sale of CCN property to a hospital. After the two parties entered into a contract, Nadel put the hospital's $50,000 deposit into an escrow account.
The deal fell through, and in May, 1980, the hospital asked for its money back. But Nadel was unable to return it because all but $152 had been spent "in connection with loan-shark transactions and related events and circumstances with his client (Sanchez)," New York Supreme Court records show. "(Nadel) further stated that he shared in the problems and concerns of Sanchez."
HOW NYC MOB LOAN SHARKS OPERATE…November 10, 2006 – Three alleged Bonanno crime-family loan sharks threatened to put a woman "in the trunk of a car" – mob code for being killed – for not repaying a loan, unaware that her mobster husband was cooperating with the feds, prosecutors revealed yesterday. Alleged Bonanno soldier Michael "Mike the Butcher" Virtuoso and alleged Bonanno associates Agostino Accardo and Michael Cassese were arraigned in Brooklyn federal court yesterday and held at the Metropolitan Detention Center on the extortion charges. According to court papers, Virtuoso and Accardo loaned the unidentified woman $100,000 last year. When she failed to pay up, Cassese allegedly began threatening her husband – another Bonanno associate who was cooperating with the feds.
For "professional misconduct of such a serious nature," Art Nadel was disbarred on March 11, 1982. In 2004, Nadel began soliciting investors for his Scoop Real Estate Limited Partnership, which planned to buy income-producing residential and commercial properties. A "private placement memorandum" given to prospective investors included biographical data about Nadel, noting that he had a law degree from New York University. The memorandum says nothing about Nadel's disbarment.
Hugh Culverhouse Jr., an attorney who has spoken with several Scoop Real Estate investors, says Nadel's charitable activities apparently kept people from looking too closely at his background. "You've got to really do some bad things to be totally disbarred," Culverhouse says. "But nobody did any research."
Looks like somebody, at some time, who was investing millions of dollars should have hired a private investigator to look into the background of one Arthur G. Nadel in Sarasota Fl. Art Nadel's NYC activity with the Mob loan sharks caused him to take his clients $50,000, he didn't want to be put "in the trunk of a car" – mob code for being killed – for not repaying a loan.
Bill Warner
private investigator
WBI Inc Private Detective Agency
Sarasota Fl
email wbi@comcast.net
On probation in tax case, former federal public defender joins Holland & Knight as a legal assistant
In 1 on January 23, 2009 at 11:52 pmBy: Mary Hladky Source:
http://www.dailybusinessreview.com/news.html?news_id=14195
Former Federal Public Defender James R. Gailey soon will be joining
the Miami office of Holland & Knight as a legal assistant.
Gailey, who resigned his post in 1994, pleaded guilty in August of
this year to filing a false income tax return and was sentenced to a
year of probation in early November. He was charged with accepting
$372,200 in case referral fees in 1992 and 1993, but not reporting the
revenue on tax returns.
The Florida Bar is about to ask the Florida Supreme Court to suspend
Gailey from the practice of law for three years, a standard action for
any lawyer convicted of a felony. The Bar will then initiate
disciplinary action. In cases involving a felony conviction, the Bar
typically seeks disbarment. However, Supreme Court rules governing
lawyers allow a suspended or disbarred lawyer to work in law firms in
a nonlawyer capacity.
Barbara Locke, executive partner of Holland & Knight’s Miami office,
said Gailey’s hiring was proposed by Daniel Pearson, a former 3rd
District Court of Appeal judge who chairs the litigation department.
It also was supported by firm patriarch and former American Bar
Association president Chesterfield Smith, and firmwide managing
partner Bill McBride.
“Our feeling was people deserve the opportunity to rehabilitate
themselves,” Locke said. “Somebody had to step up to the plate and
give this man a place to do so. ”
Pearson, who mentored Gailey during a career that included practicing
with two major law firms and with the U. S. attorney’s office, said
said the decision to help Gailey is appropriate. “It is the decent and
proper thing to do to help a human being who has come upon a
misfortune in his life. ”
The decision to bring Gailey on board was made with no guarantee that
he will be hired as a lawyer, if or when he can practice law again,
Locke said.
“The man made a mistake. He has accepted responsibility. He is
rehabilitating himself. It was the right thing to do,” Locke said of
the hiring decision.
Since leaving the Federal Public Defender’s Office, Gailey has had his
own law practice.
A law firm’s sexual harassment case: An inside story
In 1 on January 23, 2009 at 11:31 pmBy SCOTT BARANCIK and KRIS HUNDLEY
It was supposed to be a networking breakfast for young, female lawyers at the Tampa office of Holland & Knight.
But when an organizer of the December 2003 get-together said she thought the law firm offered excellent opportunities for women, there was dead silence. Then a number of junior lawyers began sharing stories of alleged harassment and intimidation as far back as 1999 by Tampa partner Douglas A. Wright.
An inquiry followed, first by an outside law firm, then by an internal committee. Every participant was sworn to secrecy. By May, most of Holland's investigating committee found the complaints against Wright, 44, credible. Punishments were recommended. Case closed.
But it wasn't.
Four of the young accusers raised their voices, dissatisfied with the outcome. Wright had been reprimanded, but not to the extent suggested. In a memo, they expressed anger at the managing partner of the 1,250-lawyer firm, Howell Melton Jr. He held his ground.
Six months later, Melton announced to the firm that he was promoting Wright to third in command. Then someone leaked the internal committee's report to local newspapers. Wright surrendered his promotion but remains a partner in the firm.
And what was once securely private offers a rare glimpse into the secret world of sexual harassment claims.
Selected excerpts from those documents follow.
Statement of female accuser #1
Within my first week as a summer associate in 2002, Doug Wright started coming into my office daily or every other day … He told me to "Stand up. Turn around in a circle. You look like the hostess in a Chinese restaurant." He then walked out. I was very upset by his behavior and cried …
… Right before I was set to join the firm as an associate, my rooming plans fell through … I called (a male associate at the firm) … to see if he could help me find a roommate. He offered me a room in his 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom house … Doug Wright became merciless in teasing me about it. He would ask or say things like: "Did you know (he) has a camera in your shower? Did you know (he) lays in your bed? Did you know (he) puts your panties on his head? … What does (he) look like in boxers? …
On at least one occasion I overheard Doug Wright say something like, "I wonder if (the roommate) is banging (her) yet" … I decided to move out in the fall of 2003 … … In early fall of 2003, I got fed up and talked to several people about Doug Wright's power and pervasive influence … I am upset that no one at the firm stood up for me to stop Doug Wright's harassment.
Statement of female accuser #2
Doug Wright asked me to "feel (his) guns" or to "feel (his) pipe" on countless occasions. As a young associate, you feel as if you cannot say no. … He also asked you to "feel (his) pipes" in front of other attorneys …
… I was walking down the hall and Doug Wright asked me to feel his thigh. I initially said no, but he persisted that I should feel his thigh. Finally, I felt his thigh … As he walked away, he patted his bottom and told me that it was much harder …
… I quickly learned that the best way to deal with Doug Wright was to simply avoid him. If I heard his voice in the hall, I would pretend I was on a phone call so he would not come into my office. If I saw him in the hall, I would change the way I was walking … I would avoid monthly socials or other office social events if he was there…
… The worst part of the situation, however, is that there is a feeling in this office that everyone knows about his behavior and that it is accepted … that Doug Wright is very powerful and untouchable. …
Statement of female accuser #3
… My negative experience with Doug Wright began as soon as I started and continued daily until I was able to move off of his floor (in the company's office building) … I was just out of law school and this was my first job as a lawyer …
… At first, he would just stop by and we would have harmless conversations. It very quickly escalated from there. Within a short time, Doug Wright was spending between 30 and 45 minutes in my office, three to four times per week. We did not have normal "conversations." I was simply barraged with questions and ridiculed until Doug got bored and left my office.
Doug Wright would constantly ask me questions about my boyfriend … When (my boyfriend) went out of town … Doug would always insist that (he) was having an affair or visiting strip clubs …
I would have been able to deal with this sort of conversation in and of itself, except that it happened EVERY DAY for weeks and weeks …
… My worst experience with Doug came one day when I refused to come to his office … An hour or so later, Doug came into my office and said, "Did you get the message that I wanted to see you?" I responded, "Yes, I got the message," and looked back down at my work. This sent Doug into a rage. He turned bright red and I have never seen him so mad since. He asked me if I wanted to be fired. He told me that he knew everybody in town and that the only place I would be able to get a job would be the public defender's office.
… Ever since that incident, the topic of me getting "fired" has been a favorite of Doug's.
… Doug Wright probably asked me to feel his "guns" about 4 or 5 times. Recently … Doug Wright ordered me to fix his tie in front of (another male lawyer). … … By July of 2002, I became desperate to move (my office) … eventually I was moved to a different floor and the daily harassment stopped …
Statement of female accuser #4
…My first encounter with Doug Wright was at cocktail happy hour at the firm. He came up to me and said, "What is your name? Who do you work with?"
Doug Wright proceeded to ask me to "feel his pipes" in front of an entire room of attorneys. I felt extremely offended and humiliated … I said, "Are you kidding?" and I walked away. … My next encounter with Doug Wright was in the fall of 2003, at a recruiting cocktail reception in Gainesville, Florida. Doug Wright … asked me what I was doing at the recruiting event. … (He told) me that I was completely ineffective and that my days were numbered at Holland & Knight. I was mortified. There was not a hint of sarcasm in his voice…
… Doug Wright has poisoned the working environment in the Tampa office. When I hear his voice in the hallway I either pretend I am on the phone or just hold my breath and hope to God that he does not come into my office …
Statement of Douglas A. Wright
… I have been at Holland & Knight my entire career, and it's an important place for me.
Regarding Female Accuser #2, I do not recall asking her to "feel my pipes" … but I may have done so because I've done it to others … I do not recall asking her to feel my thigh. I do not recall telling her that my butt was harder than my thigh, but it's possible that I did that …
… Regarding Female Accuser #1, I recall that she had an outfit that reminded me of a hostess in a Chinese restaurant, but I cannot recall an incident in which I told her so … I do not recall being in her office and telling her to stand up and turn around. I have lots of work to do, and I can't spend 20 minutes in her office.
I deny that I made any inappropriate comments to her about (renting a room from a male associate) … I may have jokingly asked her what (her roommate) looks like in the morning … I never asked (the roommate), "Are you banging (her) yet?" I do not use the term "bang."
I may have asked him if he was sleeping with her, but I don't really recall asking anything of the sort … Perhaps I was standing in a group when a statement was made and she assumed it was me. For example, (another male associate) is more likely to use the term "banging" than I am …
… It is possible that I touched her suit skirt in the Fall of 2003, but it would not have been sexual touching. I sometimes touch men's clothing. I recall criticizing people's clothing a lot a couple of years ago because the firm had gone to year-round business casual, and I thought people began dressing too casually and not like we work at a premier law firm.
… I do, however, ask people to feel my pipes. I do not have a typical physique, and a client once introduced me by telling someone to feel my pipes. I adopted it as sort of an icebreaker with new people. … If a person declined to do so, sometimes I'd back off and sometimes I would ask again … …Regarding Female Accuser #3 …I probably dropped by about three days out of the week. … She was a litigator sitting on a corporate floor and I was concerned that she would be ignored. I would have talked to her about her boyfriend, but not any sexual questions …
…I recall teasing her when (her boyfriend) was away about whether he called her to check in and then went back out. I probably said that he was out but not that he was cheating. I probably implied that he was out at bars with women. … I recall jokingly threatening to fire her. I have threatened hundreds of people with firing and they all know that it is a joke. I even joke about myself ending up at the public defender's office. … I thought I was being her friend. I was trying to get to know her and to help her get integrated into the office. I guess I did an ineffective job of communicating with her …
… I do not target women. I joke and tease with everyone. I suppose some might think that makes me an indiscriminate jerk. …
Investigating committee's findings, May 25, 2004
… The majority of the members found the allegations to be generally credible, and found it difficult to find the allegations less credible simply because of a series of general denials of recollection by several witnesses, including (Wright).
… In regard to (Doug Wright's) admitted habit of asking people to feel his pipes/guns/muscles, the majority of the committee found it baffling that (he) could believe that such a statement was an "icebreaker" …
After a thorough investigation and careful consideration … a majority of the Committee believed that…(Wright's) actions were of a sexual nature … these actions of a sexual nature, combined with other taunting behavior by (Wright), constitute a violation of the (firm's sexual harassment) policy. A majority … further found that the violation was exacerbated by the position of power acquired by (Wright), and his extremely close ties to others in the office who hold positions of power …
In light of the (committee's) confirmation of violation of the policy, it is recommended that the Managing Partner consider the following courses of action:
Issue to (Wright) a private and personal reprimand …
… Direct Wright to refrain from asking and/or requiring Firm attorneys, staff or others in the offices of the Firm to feel his muscles, guns, and/or pipes
… refrain from asking questions of or making comments to associates and summer associates concerning their sexual lives
… refrain from participating, for an extended period, in summer associate hiring
… refrain from serving, for an extended period, on any associate hiring or evaluation committees
… refrain from taking upon himself the task of monitoring the attire of Firm attorneys and staff…
… Require Wright to engage a professional counselor and/or trainer for sexual harassment awareness training and management training …
… Wright has been entrusted with leadership positions within the Firm, and he has made questionable use of the power inherent to those positions …
Memo from Holland & Knight managing partner Howell Melton Jr. to Investigating Committee (July 27, 2004)
… I am not persuaded by all of the findings articulated in the Report, but I am persuaded that, when viewed as a whole, (Wright's) actions were inappropriate and unacceptable. I find the reported conduct particularly objectionable in view of (his) position of leadership within the firm.
Therefore, I accept and will implement each of the (committee's) recommended sanctions as set forth in the Report, except the two that would bar (Wright) from participation in summer associate and associate hiring …
Memo from four female accusers to Melton (August 2, 2004)
…We are very disappointed at your failure to adopt the recommendations set forth by the FEPC committee with regard to Doug Wright.
This is not a case of 4 lone females making isolated complaints. When this situation first developed, there were between ten and fifteen female attorneys, including at least one female partner, who met with (an outside) law firm to discuss the complaint against Doug Wright…
… The message that you have sent us by your memorandum is that cruel behavior is tolerated, so long as the perpetrator is in a position of power. Despite the "hell" that we have all been through, we have received no apology, no words of sympathy, only repeated orders of "keep quiet," "don't talk about this with anyone" and "this process is confidential." … The system protects Doug, not us.
Memo from Melton to four female accusers (August 16, 2004)
… As the FEPC's report makes clear, the findings and, presumably, the recommendations of that committee were not unanimous.
Contrary to the concerns you expressed about my relationship with Doug Wright, he and I are not social friends. I assure you I was in no way biased in his favor … I continue to believe that the sanctions I imposed in this case are both reasonable and appropriate under the circumstances. … … It is my earnest desire that our Tampa office will be a supportive environment for you to work and grow professionally.
Times editorial assistant Barbara Moch contributed to this report. Scott Barancik can be reached at 727 893-8751 or barancik@sptimes.com Kris Hundley can be reached at (727) 892-2996 or hundley@sptimes.com
Hypocrisy of The Florida Bar – A Case Study
In 1 on January 23, 2009 at 4:08 pmHypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises;
for never intending to go beyond promises; it cost nothing.
Edmund Burke
1729-1797
Magnificent indeed are promises of the Florida Bar. Published
standards for imposing attorney sanctions decrees in part:
6.11 Disbarment is appropriate when a lawyer:
with the intent to deceive the court, knowingly makes a false
statement or submits a false document; or
improperly withholds material information, and causes serious or
potentially serious injury to a party, or causes a significant or
potentially significant adverse effect on the legal proceeding.
An arm of the Florida Supreme Court, the bar promises to discipline
attorneys that violate rules of professional conduct. In return for
this grand promise the bar is permitted to self regulate without audit
or oversight by elected officials.
Does the Bar back its magnificent words with action? Not even close.
When faced with overwhelming and indisputable proof of multiple acts
of misconduct, the bar turns a blind eye. Measure for yourself the
depth of deceit by following a pattern of attorney misconduct as it
was submitted to the abyss of the bar. Contrast the inert acquiescence
with the magnificent promise.
Make crime pay.
Become a Lawyer
Will Rogers
1879-1935
With the assistance of a former Florida Prosecutor and a former United
States Attorney, a fully documented complaint was submitted to the
Florida Bar detailing clear, compelling, and indisputable evidence
that three Florida attorneys, “with intent to deceive the court”
knowingly made or elicited multiple false statements and withheld
material information. Three bar files were opened. The attorneys were
provided a copy of the complaint and required to respond. Three
documented rebuttals to the responses were submitted to the bar.
Oh What a tangled web we weave,
Once we practice to deceive.
Sir Walter Scott
1771-1832
Once false statements to a federal court were documented in the
complaint, options narrowed for the respondents. Follow the scenario
by reading their responses and see how the rebuttals evidence each web
of deceit. Decide if you concur with the opinion offered herein that
the three identified attorneys repeatedly and blatantly violated rules
of conduct calling for disbarment and continued to weave their webs in
the documents submitted to the bar.
Frederick Dyer Page, Bar file 2008-00,042 (4D)
Arrogance and self-righteous condescension punctuate the response of
attorney Page. No defense was offered to the undisputed fact that he
knowingly made no less than five false statements to a federal
tribunal. Stating that he was proud of his conduct, Mr. Page made no
apologies and seemed annoyed that he should be bothered with such
mundane matters as truth and ethics. He went so far as to include an
exhibit not identified in the original complaint that was fabricated
and tampered with during the trial. This opened the door for rebuttal
to Page to document the reprehensible slight of hand employed by Mr.
Page and his co-counsel in deploying this artifice.
Richard Roemheld Thames, Bar file 2008-00,041 (4B)
Thames response lacked the hubris of Pompous Page but one does wonder
if he consumed cheese with his whine. He offered no defense or denial
to the allegation that he elicited false testimony from his client in
federal court and that he personally offered contradicting sworn
testimony. The rebuttal to Thames also documented that he made an
additional false statement in his response to the bar, an arm of the
Florida Supreme Court.
Bradley Robert Markey, Bar file 2008-00,043 (4B)
The inept and marijuana mellow response of Markey admitted that he and
his co-counsel had no regard for authenticity or source of evidence as
long as it served their purpose. This cavalier disregard for the law,
the facts, and the rules of discovery exhibited by these attorneys is
detailed and documented in the rebuttal to Markey.
Crime is contagious.
If the government becomes the law breaker,
It breeds contempt for the law.
Louis D Brandeis
Supreme Court justice 1916-1939
Did the bar approve this pattern of misconduct? Absolutely. The duty
of keeping the promise fell to Bar Counsel, Shanell M. Schuyler.
Perfectly suited for this job, she did exactly what her collogues
expected her to do. She betrayed the public trust and closed all three
files. Her letter closing the three bar files rained rhetoric about
not second-guessing the court and not retrying the underlying civil
case but failed to offer any analysis of the facts or to justify her
decision.
Conspicuously missing from Ms. Schuyler’s letter is any comment
regarding the undisputed evidence that Mr. Page, a partner in the
politically potent Holland and Knight law firm, offered multiple false
statements to the Federal Court of Appeals. No comment on the proven
fact that Mr. Thames offered contradicting sworn statements. No
comment on the false statement made to the bar in Mr. Thames’
response. No comment on the fact that Mr. Thames did not deny that he
allowed his client to offer false testimony. No analysis of the facts.
Simply close the file and move on. Hear no evil; see no evil.
Convenient for the corrupt, a decision of bar counsel to close any
file is not subject to appeal. This caveat trumps truth. Catch 22; get
out of jail free; a cheap bar trick.
There is however an appeal to the court of public opinion. Decide for
yourself if the bar is a protector of public integrity or a purveyor
of perversion? Is the bar a trustworthy arm of the Florida Supreme
Court or a fraternity of fraud? Visitors to this site are encouraged
to read the complaint, the responses, and the rebuttals and decide if
the bar ignored the truth and encouraged false statements in Federal
Court.
During times of universal deceit,
telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.
George Orwell
1903-1950
Why do attorneys violate rules of conduct that call for disbarment?
They lie and deceive because it is expected. This is business as usual
for the Florida Bar. One could certainly argue that rule of law has
been supplanted with conduct of universal deceit in Florida Courtrooms
and that the Florida Bar is a breeding ground for universal deceit.
As our country spans the globe spending national treasure and spilling
American blood in an attempt to impose concepts of the rule of law on
others, we fail to hold accountable those subversive individuals and
institutions that undermine the judicial process in this country.
Ignoring imminent danger paves the path to a place where differences
are settled with IEDs and RPGs rather than in a court of law. First we
slide down the slippery slope to tyranny where corrupt judges and
amoral attorneys distort and ignore the law. Then we continue the
downward spiral to anarchy. Where are we on this continuum and how
much further can we afford to slide?
It is not the 81,000 attorneys that comprise the Florida Bar that
perpetuate universal deceit. It is the institution. If the courts and
the Bar are held accountable and made to keep the promise the
individual attorneys will follow deserving leaders. Radical change
needs to take place in the courts and at the bar.
Source: http://lyinglawyers-flordia.com/
Latest Missing Money Manager Was a Disbarred Lawyer
In 1 on January 23, 2009 at 1:33 pmBy Debra Cassens Weiss
A Florida hedge fund manager who disappeared last week was a disbarred
lawyer, but that fact was never disclosed in a memo for prospective
investors in one of his companies.
Sarasota money manager Arthur Nadel left a note threatening suicide,
but he later made a call on his cell phone from a town near New
Orleans. The Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday charged
Nadel with fraud, accusing him of overstating the amount in his hedge
funds by more than $340 million, according to the Sarasota Herald
Tribune. The funds actually held about $1 million, according to the
SEC.
Nadel, a graduate of New York University law school, was disbarred in
1982 for taking $50,000 out of an escrow account in a real estate
transaction to pay off loan sharks, according to the St. Petersburg
Times and a separate article in the Sarasota Herald Tribune.
Nadel told authorities he spent the money out of concern for the
president of a realty company whom he represented in the transaction,
and it wasn’t clear if he was himself involved with loan sharks, the
St. Petersburg Times says. Nadel later repaid the money. But the
realty company president told the Herald Tribune he believes Nadel
used the money to buy real estate in Florida.
When Nadel sought investors in 2004 for one of his investment
companies, Scoop Real Estate Limited Partnership, he did not disclose
the disbarment in a private placement memorandum, according to the St.
Petersburg Times.
The memorandum lists Holland & Knight as Scoop Real Estate’s general
counsel. A law firm representative told the St. Petersburg Times, “We
are reviewing our records and have no comment at this time.”
Read the complete article at:
http://www.abajournal.com/news/latest_missing_money_manager_was_a_disbarred_lawyer/
Comments
Posted by Big Law is dead –
Another one of the best and brightest from a top 20 law school bites
the dust. Wonder how many more companies will go under because they
used the best and the brigtest lawyers, accountants etc to cook their
books.
Posted by B. McLeod
They should have let Ellen B. manage this fund. She is reportedly a
member of the bar in good standing.
Holland & Knight – Scoop Real Estate – Art Nadel kept N.Y. disbarment a secret
In 1 on January 23, 2009 at 1:30 pmMissing investor Art Nadel kept N.Y. disbarment a secret
Susan Taylor Martin, Times Senior Correspondent
In Print: Wednesday, January 21, 2009
To pay off loan sharks, New York attorney Arthur G. Nadel violated a
basic tenet of legal ethics — he dipped into an escrow account and
took $50,000 that did not belong to him.
That was in the late 1970s, and Art Nadel was subsequently disbarred
for “dishonesty, fraud, deceit and misrepresentation.”
But in 2004 — by which time Nadel was living in Sarasota — he never
disclosed his legal disgrace to investors in his Scoop Real Estate
Limited Partnership. Thus, many were blindsided last week when the
75-year-old Nadel vanished, along with an estimated $350-million
managed by him and his companies.
Had prospective investors known of Nadel’s past, they might have been
far more wary about entrusting their money to a man who promised
unusually high, steady returns even as the stock market tanked. And
should Nadel ever turn up, he, his partners and even Holland & Knight,
the law firm for Scoop Real Estate, could be held liable by investors
claiming they were misled about Nadel’s background.
“Absolutely,” Lizabeth Moody, former dean of Stetson University
College of Law, said when asked if Nadel’s disbarment for fraud and
dishonesty should have been disclosed. “You have to decide if this is
something a reasonable investor would consider in making a decision,
and in my estimation it certainly is.”
In a case strikingly similar to that of Bernard Madoff — accused of
bilking clients out of $50-billion in history’s biggest Ponzi scheme —
dozens of investors and non-profit groups been left wondering how
$350-million managed by Nadel could seemingly evaporate overnight.
Among the biggest losers are the YMCA of Sarasota, whose $1.2-million
endowment was wiped out, and Mace International, the maker of defense
sprays, which lost $2.2-million.
Using cell phone records, investigators reportedly have traced Nadel
to the New Orleans suburb of Slidell, days after his Subaru turned up
at the Sarasota airport. The Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office said
Tuesday that Nadel disappeared voluntarily and that it is closing its
investigation into his whereabouts.
In recent years, Nadel has been an admired figure in Sarasota,
generously donating to churches, youth groups and arts organizations.
Few, if any, knew of his aborted legal career in New York.
According to records obtained by the St. Petersburg Times, Nadel in
1978 represented CCN Realty Corp. and its president, Richard Sanchez,
in the sale of CCN property to a hospital. After the two parties
entered into a contract, Nadel put the hospital’s $50,000 deposit into
an escrow account.
The deal fell through, and in May, 1980, the hospital asked for its
money back. But Nadel was unable to return it because all but $152 had
been spent “in connection with loan-shark transactions and related
events and circumstances with his client (Sanchez),” New York Supreme
Court records show. “(Nadel) further stated that he shared in the
problems and concerns of Sanchez.”
In early 1981, Nadel made full restitution, and a disciplinary
committee said it was “not totally clear” whether Nadel himself was
directly involved with loan sharks.
“Nonetheless, it may be fairly stated that (Nadel) acted with a
misplaced allegiance to his client, Sanchez, and in dereliction of his
duty to the hospital in removing the monies from the escrow account
and paying them to the ‘loan sharks,’ ” the committee said. For
“professional misconduct of such a serious nature,” Nadel was
disbarred on March 11, 1982.
In 2004, Nadel began soliciting investors for his Scoop Real Estate
Limited Partnership, which planned to buy income-producing residential
and commercial properties. A “private placement memorandum” given to
prospective investors included biographical data about Nadel, noting
that he had a law degree from New York University.
The memorandum says nothing about Nadel’s disbarment.
Private placements “are basically an attempt to avoid securities laws”
governing publicly traded companies, says Moody of Stetson Law School.
But they are still subject to federal antifraud rules that require
disclosure of any “material” fact that might affect a person’s
decision to invest.
Scoop’s private placement memorandum lists Holland & Knight, one of
Florida’s top law firms, as its general counsel. Whether the firm
could be held liable for Nadel’s failure to mention his disbarment 22
years before “is kind of hard to say,” especially if Nadel didn’t
volunteer the information and lawyers didn’t ask, Moody says.
“If they know something or learn something, they have to disclose it
as part of their ethics,” she says. “But if they didn’t know it, I
can’t believe it would have come up unless there was some reason to
look into it.”
A representative of Holland & Knight said, “We are reviewing our
records and have no comment at this time.”
Hugh Culverhouse Jr., an attorney who has spoken with several Scoop
Real Estate investors, says Nadel’s charitable activities apparently
kept people from looking too closely at his background.
“You’ve got to really do some bad things to be totally disbarred,”
Culverhouse says. “But nobody did any research.”
Susan Taylor Martin can be contacted at susan@sptimes.com.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/article969185.ece
Holland & Knight – Jonathan Brackett Crocker – Sanctions Order
In 1 on January 21, 2009 at 12:43 pm
SANCTIONS
Having found that Crocker violated the rules cited above, the court imposes the following sanctions: 1. Jonathan Brackett Crocker is formally sanctioned for professional misconduct on the record. If ever Crocker files any application for admission to any bar, when asked the question whether he has been sanctioned or disciplined for professional misconduct, the truthful answer to that question will be “yes.” Likewise, if ever Crocker files any application for any other benefit that asks the question whether he has been sanctioned or disciplined for professional misconduct, the truthful answer to that question will be “yes.” 2. Should Crocker at any time desire to be admitted to this bar, he is directed that such application shall be directed to the undersigned Judge rather than through the normal administrative process. 3. By April 9, 2009, Crocker is to take seventeen hours of continuing legal education in area of professionalism and ethics from any organization accepted by the Florida Supreme Court Bar. This is twelve hours above and beyond the continuing legal education 6 requirements for the Florida Bar. By that date, Crocker is to certify to this Court that he has completed those classes, identify the name of the courses, the date he completed them, and that they are in fact accepted by the Florida Bar. 4. The court finds that the Crocker’s biography on the Holland and Knight website is misleading. Crocker claims to be admitted to practice in this court without limitation. By October 19, 2008, Crocker is to have the website changed to reflect he is admitted only pro hac vice 5. Crocker is put on formal notice that if at any time in this court there is any further violation of the Professional Rules of Responsibility, the court shall proceed under Local Rule AT-2 to seek Mr. Crocker’s disbarment from the bar of district. 6. The court has considered lesser sanctions and concludes that the above sanctions are the minimum amount needed to dissuade misconduct of this magnitude. UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGESIGNED this day of
T. JOHN WARD
Do Model Web Faces Misrepresent Law Firms?
In 1 on January 21, 2009 at 12:33 pmBy Bud Newman
Daily Business Review
January 5, 2009
The images of several well-groomed, professional-looking people permeate the pages on the Web site of the Holland & Knight law firm. But would-be clients should not seek to speak with any of those people about their legal needs when contemplating whether to hire the Tampa, Fla.-based firm.
All of those good-looking folks shown on virtually all of the Web site's main pages — blacks and whites, males and females, younger people and gray-haired ones — are paid models. Not one is a lawyer with the firm.
The same goes for the home page of the Web site of Ruden McCloskey, a Fort Lauderdale-based firm with offices around the state. The trio of smiling, professional-looking people — a black male, a white male and a white female — also are paid models, not lawyers, a firm spokesman acknowledged.
Before a state-appointed receiver took down the Web site of the controversial debt settlement law firm of Hess Kennedy of Coral Springs, models appeared on its home page.
While not ambivalent about the topic, The Florida Bar has not raised any enforcement issues over the use of models on law firm Web sites. Over the years, The Bar has maintained a reputation of being one of the nation's toughest regulatory bodies on lawyer advertising.
But complaints about models on Web sites have been non-existent, said Kathy Bible, The Bar's advertising counsel in Tallahassee. "I've never had a complaint on this," she said. "I don't recall this ever coming up."
Speaking generally about the use of models instead of actual lawyers, Bible said, "I don't really see this as truly misleading or deceptive."
Joy Bruner, the assistant ethics counsel in Tallahassee, said the organization's advertising committee has not previously ruled on the question.
She said lawyers and law firms "are not required to file their Web sites for review" with the Bar even though Web site content still must comply with all Bar rules about advertising.
"The issue is whether they are misleading in the context in which it's being used," Bruner said when asked generally about the use of models. She would not comment about the use of models by any specific firm.
The Bar's rules of professional conduct dealing with communications about lawyer services contain a section dealing with advertising prohibitions. Rule 4-7.2 (c) says that lawyers "shall not make or permit to be made a false misleading or deceptive communication about the lawyer or the lawyer's services" and that a communication violates the rule if it is deceptive or "contains a material misrepresentation of fact or law."
The rules, under "prohibited visual and verbal portrayals and illustrations," say that lawyers shall not include in their ads "any visual or verbal descriptions, depictions, illustrations or portrayals of persons, things or events that are deceptive, misleading, manipulative or likely to confuse the viewer."
Not all law firms that use group pictures on their Web sites hire models. In fact, most do not, based on a check of about 20 large firms that maintain offices in South Florida. Some firms use no group pictures at all or only use individual photos of their partners and associates, which can be easily changed as people leave the firm or as new attorneys arrive.
Lytal Reiter Clark Fountain & Williams of West Palm Beach uses a group photo of actual firm lawyers and support staff in a photo on its Web site, under the subhead "attorneys and staff." Several dozen people are shown standing under the huge arch in front of the main Palm Beach County courthouse, and firm spokeswoman Michelle Bacon said "those are all our people" in the photo.
Why do some firms use paid models instead of real attorneys on their Web sites?
"Most firms these days purchase stock photos that represent the style of the firm and the diversity of the firm," Ruden McCloskey director of marketing Rob Heffron said.
"It's probably less expensive to purchase stock photos than to bring in a professional photographer," he said. He added that "it becomes very expensive and complicated and time consuming" to set up photos of the firm's real attorneys assembled around a conference table, pretending to be conducting business.
Heffron said he believes the photos on the firm's Web site accurately depict "the diversity of our law firm" even though the people shown are not lawyers.
Asked why the firm would choose to use models instead of actual lawyers on its Web site, Heffron said that question would have to be answered by a more senior firm official who was unavailable for comment.
Holland & Knight chief marketing officer Bruce Alltop also was unavailable for an interview on why the firm uses so many paid models on its Web site. However, in response to a question from the Daily Business Review, he issued a statement saying the practice is about to end.
"Holland & Knight is in the process of redesigning the firm's marketing materials," Alltop said in the statement. "The look and feel of our Web site will be compatible with the new marketing materials, which will not incorporate the use of models as a design element. When our existing Web site was redesigned in 2007, firm management decided to use models rather than our own lawyers so as not to divert our lawyers' time from serving our clients."
Holland & Knight spokeswoman Susan Bass added that the firm's new Web site — sans models — is expected to debut in the first quarter of this year.
The Miami firm of Stearns Weaver Miller Weissler Alhadeff & Sitterson uses a group picture of five of its actual attorneys on its Web site instead of models.
"We think that using real people makes the Web site a little bit warmer, more approachable and says something about who we are," the firm's marketing director, Krista Kellogg, said.
She said using actual lawyers is more expensive than using models because "it's always difficult to schedule attorneys for activities that are not billable" and it's time consuming to set up the photo shoot.
"In the end, we think it's worth it," she said.
Holland & Knight media group breaks away
In 1 on January 21, 2009 at 12:26 pmTampa Bay Business Journal – by Agustina Guerrero
Holland & Knight has lost five more lawyers, this time from its media practice group.
Gregg D. Thomas, the lawyer in charge of Holland & Knight's media law department in Tampa, and four of his colleagues are planning to start their own firm.
Thomas & LoCicero will specialize in media, intellectual property, entertainment and general civil litigation.
The announcement came just one week after 12 lawyers from Holland & Knight's St. Petersburg office announced they were joining Trenam Kemker.
Thomas could not confirm which clients will follow him to Thomas & LoCicero. The Bar prohibits him from talking to his clients until reaching an agreement with H&K, he said.
But throughout their careers with Holland & Knight, Thomas and his colleagues have represented media giants like Media General Inc. (NYSE:MEG), New York Times Co. (NYSE:NYT), Gannett Co. Inc. (NYSE: GCI), Tribune Co. (NYSE:TRB), and Knight-Ridder Inc. (NYSE:KRI).
Attorneys joining Thomas as partners in his new firm include Carol J. LoCicero, James J. McGuire, Susan Bunch and James B. Lake.
The decision to leave Holland & Knight was due in part to conflicts of interest, said Thomas.
"Big law firms have conflicts. Occasionally it was hard for us to represent media clients because of conflicts. We want to practice in a smaller environment," he said. "In many ways we are very sad to leave Holland & Knight. We've grown up with Holland & Knight. I've been here for 26 years. But we felt this was the right time to do it."
The decision of leaving Holland & Knight was made overnight, said LoCicero, who spent almost 20 years with the firm.
"I can't even begin to tell you how something like this evolves. It's like a little seed and it takes root and one day you do it," she said. "I just think it's a good opportunity for us. We are a group of people that have worked together for a long time. Emotionally it's always hard to make a change from a place you've loved for a long time. It's a big deal to me. It's like any big change in your life, I've got lots of friendships and professional relationships at the firm and I hope those will continue but we will no longer be in the same office."
Just as LoCicero, James J. McGuire did not rush into the departure, either.
"You make decisions largely giving yourself some time to think about it," he said.
The five partners had to consider the financial intricacies of starting a new business before making the big jump, he said.
McGuire was an attorney with Holland & Knight for almost seven years. During those years he encountered conflicts of interest while working for media companies.
Practicing in a smaller environment will create a "better situation for our clients," he said, with fewer conflicts. "We do a lot of work for media clients. Sometimes those clients are trying to get access to public records. If somebody in the law firm works for counties or people we want to get records from, even if the conflict is waived, the process can be delayed," he said. Going to a smaller firm that only specializes in media and intellectual property will expedite that, he said.
McGuire defined the group of lawyers leaving Holland & Knight as a "pretty cohesive group, we work a lot together." But like any other firm starting out, he said, going solo is risky endeavor. "There is no guarantee of business coming with you."
From Holland & Knight colleagues, the group received support.
"We have a tremendous amount of respect for them but they have suggested that they want to start a smaller boutique practice. We are disappointed to see them go but we wish them the best of luck," said Brad Kimbro, executive partner of Holland & Knight's Tampa office.
Holland & Knight will use its national platform to keep serving clients in the media industry, he said. The media lawyers' move is unrelated to the one that took 12 lawyers from Holland & Knight to Trenam, Kemker last week, he said.
"In a large firm, there are going to be people that leave from time to time. This was our best year ever at the firm and we expect to refer clients back and forth with them in the future," said Kimbro. Despite the recent departures Holland and Knight is looking to grow in several areas, said Kimbro. "We are busy, we are growing," he said.
The additions would come in the corporate, mergers and acquisitions, securities, financial services, and litigation practices.
Thomas' and his colleagues' departure is expected to be effective Feb. 15, he said. The new firm's offices will be located on the Riverside Building, 100 W. Kennedy Blvd., in Tampa.
Holland & Knight partners depart, form own firm
In 1 on January 21, 2009 at 12:23 pmSix partners from the Miami office of Holland & Knight, P.A. have left to form Avila Rodriguez Hernandez Mena & Ferri LLP.
The attorneys left in hopes of establishing a "premier boutique firm for domestic and international business and litigation, but with the flexibility and personal service of a boutique organization," according to the firm's release.
The new firm is to be located at 2525 Ponce de Leon Blvd., Penthouse 1225, in Coral Gables.
"This is a dream come true for us," said Alcides Avila, who led Holland & Knight's banking and finance group. "We are a group of entrepreneurs with a common dream of establishing a premier boutique law firm. While we were all very content and grateful to be at Holland & Knight, we've always had a desire to be in a boutique setting."
Wilfredo Rodriguez, Eugenio Hernandez, Patricia Hernandez, Daniel Mena and Marco Ferri join Avila at the new firm.
The six partners come from various practice backgrounds, including real estate, international arbitration, cross-border mergers and acquisitions, and banking litigation. Many have known each other for almost 20 years.
"As a whole, we believe that our value proposition to the client is compelling," Avila said. "Our level of expertise in the practice areas in which we are engaged is unprecedented. We are now simply offering that expertise in another setting."
Holland & Knight Loses 10 in L.A. to Luce Forward
In 1 on January 21, 2009 at 12:07 pmKellie Schmitt
The Recorder
Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps has snagged 10 attorneys from Holland & Knight's Los Angeles office, including its executive partner, Bruce Ross, and four other trust and estate partners.
"It ended up being an opportunity too good not to pursue," Ross said. Luce Forward is "headquartered in California and dedicated to improving the scope and reach of their practice in Los Angeles."
The defections come just three months after the Florida-based firm announced the closure of nine offices nationwide and layoffs for 41 attorneys and 45 staff.
Ross acknowledged he had "some concerns" about the firm's decision to withdraw from Seattle and Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., a community to the north of San Diego.
But Jerome Levine, a Holland & Knight partner tapped Friday to take over the management of the L.A. office, dismissed the closures, saying they were an indicator of the firm's health.
"Everyone in our field was wondering what took us so long to strengthen our firm by reducing some of the offices we had," Levine said. "There is extremely strong support for West Coast offices by our firm."
According to a survey published in The American Lawyer, Holland & Knight was 10th on the "Top Losers" chart of lateral partners in 2005, with the 1,250-lawyer firm seeing 25 departures and 16 arrivals.
"In large firms, it's not unusual for lawyers to join or leave," Levine said.
He said the departures, which are effective March 1, will not affect the firm's private wealth services practice, and that there are plans to continue to grow the Los Angeles office.
The additions are part of Luce Forward's plans to "significantly expand" its Los Angeles office, and fits with the firm's larger goal of creating full-service offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco. The additions bring the L.A. office to more than 20 lawyers, still well short of managing partner Robert Bell's ideal target of 50.
"We're really focused on California," Bell said. "We're looking for strong growth in the state, and for that, you need a strong presence in Los Angeles and San Francisco."
Headcount at Luce was essentially flat in 2005. The 165-lawyer firm reported an 8 percent increase in revenue, and said average compensation for all partners was $470,000.
Luce Forward had been actively seeking groups of lawyers or small firms to beef up its Los Angeles presence, Bell said. He met Ross more than a year ago when Ross was mediating a case in San Diego.
"I think everyone was eager on both sides — it made a lot of sense to us all," Bell said.
Joining Ross at Luce Forward will be partners John Rogers Jr., Geraldine Wyle, Nelson Handy and Sean Higgins; senior counsel Jeryll Cohen, Shelley Meacham and Linda Rottman; and associates Vivian Lee and Jonathan Park.
Wyle said it was an easy decision to follow Ross because he "inspires loyalty."
Wyle said she was also impressed by the visible presence of female leaders at Luce Forward: "They are aware of women's role in the legal system. It's exciting for me to be with a group that is on the cutting edge."
Sidelined senior official leaves H&K
In 1 on January 21, 2009 at 10:59 amA top-ranking Holland & Knight official who was demoted this year to make room for accused sexual harasser Douglas A. Wright has resigned.
Chief financial officer Herb Albritton, who joined the giant law firm in 1981, is leaving the Tampa Bay area to become chief operating officer of a Charleston, S.C., law firm.
Albritton, 52, was named Holland's executive director in 1990. He remained its No. 1 nonlawyer until March, when managing partner Howell Melton Jr. fired the firm's previous CFO, demoted Albritton to that position and named Tampa lawyer Wright to the new role of chief operating partner. The reshuffling put Wright atop several business operations Albritton had managed, including human resources, and made him Albritton's boss
Wright's tenure as COP was short-lived. After local newspapers reported in late March that he had been reprimanded in 2004 for harassing young female colleagues, Wright quickly resigned the post. He remains a partner in the Tampa office.
But Albritton, who works out of Holland's administrative offices in Lakeland, was not reinstated to his prior role. His departure this month will leave Holland without a CFO, an executive director or a chief operating partner.
"(Managing partner Melton) has every right to appoint anyone he wants to serve the firm," Albritton said in an e-mail. "I am certain that he makes those decisions with the best interest of the firm in mind."
Albritton was raised in Bartow and received his bachelor's and MBA degrees at the University of South Florida and Florida Southern, respectively. He said his entire family lives in central Florida.
"I still love (Holland) and wish it continued success," Albritton wrote. "(But) this opportunity was simply too good to pass up."
Melton declined to comment on Albritton's resignation Tuesday. John Phillips, a former executive partner at Holland's Tampa office who left this spring to join a rival firm, praised Albritton.
"Herb always did a very good job," he said. "What made him decide to leave at this time, and why, I really don't know."
By SCOTT BARANCIK
Source
Edward Ryan – Director of Holland & Knight Charitable Foundation, Inc.
In 1 on January 21, 2009 at 1:17 amOFFICERS AND DIRECTORS OF THE BOARD OF
HOLLAND & KNIGHT CHARITABLE FOUNDATION, INC.
…
HOLLAND & KNIGHT CHARITABLE FOUNDATION, INC.
…
Edward F. Ryan Title: Director
Holland & Knight LLP Daytime Phone: 312-263-3600
131 S. Dearborn Street
Chicago, IL 60603
Holland & Knight LLP Daytime Phone: 312-263-3600
131 S. Dearborn Street
Chicago, IL 60603
Edward Ryan has been charged by the ARDC on November 14, 2008 for falsifying client billings.
Holland & Knight LLP states he is no longer associated with the firm yet Edward Ryan is listed as a director of Holland & Knight Charitable Foundation on January 20, 2009: http://foundation.hklaw.com/AboutUs/Directors.asp
Monroe Kiar legal opinion on Holland & Knight waivers of conflict.
In 1 on January 21, 2009 at 12:54 amMonroe D. Kiar legal opinion recommending not signing or consenting to any waivers of conflict requested by Holland & Knight as a matter of policy.
Holland & Knight – One-stop Law Firm Opens Door to Ethical Concerns
In 1 on January 21, 2009 at 12:47 amCompetition Sprouts One-Stop Law Firms; Diversification Means Higher Profits But Opens Door to Ethical Concerns
By CRYSTAL NIX HINES – Link
Need a private investigator? Try H & K Investigative Solutions. Want advice on how to win government subsidies for environmentally sound real estate projects? Turn to H & K Conservation Solutions. How about money management advice, a real estate feasibility study, evaluation of a merger or acquisition or documents translated into virtually any language in the world? H & K has business units to meet the need.
All of these enterprises, and several others, are not the work of some crazy-quilt conglomerate, but of a single law firm, Holland & Knight, based in Tampa, Fla.
''It was evident in the legal community four or five years ago that a multidisciplinary approach would be welcome by clients and was a cutting-edge issue,'' said Bill McBride, a managing partner at Holland & Knight. ''That's turned out to be correct.''
As competition among law firms has increased, associate salaries have skyrocketed and demand for ''one stop'' shopping has grown, a small but growing number of law firms are turning to nonlegal businesses as a way not only to serve their clients but also to lift the bottom line.
These businesses are the latest evolution in a legal market that has transformed law firms from small collections of general practitioners to highly specialized and global megafirms scrambling to generate more and more sources of wealth.
Firms engaged in such diversification have moved beyond the traditional fare of ''government relations,'' or lobbying, to a much broader array of businesses that were once entirely independent — everything from environmental consulting to human resources outsourcing, real estate title services to money management.
But some experts worry that the profession has not fully faced up to the potential consequences of this trend.
Advocates of this approach say that they can surmount any potential ethical concerns by ensuring that consultants and lawyers work on the same side of a transaction, and by carefully complying with rules that govern conflicts of interest and ethics.
But others are unconvinced. Lawrence J. Fox, a partner at the Philadelphia-based law firm Drinker Biddle & Reath, who was active in the decision by American Bar Association to deny law firms the ability to share legal fees with nonlawyers in so-called multidisciplinary practices, said that ancillary businesses posed a number of concerns.
If law firms provide nonlegal services, it weakens the assertion that nonlawyers should not provide legal services, he said, ''which would be a very, very bad thing.''
There is a further risk, he added, that clients — confused by the dual provision of services — will not realize that the attorney-client privilege and conflict-of-interest rules applicable to legal work do not apply to the business ventures.
Monroe H. Freedman, who teaches legal ethics at the Hofstra University School of Law in Hempstead, N.Y., agrees that problems may arise as the practice spreads.
''There is always the risk,'' Mr. Freedman said, ''that a court would find that a particular aspect of the work being done is not really legal work or not exclusively or sufficiently legal work, or that because nonlawyers are involved, the confidentiality privilege is lost.''
Mr. Fox points out that there is also the risk that lawyers will steer clients to their own business concerns, rather than fulfilling their obligation to lay out a range of options objectively. And economic incentives create the fear that firms with ancillary businesses may be less inclined to discourage clients from pursuing particular business transactions if the firm's own units stand to benefit from a deal.
''The hallmark of a lawyer is to tell a client no,'' Mr. Fox said. ''But the greater the number of sources of income, the greater the opportunity that services will not be delivered in the right way.''
Law firms are prohibited from having partnerships with nonlawyers to provide legal services. They can, however, pay salaried employees like secretaries, investigators, paralegals and others who assist in the provision of legal services.
Law firms are also not barred from running wholly separate nonlegal businesses, even if they are related to the practice of law and even if the profits flow back to the law firms, as long as they comply with applicable rules of professional conduct requiring the preservation of client confidentiality, loyalty and avoidance of client confusion.
Jay S. Zimmerman, managing partner of the Boston-based Bingham Dana, which has started three ancillary businesses in the last three years, acknowledged that some of his partners initially had concerns about forming the nonlegal ventures. It took more than two years, he said, to make everyone feel comfortable with starting a money management concern in a joint venture with Legg Mason, the Baltimore financial services company.
''People had a knee-jerk reaction that a law firm and an investment group can't have a joint venture,'' Mr. Zimmerman said. ''But we worked through the disciplinary rules and the law with respect to fiduciary responsibilities, and created a model that has worked.''
Bingham Dana also has a consulting firm that develops state-by-state strategies for companies in highly regulated industries, and a strategic advising company that helps small to midsize companies with mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, business revamping and access to venture capital.
Mr. Zimmerman said the impetus for the ventures was the success of the Big Five accounting firms, which had diversified from the single service of auditing into highly profitable, multifaceted business services conglomerates.
The accounting firms ''took their two main assets — reputation and client base — and leveraged them by looking at the needs and effectively cross-selling, creating a whole line of businesses which became very lucrative,'' Mr. Zimmerman said. Law firms, he added, ''have the same assets,'' and can likewise provide ''a combined, integrated approach.''
Yet, while the accounting firms have amassed huge profits through diversification, their model is not without problems. In recent years, most of the major accounting firms, starting with Arthur Andersen, have moved to split off their consulting businesses, because of disputes over allocating profits and providing client services.
And like critics of ancillary law firm businesses, the Securities and Exchange Commission has expressed concern that auditors in a diversified company might not be truly independent from big clients that paid them more in consulting fees than they paid for their corporate auditing. Last year, the S.E.C. reached an agreement with four leading accounting firms on a new rule that would substantially reduce the amount of consulting work that the firms could do for their auditing clients.
But leaders at a number of law firms remain undaunted. In the last 18 months in particular, the interest of major law firms in ancillary businesses has boomed, according to Joel F. Henning, senior vice president and general counsel of Hildebrandt International, a consulting firm that is advising about two dozen law firms engaged in nonlegal operations.
To run their operations, law firms have hired a wide range of professionals. H & K Conservation Solutions, for instance, is headed by the former president of the Florida Audubon Society, William Clay Henderson. Don R. Zell, a former federal agent with the Justice Department's strike force and the Drug Enforcement Agency, leads the firm's investigative unit, which charges clients $90 to $170 an hour to do such things as look into suspected intellectual property infringements, examine sexual harassment claims, evaluate prospective merger partners and run undercover operations.
For many firms, existing clients are a fertile source of business for the nonlegal operations. John L. Harrington, chief executive of the Boston Red Sox, is one of them. The baseball team has used Bingham Dana lawyers for over 70 years, he said, so when he decided to sell the Red Sox, he turned to the firm's newly created strategic advice unit to handle the deal.
Another Bingham Dana client, Charles and Carolyn McCannon, signed up with the firm's money management concern after they sold their real estate investment company several years ago.
''We always kept our money under the pillow,'' Mr. McCannon joked recently, ''so it was quite a leap of faith to put it in the hands of somebody else. But we felt an immediate connection'' with the president of Bingham Legg Advisers.
Exactly how profitable additional business operations will be is unclear. ''The economic success is all over the lot,'' Mr. Henning of Hildebrandt International said.
Arnold & Porter, the Washington-based law firm, created a public affairs consulting unit, APCO Worldwide, in 1984 but spun it off in the early 1990's. James W. Jones, a former managing partner of Arnold & Porter who helped start APCO, said that while the unit enhanced the firm's services to its clients, ''it is fair to say the law firm didn't make an awful lot of money from APCO.''
But leaders at other firms maintain that profits will grow substantially over time, because of client demand and the ability to take percentages of deals and to use fixed fees, which they expect may be more profitable than the traditional practice of billing by the hour.
Thomas H. Dyer, chief executive of Holland & Knight Consulting, which oversees the firm's nine wholly owned subsidiaries, said that since its formation two years ago, ''we doubled our revenue over our first year, turned a profit on our operations, and are expecting to double our revenue again this year.''
Duane Morris, which is based in Philadelphia, has seven business concerns, which generated $7 million in revenue last year and a net profit of about $2.5 million, according to a managing partner, Sheldon M. Bonovitz. Out of a total revenue for the law firm of $160 million, that figure is small, he said, but ''in three to five years, if we can have $20 million in revenue, and $8 million in law firm income, at some point it gets to be significant.''
Perhaps one of the most successful is FirmLogic, a company started by Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice 15 years ago in Winston-Salem, N.C., to help law firms and corporations with document coding and review. It has since expanded to medical records and support for class-action settlements. Last year, it generated $23 million of the firm's $129 million, according to Hassel L. Parker, its chief executive, and will be ''north of $30 million this year.''
But creating the right business is difficult, firm leaders and industry experts say, particularly for lawyers not used to running a business.
''There are an awful lot of firms where I advise against it,'' Mr. Henning said. ''I can see the handwriting on the wall, the disaster, the culture and arrogance on the part of the lawyers, and the inability to understand management, what it means to invest in businesses, and take a long-term strategic view.''
And for some blue-chip law firms, ancillary businesses simply do not make sense.
''You are not going to see the Cravaths and Wachtels of the world going into ancillary businesses,'' Mr. Henning said. ''They have a good thing going with a huge potential client base of absolutely the most important bet-the-company transactions and cases.''
But, he added, there are ''only a handful of Wachtels and Cravaths out there.''
Holland & Knight has taken over all my corporations and assets.
In 1 on January 21, 2009 at 12:17 amMy name is Pat Kirkland, I am a 65 year old developer. I build apartments for senior citizens in Florida, Georgia and Texas. On February 16, 2006 I was arrested by Florida State law officials for selling Securities without a licence and at the same time served with a civil ,SEC law Suit in Federal Court saying that somehow the Senior Housing I was building and selling had turned into a Security (Like Stocks and Bonds). This of course, was all a sham. All my assets have been frozen and the attorney firm of Holland & Knight has taken over all my corporations and assets. The SEC and Federal Judge Antoon have not even allowed me any of my own money to hire an attorney for my own defense. My wife and I are defending a SEC ( the Government ) with no attorney (pro se). My Family are now without any money for food, gas or money to live on or hire an attorney to help in our defense. If you will HELP it would be deeply appreciated and an answer to prayers. If you would send $20.00, $50.00 or $100.00 it would Greatly Help our Family and our two dogs, Skipper and Sailor. My name is: Pat Kirkland, 6131 Louise Cove Drive, Windermere, Florida 34786 or e-mail me and I will give you wiring instructions or any other information you would like to know. God Bless You, Pat Kirkland
Crist Announces Arrests in Multi-Million Dollar Securities Fraud Case
March 2, 2008 – 2:02 am
Crist Announces Arrests in Multi-Million Dollar Securities Fraud Case
TALLAHASSEE – Attorney General Charlie Crist today announced the arrest of two Central Floridians for their involvement in a scheme that defrauded elderly investors out of more than $9.1 million. Patrick Kirkland and Laura Wade were arrested last night on charges of various securities fraud, organized fraud, grand theft and unlawful sale of unregistered securities charges. The case will be prosecuted by the Attorney General’s Office of Statewide Prosecution.
Authorities with the Florida Office of Financial Regulation began investigating Kirkland’s Orlando-based company, Tropical Village, Inc., in May 2004 regarding the sale of unregistered securities. Tropical Village is a development company that also does business under the names Clarity Development Corp. and Senior Adult Living Corp. Kirkland, 63, and Wade, 35, targeted more than 80 wealthy elderly investors, convincing them to invest their money in multiple triplex apartments in several Florida cities, as well as Houston, Texas and Marietta, Georgia. Although investors allegedly were promised significant returns, more than $8 million of their money was diverted to Kirkland’s personal use.
“These consumers thought they were going to receive huge returns on what appeared to be a legitimate investment,” said Crist. “Little did they know they were being scammed out of millions of dollars. This operation absolutely needed to be shut down so no more innocent investors would be turned into suffering victims.”
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission today filed an emergency civil action to freeze the assets of the company in order to preserve those assets for eventual restitution to investors.
Kirkland and Wade face multiple counts of various securities fraud, organized fraud, grand theft and unlawful sale of unregistered securities charges. If convicted of all charges, each defendant faces a possible sentence of up to 130 years in prison.
A copy of the arrest affidavit is available at: http://myfloridalegal.com/webfiles.nsf/WF/MRAY-6M3SQU/$file/Tropical+Affidavit.pdf#
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4 Responses to “Crist Announces Arrests in Multi-Million Dollar Securities Fraud Case”
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My name is Pat Kirkland, I am a 65 year old developer. I build apartments for senior citizens in Florida, Georgia and Texas. On February 16, 2006 I was arrested by Florida State law officials for selling Securities without a licence and at the same time served with a civil ,SEC law Suit in Federal Court saying that somehow the Senior Housing I was building and selling had turned into a Security (Like Stocks and Bonds). This of course, was all a sham. All my assets have been frozen and the attorney firm of Holland & Knight has taken over all my corporations and assets. The SEC and Federal Judge Antoon have not even allowed me any of my own money to hire an attorney for my own defense. My wife and I are defending a SEC ( the Government ) with no attorney (pro se). My Family are now without any money for food, gas or money to live on or hire an attorney to help in our defense. If you will HELP it would be deeply appreciated and an answer to prayers. If you would send $20.00, $50.00 or $100.00 it would Greatly Help our Family and our two dogs, Skipper and Sailor. My name is: Pat Kirkland, 6131 Louise Cove Drive, Windermere, Florida 34786 or e-mail me and I will give you wiring instructions or any other information you would like to know. God Bless You, Pat Kirkland
By Pat Kirkland on Mar 2, 2008
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Defendants/Respondents: Tropical Village, Inc., a Florida corporation; Clarity Development Corporation, a Florida corporation; Senior Adult Living, Inc., a Florida corporation; Patrick B. Kirkland; Ana Rodriguez; Laura M. Wade; Van Jacobs; and DOES 1-20, inclusive.
http://www.corp.ca.gov/ENF/pdf/t/tropical_tro.pdf
By admin on Mar 2, 2008
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Kirkland, et al., Civil Action No. 06-CV-183-ORL-28 KRS Antoon (M.D. Fla.)
Final Judgment Entered Against Corporate Defendants, Dismissing Disgorgement, Prejudgment Interest and Civil Penalties and Dismissing Disgorgement and Prejudgment Interest Against All Relief Defendants
The Securities and Exchange Commission announced that on January 17, 2008, the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida entered a Final Judgment of Permanent Injunction against Defendants Tropical Village, Inc., Clarity Development Corporation and Senior Adult Living Corporation. Through its Court-appointed Receiver, Tropical, Clarity and Senior Adult consented to the entry of an injunction against future violations of Sections 5(a), 5(c) and 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 thereunder. The Final Judgment also provides for the dismissal of disgorgement, prejudgment interest and civil penalties against Defendants Tropical, Clarity and Senior Adult and dismissal of disgorgement and prejudgment interest against Relief Defendants Sunset Bay Club, Inc., Summerhill Ventures, Inc., Pelican Bay Club, Inc. and Isleworth Adult Community, Inc. All of the corporate Defendants and Relief Defendants are in receivership.By admin on Mar 2, 2008
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Having followed this case since day one, I find it difficult to understand how a man still living in a multi-million dollar home in Isleworth, who had a private jet, luxury cars, and who left a trail of investors who have lost retirement and life savings can ask anyone for even 10 dollars. Being a senior myself, and having been scammed by a developer in a condo conversion, who by the way, also lives the high life from scammed money, I don’t think any sympathy will be going to you or my ten dollars. I also looked up your court records and found the criminal case in the Orange County Clerk of Court records under Patrick Kirkland. I found that you have asked the court for the tax payers to pay for your private attorney. It appears that you are trying to scam the Orange County residence into paying your legal bills while you are living in your mansion in IsleWorth. A google search also revealed a RICO case against you in Atlanta Georgia with a very large judgement against you by the court. Shame on you Mr. Kirkland, instead of taking ownership or feeling remorse for what I truly believe you have done, you are trying to play on our willingness to help a neighbor. This case needs to be done with by the Attorney Generals office, you are sitting pretty in your expensive home, that should have been sold,(like Mr. Pearlman’s) using the money for the upkeep that should go back to the investors.
By Linda June on May 14, 2008
Holland & Knight – Above the Law – A Legal Tabloid
In 1 on January 20, 2009 at 5:58 pmNationwide Layoff Watch: More South Florida Suffering
By David Lat
In another sign of the hard times facing the legal industry,
particularly in real-estate heavy South Florida, two local law firms
– Holland & Knight and Shutts & Bowen — have laid off non-lawyer
staffers.
On a day that could be dubbed Black Friday in South Florida legal
circles, Tampa-based Holland & Knight, one of Florida’s largest and
most venerable firms with 1,150 lawyers, laid off 70 staffers Friday,
including legal secretaries, IT and accounting staff. No lawyers were
laid off.
The layoffs of about four employees in each of Holland’s 17 offices
represented 5% of Holland’s non-lawyer workforce.
Holland & Knight spokeswoman Susan Bass told the Daily Business Review
that the firm “had some redundancies and inefficiencies.” Seventy
staffers is a whole lot of redundancies.
This isn’t the first time for Holland & Knight:
In 2002, the firm laid off 60 lawyers and more than 100 staff members,
or 5% of its attorneys and 10% of its staff. The layoffs came in the
wake of publication of an internal memo sent from a partner to the
firm’s then-managing partner criticizing the rapid expansion, saying
it was done at the expense of profitability. There was no sign of a
financial downturn brewing at a lavish cocktail party held by Holland
& Knight for its clients and reporters two weeks ago at Mar-a-Lago,
Donald Trump’s Palm Beach mansion.
www.abovethelaw.com/holland_knight/
Karasma Media on Holland & Knight’s Social Marketing
In 1 on January 16, 2009 at 6:02 pmTheres’s a shadowy figure making Holland & Knight’s online footprints. What’s worse, whoever this is, is controlling the direction the conversation is going and it’s not pretty.
Since the end of December, @hklaw
has been sending out on Twitter Tweets at the rate of 
approximately 20 per day. The tweets contain links that lead readers back to <a href="http://www.blogger.com/Firm,%20http://hklaw.posterous.com/“>Investigator – Law Firm, whose profile lists s ix other sites are lists, each describing it’s contents as “Information, Articles and Complaints involving Holland & Knight Attorneys.”
has been sending out on Twitter Tweets at the rate of 
approximately 20 per day. The tweets contain links that lead readers back to <a href="http://www.blogger.com/Firm,%20http://hklaw.posterous.com/“>Investigator – Law Firm, whose profile lists s ix other sites are lists, each describing it’s contents as “Information, Articles and Complaints involving Holland & Knight Attorneys.”
(Bear in mind that tweets are mini blog entries, and discoverable by search engines) The problem is, none of the blogs or the @hklaw Twitter page belong to the Holland & Knight law firm, who's URL is www.hklaw.com.
Twitter page belong to the Holland & Knight law firm, who's URL is www.hklaw.com.I got wind of this when I retweeted one of HK Law’s posts, giving accolades to the firm for being forthright in their communication. @carolynelefant responded with “Did H&K put that stuff out?” So, I reviewed the tweets on hklaw’s Twitter page, and saw that the links contained in them lead back to HKLaw Investigator.
responded with “Did H&K put that stuff out?” So, I reviewed the tweets on hklaw’s Twitter page, and saw that the links contained in them lead back to HKLaw Investigator.
HK Law Investigations currently has 7 SEO online platforms publishing negative content
Investigator – Law Firm
http://posterous.com/people/KDDLNOIwdb
HK Law blog on Blogger
http://hklawinvestigations.blogspot.com/
HKLaw Investigation
http://hklaw.tumblr.com/
HK LAW on Twitter
http://twitter.com/hklaw
HK Law Investigation
http://hklaw.livejournal.com/
Holland & Knight Investigation
http://hklaw.wordpress.com/
What’s so?
Holland & Knight’s official website www.hklaw.com, is beautifully designed with an abundance of viable information reflecting it’s commitments. Their corporate communications area has been diligently producing newsletters covering the span of the firm’s practices. They also send out press releases at the rate of approximately 2 per month.
Journalists are picking up on HKLaw Investigation’s information too, and every article that gets published on the internet containing anything negative about Holland and Knight is being republished on these sites. This is a vicious circle.
What’s not happening?
Holland & Knight is not generating and publishing their own positive, web friendly, interactive information themselves. They don’t have a blog, they don’t have a Twitter presence, and they’re not monitoring their online conversation and interacting accordingly.
The newsletters and articles they are publish are not internet friendly, interactive, or detectable by search engines. Therefore, the communication coming from Holland & Knight is doing nothing to combat the negative coverage that HKLaw Investigations is distributing.
I sent an e-mail to their media relations department to ensure they are aware of what was going on. If they were, there should be something/anything, that interacted with and acknowledged HKLaw Investigation’s commentary, or at the very least – their existence.
How can legal marketers do?
It will be very interesting to see what Holland & Knight does to rectify this situation. This scenario could have been avoided if Holland & Knight’s marketing and media relations areas were watching their news with some simple tools. Or ,at the very least quieted it within the first few blog posts and Tweets sent out.
. Or ,at the very least quieted it within the first few blog posts and Tweets sent out. Ford’s head of social media, Scott Monty, was able to avoid a public relations crisis by doing exactly that.
Legal marketers, if you are not at the forefront of your online conversation someone else is going to be. I can not stress this enough. Obviously, now is not the time to be cutting back on your firm’s social media budget and be caught with your guard down. Law firms, if you’ve been skeptically sitting back on your heels waiting for evidence to prove social media’s viability for the legal industry, the jury’s verdict has just come in.
Posted by Kara Smith – Karasma Media at 10:03 AM
Kara Smith, Principal & Founder
Holland & Knight has taken over all my corporations and assets.
In 1 on January 16, 2009 at 5:41 pmMy name is Pat Kirkland, I am a 65 year old developer. I build apartments for senior citizens in Florida, Georgia and Texas. On February 16, 2006 I was arrested by Florida State law officials for selling Securities without a licence and at the same time served with a civil ,SEC law Suit in Federal Court saying that somehow the Senior Housing I was building and selling had turned into a Security (Like Stocks and Bonds). This of course, was all a sham. All my assets have been frozen and the attorney firm of Holland & Knight has taken over all my corporations and assets. The SEC and Federal Judge Antoon have not even allowed me any of my own money to hire an attorney for my own defense. My wife and I are defending a SEC ( the Government ) with no attorney (pro se). My Family are now without any money for food, gas or money to live on or hire an attorney to help in our defense. If you will HELP it would be deeply appreciated and an answer to prayers. If you would send $20.00, $50.00 or $100.00 it would Greatly Help our Family and our two dogs, Skipper and Sailor. My name is: Pat Kirkland, 6131 Louise Cove Drive, Windermere, Florida 34786 or e-mail me and I will give you wiring instructions or any other information you would like to know. God Bless You, Pat Kirkland
Holland & Knight reducing staff
In 1 on January 16, 2009 at 1:48 pmHolland & Knight LLP, Central Florida's sixth-largest law firm, is cutting 5 percent of its administrative and other non-attorney staff nationwide.
Roughly 70 employees will be laid off in what firm executives describe as a strategic business decision to bring staffing levels in line with industry standards.
The cuts are not related to the economy or a reflection of trouble at the firm, says Steven Sonberg, the managing partner of Holland & Knight.
Sonberg, who is based in Miami, took over the managing partner position about a month ago and began evaluating the firm's business operations, including its staffing level. He decided the cutbacks were necessary to align Holland & Knight with "best business practices."
"The real estate market has nothing to do with the layoffs," Sonberg says. "Our lawyers are busy, and we're hiring."
In 2006, the firm closed four offices around the country. It now has 17 in the United States, including one in Orlando.
Holland & Knight's gross revenue of $612.5 million in 2007 was a decrease of 0.2 percent from the previous year. The firm's rank among the nation's top 100 law firms dropped from 32nd in 2006 to 41st, according to The American Lawyer magazine.
Orlando Business Journal – by Jane Meinhardt Business Journal Staff Writer
Layoffs at Florida’s Holland & Knight
In 1 on January 16, 2009 at 1:44 pmHolland & Knight, Florida's largest homegrown law firm, is laying off about 60 of its 1,275 lawyers and about 170 other staffers in a move to shore up its finances.
Managing partner Robert R. Feagin III said that the layoffs, which were finalized Tuesday, affected partners, associates and staffers at all levels and in virtually every department. They will not require closing any of the firm's 32 offices across the country and abroad, he said, and most of the jobs cut are outside of Florida.
The firm's vaunted pro bono work will not be significantly affected by the job cuts, he said, nor were the firm's growth plans set aside. "It has not changed in any way our strategy or vision of being a national firm and, indeed, an international firm," he said.
Holland & Knight has been struggling for several months to shore up its finances in the face of growing internal dissent.
The firm, which expanded exponentially during the past 10 years, has been feeling growing pains, as the Daily Business Review reported in March.
Holland & Knight recently froze associate pay while undertaking a review of its entire compensation program. Insiders at the firm speculated that Holland & Knight would need to lay off about 200 lawyers and institute dramatic management changes to avoid desertion by many productive partners seeking higher pay elsewhere.
Holland & Knight's compensation per equity partner has been among the lowest in its peer group for several years.
In a January memo obtained by the Review, one partner warned Feagin that unless the firm took dramatic action quickly, it would see an exodus of partners. According to the Am Law 100 rankings for fiscal year 2000, Holland's profits per equity partner were $395,000 per year, compared with Greenberg Traurig's profits of $635,000 per partner.
One former partner, who asked not to be identified, noted Tuesday that laying off partners would create a substantial short-term expense.
That's because many partners have built up "Section C" retirement accounts of as much as $300,000, amounts that must be paid out immediately if the partner is let go. Departing partners also would have to be paid their share of equity in the firm, he said.
Feagin said that such matters were taken into account in the firm's decision process, but he declined to say how much such short-term costs would be. The firm will not engage in short-term borrowing to cover those costs, he said. He declined to say how much he expected the layoffs to save the company.
The cutbacks were made, he said, as a result of a self-evaluation process that all firms go through.
"You take a look and see what changes you need to make in order to be more effectively and efficiently organized to serve the market," Feagin said. "That's what we did following a decade of rapid growth that pushed us up near the top of law firms in the United States. After that time period, it was certainly appropriate, in the face of a declining economy and the events of Sept. 11, to take a look at how we could better organize ourselves, how we could better allocate resources."
The cuts represent less than 5 percent of the firm's lawyers, he said. The firm had not been trying to cut its size through attrition or layoff in months leading up to this week's dramatic action, he said.
Feagin, 63, who succeeded long-term managing partner Bill McBride last June, said the fact that he does not plan to run for re-election next year made it easier to orchestrate the staff cut without having to worry about internal political decisions.
McBride, who oversaw the firm's expansive growth, from about 275 lawyers to 1,275 in the space of a decade, stepped down to run for the Democratic nomination for governor.
Feagin said that he does not expect the cutbacks to hurt efforts by the firm to make lateral hires or to continue acquiring other firms. Any potential partners likely would look favorably on the firm's making what it believes to be prudent changes, the managing partner said.
But the former partner who asked not to be identified predicted that the firm might well evolve into a smaller, regional firm. "It's not a happy place," he said.
Laid-Off Holland & Knight Partner Sues Over Retirement Benefits
In 1 on January 16, 2009 at 1:34 pmA partner laid off by Holland & Knight in 2002 has filed a suit seeking retirement benefits of more than $5,000 a month.
R. Thomas Farrar claims in the suit that the law firm violated his partnership agreement and waived its right to arbitration, the Daily Business Review reports. He was one of 60 lawyers laid off in 2002.
Farrar claims he became eligible for retirement payments in 2007 when he turned 63, and he is now entitled to almost $96,000 in past benefits, according to the story. He also says he is due $5,054 per month in retirement benefits for the rest of his life. The suit was filed in Miami-Dade circuit court on Dec. 23.
According to Farrar, Holland & Knight violated the partnership agreement by failing to follow termination procedures, the story says. He also contends the firm waived its right to arbitration. The case had been in arbitration but the arbitrator withdrew in 2007 and no agreement was reached on a replacement.
Holland & Knight spokeswoman Karen McBride released a statement saying the law firm believes Farrar is not entitled to retirement benefits.
Posted Jan 7, 2009, 05:57 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss ABA Journal
Dismissed Partner sues Holland & Knight for Fraud and $200 Million in damages
In 1 on January 16, 2009 at 1:33 pmThe end of John K. Weir's career at Holland & Knight arrived on his Connecticut doorstep the Saturday morning of Nov. 16, 2002, in an express mail envelope.
The enclosed memo from firm General Counsel L. Kinder Cannon stated that Weir, a partner at Holland & Knight and its New York predecessor for over 20 years, was expelled from the firm retroactive to Nov. 4, 2002. He was instructed to never again return to the Manhattan office he had left the evening before at 6 p.m.
Weir says he left behind active client files as well as a desk, chairs and lamps given to him by his late mother. He says he later found out his office furniture was distributed among other lawyers at the firm.
"I wouldn't say it had great monetary value," he said in an interview, "but in terms of sentimental value to me, it was priceless."
* * *
Weir is suing the 1,300-lawyer firm in Manhattan federal court, with the alleged misappropriation forming the basis of civil claims under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act. First filed last November, the suit also claims age discrimination, breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty and fraud among its 11 counts. Weir, who is representing himself, is asking for more than $200 million in damages.
* * *
In his complaint, Weir states that several partners left Haight Gardner at that time and he himself secured an offer to join the partnership of a New Jersey firm. He said he finally decided to join the merger after he was promised he could remain an equity partner at Holland & Knight until at least age 62. He also claims he was told he would be given an opportunity to lead a national labor and employment practice.
The opportunity never materialized, the suit claims, and other opportunities to participate in firm management over the next two years were also denied Weir, despite direct requests to then-managing partner William McBride. Weir claims his exclusion from firm management negatively impacted his compensation during this time.
NEW YORK LAW JOURNAL – Anthony Lin Source
Another Fifteen Franchisees Sue Dream Dinners Attorneys
In 1 on January 16, 2009 at 12:13 pmSubmitted by Janet Sparks on Sun, 2008/12/21 – 21:08.
Dream Dinners workers assemble meals to go. Photo/Dream Dinners
SNOHOMISH, Wash. (Blue MauMau) – Fifteen Dream Dinners franchise owners are suing the attorneys of the meal-assembly franchisor. The suit claims that the attorneys failed to comply with franchise laws in preparing the Uniform Franchise Offering Circular (called Franchise Disclosure Documents after June 2008). It also stipulates that franchisor's lawyers helped oversee Dream Dinners’ misleading sales process with potential buyers. Lead attorney John R. Bender, Jr. of Ryan, Swanson & Cleveland, originally working with the prestigious law firm of Holland & Knight, is accused of breaching his duty to prospective franchise owners by not ensuring that the disclosure information he received from Dream Dinners matched other written sales representations. As a result, he and the two law firms are included in the franchisees’ original lawsuit against the company and its officers.
Howard Morrill
The amended complaint filed in Washington state court by Howard R. Morrill, Gordon, Thomas, Honeywell, Malanca, Peterson & Daheim, is the second case against Dream Dinners attorneys, the first filed by Howard Bundy last October on behalf of francisees Eric and Nicole Turner on similar allegations. Although litigation against franchisor attorneys is rare, the franchise community is closely watching another case reported last summer in Franchise Times. Peaberry Coffee franchise operators claim that they have lost millions of dollars after buying into a system that was not viable for franchising. They accuse the company and law firm Perkins Coie, which was acting as legal counsel and business consultant, of misrepresentations and omissions, in selling the concept.
In this latest filing against Dream Dinners, Morrill alleges that the legal counsel, knowing that the sale of franchises is highly regulated and that earnings claims information could only be given to prospects in compliance with Federal Trade Commission guidelines, ignored that Dream Dinners executives were operating unlawfully and giving earnings information, outside the UFOC and without disclaimers. Bender had even advised the company to include a negative disclosure in its FDD under Item 19-Earnings Claims section, stating that Dream Dinners did not furnish or authorize its salespersons to furnish such data.
Dream Dinners Item 19 states:
“Dream Dinners, Inc. does not furnish or authorize its salespersons to furnish any oral or written information concerning the actual or potential sales, costs, income or profits of a franchise. Actual results vary from unit to unit and Dream Dinners, Inc. cannot estimate the results of any particular franchise.”
The complaint states that Bender permitted Dream Dinners to conduct personal meetings with prospective buyers without providing the UFOC to them on the first visit, which is required by law. He also approved the procedures used by the company, requiring prospects to sign a binding contract before they received the disclosure documents. Bender is alleged to have allowed Dream Dinners to use financial statements giving illegal earnings claims, and then made an attempt to conceal it. He is also accused of being a member of the franchisor's de facto board of directors and maintained an office at their headquarters which he used two days a week. According to the complaint, Bender participated in business decisions, and decisions that were not subject to attorney-client privilege, which would have protected him from litigation.
In the original lawsuit, Dream Dinners founders Stephanie Allen and Tina Kuna were accused of making a series of misrepresentations and omissions when inducing investors to purchase their franchises. Not only were they making assurances that Dream Dinners had a proven system, but they were also supposedly showing prospects how much money owners could make in a franchise by showing them the revenues or profits of existing company-owned outlets. And Allen and Kuna were presenting the franchise disclosure documents in a misleading way, mainly because they were giving it out in pieces that were incomplete. Adverse information, such as unaudited financials, was withheld and later presented in a form not in compliance with FTC guideline.
PowerPoint Presentations
At the center of all litigation is the PowerPoint program given at Dream Dinners Discovery Days. Blue MauMau has since received these presentations giving the details of company claims. Kuna and Allen showed that franchisees would have a certain minimum number of customers per month, and what their gross revenues, cost of goods, operating expenses and net profits would be in various scenarios, giving different revenue levels. According to the complaint, prior to the presentation Allen smiled and said in substance, "I know the lawyers say I'm not supposed to show this to you, but if you write fast, you can get it all down."
The PowerPoint states that a full store would have 500 customers a month, and a second at least 150. It shows that the number of customers would generate $26,700 in monthly revenue and maximum gross revenues per week would be $21,360. Company-owned stores were shown to have operated profitably from January 2003 through April 2004, with certain stated numbers of customers, as set forth on Franchise Questions and Answers on Dream Dinners website. Kuna and Allen further represented that the franchise operated with what the perfect number is to make a profit. In addition to giving a monthly income and expense forecast in writing, they showed that the cost of food for the operation of a franchise would not exceed 45 percent of the franchisees' revenue, when in reality it exceeded that amount.
Claims of State Law Violations
Because the fifteen franchisees are from various states, the amended complaints assert violations of different states' franchise laws. It also names which law firms were involved in the sale of franchises, depending on when the individual franchisees made their purchases. Other claims against Dream Dinners include common law fraud, negligent misrepresentation, breach of contract, and negligence of defendant attorneys. Plaintiff franchisees are requesting a jury trial and seeking rescission of their franchise agreements. Those still in operation will continue to operate their meal-preparation centers and pay royalties. Franchise operators are asking for damages, fees, interest and other costs.
Holland & Knight Sued for Tortious Interference
In 1 on January 15, 2009 at 1:06 pmFormer director of Holland's litigation support group claims law firm caused Hughes Hubbard to rescind job offer
Nathan Carlile
Legal Times
January 4, 2008
It's not unusual for a firm to use tough tactics when litigating a case. But tough tactics cost Patricia Dillman her job.
After working under three bosses in less than a year, Dillman, the director of Holland & Knight's litigation support group, decided to look for a fresh start. She settled on not only a different firm, Hughes Hubbard & Reed, but also a new city. Dillman accepted a $200,000 annual salary to move from Washington to Hughes Hubbard's New York office.
In September 2007, Dillman put in her two weeks and prepared for the move. But then Hughes Hubbard informed her that because of a possible conflict, raised by Holland, there was no longer an offer. Dillman was out a job. She responded by suing her former firm for tortious interference in D.C. Superior Court in November, asking for $300,000 in damages.
"I've never seen anything like this," says Lynne Bernabei, Dillman's attorney and a name partner at Bernabei & Wachtel. "The bar has an ethical concern with lawyers being stopped from moving from one firm to another firm. But Dillman was a paralegal."
Holland, through attorney Robert Trout, a name partner at Trout Cacheris, has filed a motion to dismiss the case.
Hughes Hubbard's decision to rescind its offer stems from an oil spill off the northwest coast of Spain in 2002. The tanker Prestige sank, spilling most of its load of 77,000 metric tons of oil. It was Spain's worst environmental disaster, damaging the fishing and tourism industries. Hughes Hubbard is representing the American Bureau of Shipping in a lawsuit filed by the Spanish government in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Holland is representing the Spanish government.
Spain said the bureau, which checks the structural fitness of ships, was negligent in classifying the 26-year-old vessel as fit to haul fuel. Six months after the bureau gave clearance, the Prestige became caught in a storm and Spain refused to give the ship port. The Prestige eventually split in half and sank.
According to the complaint, as director of Holland's litigation support, Dillman billed less than 15 hours, mostly in early 2005, while finding e-discovery vendors to work on the case. Dillman says she did not have access to sensitive information. "Dillman did not participate in legal strategy, had no direct contact or communications with the client, and had no involvement with the preparation of court filings, case chronologies or deposition outlines," says the complaint.
Holland, as you might suspect, has a different take. "She worked on a matter in which both firms were engaged as counsel," says Holland partner Mark Baker, an employment lawyer who is handling the matter for the firm. "Because of knowledge she gained there was the possibility of a breach in client confidentiality. Holland & Knight had a duty to protect our client."
Hughes Hubbard declined to comment.
According to the complaint, Holland partner Brian Starer told Hughes Hubbard attorneys during a deposition in the Reino de Espana case that Holland might try to disqualify the firm from the lawsuit if Dillman began working there.
Bernabei argues that Holland took extreme steps that were unnecessary. "Usually you wall someone off from a case and make it clear that you can't talk about it," says Bernabei. "The New York rules are very protective of the ability of support staff to move."
In an ironic twist, U.S. District Judge Laura Swain on Wednesday dismissed the damage claims filed by Spain, ruling the government has to take action against the American Bureau of Shipping in its own courts.
OverLawyered: Billing Fraud at Holland & Knight
In 1 on January 15, 2009 at 12:51 pmBilling fraud at a major law firm?
by Walter Olson
No, that couldn’t possibly be true. There must be some error in the report. (WSJ law blog, Aug. 30; Nathan Koppel, “Lawyer’s Charge Opens Window On Bill Padding”, Wall Street Journal, Aug. 30 ($); Stephen Bainbridge, Aug. 30; Carolyn Elefant, Aug. 31; Matthew Farmer (ex-Holland & Knight) letter to judge in PDF format).
Holland & Knight pays $3 million to settle RTC malpractice lawsuit
In 1 on January 15, 2009 at 4:56 amHolland & Knight defiantly rejected an offer from the federal government to settle malpractice claims against the law firm stemming from its representation of now-defunct CenTrust Bank.
"We can find no merit whatsoever in the RTC's (Resolution Trust Corp.'s) position. Therefore we will not settle," managing partner Bill McBride said in November 1992.
But last month, Holland & Knight quietly agreed to pay the RTC $3-million to settle a lawsuit the agency filed a week after the law firm rejected the proposed settlement that McBride said was less than $3-million. He did not return a call for comment Tuesday.
The settlement agreed to on Feb. 3 was less than the $10-million sought by the RTC, the federal agency responsible for managing the savings and loan bailout and resolving hundreds of failed thrifts.
"We have to do whatever is in the best interest of the taxpayer," said RTC spokeswoman Felisa Neuringer, who confirmed the settlement with Holland & Knight. "Our preference would be to settle with all the professional liability cases. . . . but we're not going to sign an agreement unless we think it is cost-effective."
The RTC charged Holland & Knight with malpractice and breach of fiduciary duty for legal work the firm did in 1989. Holland & Knight was not CenTrust's principal attorney nor did it represent the bank's flamboyant chairman, David Paul.
Rather, the firm represented a special committee of CenTrust's board of directors, which wanted independent legal advice on the value of assets David Paul had used as part of his takeover of CenTrust in 1983.
After "lengthy and tortured analysis" that cost the bank $670,000, Holland & Knight concluded Paul had no liability under the agreement, even though the value of his assets had plummeted, according to the RTC. That opinion exposed CenTrust to a $10-million loss, the RTC charged.
In February 1990, Miami-based CenTrust failed and was taken over by the RTC. The failure cost taxpayers more than $1.7-billion, making it the fourth-largest thrift failure in U.S. history.
When the RTC filed its suit, it banned Holland & Knight from doing any new business with the agency and reassigned many of the 500 legal matters Holland & Knight was handling for the agency. The suit cost Holland & Knight one of its biggest clients. The RTC's Neuringer said that when a firm settles with the RTC it typically is reinstated, but she did not know specifically what Holland & Knight's status was.
In September, the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison agreed to pay $45-million to the RTC in connection with its representation of CenTrust.
Last week, the accounting firm Deloitte & Touche agreed to pay $312-million to the RTC and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to settle claims of accounting failures in its auditing of thrifts and their subsidiaries and holding companies. The settlement included a $250-million lawsuit filed last May against Deloitte for its failure to properly audit CenTrust.
Kim Norris St. Petersburg Times – St. Petersburg, Fla.: Link
Fired Partner John K. Weir sues Holland & Knight – $5 Million missing
In 1 on January 15, 2009 at 4:45 am
The end of John K. Weir’s career at Holland & Knight arrived on his Connecticut doorstep the Saturday morning of Nov. 16, 2002, in an express mail envelope.
The enclosed memo from firm General Counsel L. Kinder Cannon stated that Weir, a partner at Holland & Knight and its New York predecessor for more than 20 years, was expelled from the firm retroactive to Nov. 4, 2002. He was instructed to never again return to the Manhattan office he had left the evening before at 6 p.m. Weir says he left behind active client files as well as a desk, chairs and lamps given to him by his late mother. He says he later found out his office furniture was distributed among other lawyers at the firm. “I wouldn’t say it had great monetary value,” he said in an interview, “but in terms of sentimental value to me, it was priceless.” The exact reasons for Weir’s chilly send-off are now at the core of a particularly bitter dispute. According to Holland & Knight, Weir was expelled from the firm because he was “not a team player” and “not supportive of firm objectives.” But the 58-year-old former partner claims he was targeted because of his age and because he raised questions about the “disappearance” of $5 million the firm was awarded in 1999 for a class action representation. Weir is suing the 1,300-lawyer firm in Manhattan federal court, with the alleged misappropriation forming the basis of civil claims under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act. First filed last November, the suit also claims age discrimination, breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty and fraud among its 11 counts. Weir, who is representing himself, is asking for more than $200 million in damages. Karen Schoening, a spokeswoman for Tampa-based Holland & Knight, said Weir’s suit was “completely without merit” and expressed confidence that all of his claims would ultimately be dismissed. The firm, represented by Robert S. Whitman of Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe, has moved to dismiss nine of the 11 counts, including the RICO claim. The motion is pending before Southern District Judge Laura Taylor Swain. Weir joined maritime law firm Haight Gardner Poor & Havens in 1971, becoming a partner in 1980. In 1996, he said, Haight Gardner’s executive committee responded to financial difficulties by commencing merger talks with Holland & Knight, reaching an agreement the following year. In his complaint, Weir states that several partners left Haight Gardner at that time and he himself secured an offer to join the partnership of a New Jersey firm. He said he finally decided to join the merger after he was promised he could remain an equity partner at Holland & Knight until at least age 62. He also claims he was told he would be given an opportunity to lead a national labor and employment practice. The opportunity never materialized, the suit claims, and other opportunities to participate in firm management over the next two years were also denied Weir, despite direct requests to then-managing partner William McBride. Weir claims his exclusion from firm management negatively impacted his compensation during this time. Despite his disagreements with the firm, Weir claims he continued to work diligently, successfully concluding representation of a class of investors in an interpleader securities action. In December 1999, Southern District Judge Kimba Wood awarded Holland & Knight $6.4 million in attorney’s fees in that matter, U.S. Trust v. Alpert, 92-cv-09393. Weir claims McBride directed the award be wired to Holland & Knight accounts in Florida in January 2000. According to the complaint, McBride also asked the firm’s accountants at Ernst & Young to book $1.4 million of the fee award as 1999 income, without any allocation of the remaining $5 million. “As a result of this accounting chicanery, upon receipt of the interpleaded funds later in January 2000, [Holland & Knight] obtained full control over monies for which there existed no record on the books of account,” the complaint states. Weir claims the firm later decided to treat the $5 million premium as 1999 income, but did not reopen the books for 1999 to record the decision in its financial records. “This resulted in the effective ‘etherization’ of $5 million,” the ex-partner claims, “which monies, upon information and belief, were also not declared to the taxing authorities as Firm income in either 1999 or 2000.” According to Weir, the $5 million also should have been considered in determining his compensation for 2000, but his pay was instead cut by $60,000 that year. He claims he “vigorously objected to this adverse treatment” in a December 2000 memo to McBride and was subsequently summoned to a January 2001 meeting in Tampa. Weir claims he expected to be fired at the meeting for complaining about his reduced compensation and the firm’s treatment of the $5 million. But McBride did not fire him then. Instead, Weir claims McBride told him: “I can’t give you credit for the $5 million because I’ve already spent it.” McBride also allegedly raised for the first time “personality issues” between Weir and Florida partners George E. Schulz and William B. DeMeza. Weir claims the managing partner pledged he would intercede to “work things out” and promised to restore part of Weir’s cut compensation if he “behaved.” McBride subsequently resigned from the firm to run for governor of Florida. After losing to incumbent Jeb Bush, he joined Tampa’s Barnett Bolt Kirkwood Long & McBride. He did not return a call seeking comment. Holland & Knight’s Schoening said Weir’s allegations concerning the $5 million were “absurd” and said the firm accounted for all the money properly. She said Weir’s claims seemed to stem from a belief that the money was awarded to him personally and not the firm. “Mr. Weir and the other lawyers who handled the case were generously rewarded by the firm, above and beyond their other compensation, for their work on the case,” Schoening said. “Mr. Weir’s contentions that the firm handled the fee inappropriately are false, and arise simply from his disappointment that he was not paid more.” ‘Right-sizing’ According to the suit, Schulz came to New York on Sept. 5, 2001, and asked Weir to withdraw from the firm, citing both his earlier dispute with McBride and an ongoing “partner right-sizing program” in which similar requests had been made of other partners. Negotiations over the terms of Weir’s withdrawal continued for more than a year, during which time he claims he objected that the “right-sizing program” seemed aimed at terminating “older nonmanagement partners who were perceived to be unproductive financially, and that [Weir] was being included in the program because of his age (then 55), and because of his being disliked by certain members of management due to his refusal to allow the issue of the ‘etherized’ $5 million premium to be swept under the rug.” The firm’s board of directors voted to expel Weir at the beginning of November 2002 but offered to rescind the expulsion if he agreed to withdraw immediately. He refused by e-mail on Nov. 15 and got Cannon’s memo the next day. The firm does not deny that it has engaged in some “right-sizing” of its staff. “Like all successful businesses, Holland & Knight must continually adapt and adjust to changes in the global economy and business environment,” Schoening said. “In 2002, the firm took a variety of actions to achieve operating efficiencies and better position ourselves for strategic growth, including a modest reduction in the number of our lawyers and administrative staff.” But she added: “the firm emphatically denies that Mr. Weir’s age or any other inappropriate factor had anything to do with his departure from the firm. Holland & Knight does not have a mandatory retirement policy.” Policies attacked Such policies, official and unofficial, have become a major source of controversy across the profession. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is suing Chicago’s Sidley Austin over its alleged demotion of around 30 partners on the basis of age. Though partners have traditionally been considered employers exempt from anti-discrimination laws, the EEOC is claiming Sidley’s highly centralized management rendered partners employees. The EEOC declined to investigate Weir’s case though, and he is suing under state anti-discrimination laws. Another age-discrimination suit against the firm may be on the way though. Gary E. Phelan of employment law firm Outten & Golden said he is representing a former Holland & Knight partner who was ousted from the firm earlier this year and was exploring an age discrimination suit. He declined to name the partner. Schoening declined to comment on any recent expulsion but said the firm consolidated some offices and closed others in late 2005 “to better align the firm’s resources with our strategic plan.” Anthony Lin reports for the New York Law Journal, an affiliate of the Daily Business Review. Article |
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Holland & Knight Ex-Partner Accused of Bill Padding
In 1 on January 14, 2009 at 12:05 pmEdward Ryan, a former partner at Holland & Knight’s Chicago office, has been charged with inflating legal fees on a multimillion-dollar lawsuit.
The Illinois Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission accuses Ryan, 65, of billing fraud against client Pinnacle, a Midwestern home builder, in a copyright-infringement lawsuit. Ryan denies the allegations.
It is nearly impossible for a client to detect if a lawyer charges for too many hours. While bill padding is believed to be quite common, known cases of billing fraud don’t amount to more than a handful a year.
A junior lawyer at Holland & Knight, Matthew Farmer, reported his ethical concerns about Ryan’s billing practices to the disciplinary commission in 2005, after partners dismissed his concerns. Farmer left Holland & Knight in 2005.
Holland & Knight’s said in 2006 that the billing was “reasonable and appropriate.”
The firm and Ryan’s attorney declined to comment on Ryan’s departure in October. At one time, Ryan was executive partner of the Chicago office, which Holland & Knight opened in 2000 when it acquired 40-lawyer Burke Weaver & Prell.
Pinnacle, known as Town & Country Homes in Chicago, was founded by Ryan’s brother, William Ryan. In August 2002, Ryan oversaw a suit against Pinnacle in a Minneapolis federal court.
The disciplinary commission found discrepancies between the firm’s internal electronic billing records and the bills sent to Pinnacle. The commission said the total time billed to the client was inflated by nearly 2,000 hours. Other lawyers accurately recorded the time they spent on the case.
http://www.jdjournal.com/2008/12/24/holland-knight-ex-partner-accused-of-bill-padding/
Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission, bill padding, Burke Weaver & Prell, Edward Ryan, Holland & Knight, legal fees, Matthew Farmer, multi-million-dollar lawsuit, partners, Pinnacle
Holland & Knight Sued for Illegal Earnings Claims, Violation of Washington Franchise Act
In 1 on January 14, 2009 at 9:27 amDream Dinners, Attorneys Sued for Illegal Earnings Claims, Violation of Washington Franchise Act
Submitted by Janet Sparks on Thu, 2008/10/23 – 17:11.
SNOHOMISH, Wash. (Blue MauMau) – In building a meal preparation business on the notion of making life easier for families, founders Stephanie Allen and Tina Kuna proclaim on their Dream Dinners’ website, "To glorify God, we help people enjoy wholesome, nutritious, quality meals they prepare while having fun." But two franchisees in Springfield, Ohio have had anything but fun since buying their franchise in 2005. They are suing the franchisor and now its attorneys for violation of the Washington Franchise Investment Protection Act and breach of contract.
H. Bundy
On behalf of his clients Nicole and Eric Turner, Attorney Howard E. Bundy filed an amended complaint on October 9 in Washington state court, mainly adding to the suit three of Dream Dinners’ outside counsels and their two associated law firms—one being the renowned Holland & Knight. They allege that Dream Dinners with the help of its attorneys and accountant provided earnings claims during its Discovery Day session in Washington. Discover Day is an event set up by the franchisor that gives prospective franchisees the opportunity to learn more about the franchise operation to determine if they want to go forward with the purchase.
By adding pages to the audited financial statements during a PowerPoint presentation, the franchisor showed revenues and expenses purportedly produced by two company-owned facilities. But at that time, the firm and its attorneys did not provide the prospective franchise owners with the Uniform Franchise Offering Circular (UFOC) as required by the Washington State Investment Protection Act.
Later that month the Turners were given the UFOC containing an Item 19 earnings claims provision that discounted any such claim, declaring, "Dream Dinners does not furnish or authorize its salespersons to furnish any oral or written information concerning the actual or potential sales, costs, income or profits of a franchise. Actual results vary from unit to unit and Dream Dinners, Inc. cannot estimate the results of any particular franchise."
Although the franchisees did not enter into a franchise agreement until April 6, 2005, Dream Dinners required them to sign a binding contract as a pre-condition to receiving any further information regarding its franchise opportunity, and specifically before receiving the UFOC disclosure documents. The state of Washington requires in law that a UFOC be delivered and signed 14 days before any contract is signed. At the time they executed their agreement, they paid an initial franchise fee of $30,000 and a "grand opening fee" of $5,000. The contract stated, "This agreement and all transactions contemplated by this Agreement shall be governed by, and construed and enforced in accordance with, the laws of the State of Washington."
Dream Dinners' Misrepresentations
At the time of presenting its franchise opportunity to the Turners, Dream Dinners showed that it had a well-developed and tested "system," including uniform standards and procedures. But what the Turners discovered after investing in the franchise was that the company was in early development stages, far from being proven. The franchisor promised such things as assistance with site selection, lease negotiation, training, advertising, marketing, pre-opening inspections, and promotional methods and materials. But it failed to deliver. According to the complaint, Dream Dinners did not have the infrastructure and experienced personnel to perform on those promises, which constituted material breaches of its franchise agreement.
The franchisor's offer of the franchise originated in the State of Washington and the franchisees accepted it in the State of Ohio. The amendment states that Dream Dinners also violated the Ohio Business Opportunity Purchasers Protection Act, and that it did not qualify for an exemption from the Ohio Act.
Actions and Omissions by Counsel Shows Unlawful Actions
Named in the amended complaint are three attorneys who acted as outside counsel to Dream Dinners–John A. Bender, Joanie Y. Kim and Kevin J. Collette. In addition to naming Holland & Knight, it also names the law firm of Ryan Swanson & Cleveland. Bender, licensed in Washington, was retained by the company as its franchise counsel because of his experience in franchise law. He originally was with law firm Holland & Knight but moved over to Ryan Swanson in 2004, when Kim took over his duties. Collette was employed by the Ryan firm in representing Dream Dinners.
Bender drafted or approved the franchisor's franchise agreement, UFOC and all other contracts and documents used by Dream Dinners in offering and selling the franchise to the Turners. He also approved the procedure used by which they required the franchisees to sign a binding contract before they could receive the UFOC or other information, as well as the PowerPoint slides used to give the earnings claims. He allegedly participated in the illegal earnings claims with Dream Dinners and its accountant, disguising them as being part of the audited financial statements.
The lawsuit also claims that Bender knew or should have known that prospective franchisees were receiving materially false, incomplete and misleading information regarding the franchise opportunity, and that he was a "person in act of control of the activities" of the franchisor. Attorneys Collette and Kim assisted Bender in his activities for the franchise company and did nothing to prevent the relevant violations of the Washington Franchise Investment Protection Act on Dream Dinners behalf.
The complaint states that franchisees Nicole and Eric Turner suffered damages in an amount not yet fully determined but which are estimated to exceed $300,000. For judgment against Dream Dinners and its legal counsel, other attorneys and the law firms, it asks for exemplary damages up to three times actual damages as permitted by the Washington Act, and for costs and reasonable attorney fees.
Dream Dinners has not yet responded to pertinent questions regarding issues addressed in this article sent by email. When they do, Blue MauMau will publish their answers.
Another franchisee lawsuit originally filed in New York state court earlier this year represents approximately fifteen Dream Dinners franchisees. Blue MauMau has learned that an amended complaint will be filed shortly for that lawsuit.
Resolution Trust Company sues Holland & Knight
In 1 on January 12, 2009 at 2:24 am
In
Holland & Knight sued by court-appointed receiver pays $2M to avoid trial.
In 1 on January 12, 2009 at 2:12 amOn May 23, 2002, The National Law Journal ran a story (click here to read it) about the $500 million fraud by a Portland, Oregon, pension advisory firm, Capital Consultants LLC, upon mostly Oregon and Washington pension and health care benefit trusts. The court-appointed receiver sued five law firms that did legal work for Capital and its co-conspirators, saying, "They aided and abetted the perpetration of a fraud on the pensioners." The law firms paid $50 million to avoid trial and possibly much greater liability. Here are several links to more information about that case: Link#1, Link#2, Link#3, Link#4, Link#5. Weiss Jensen Ellis & Howard law firm (merged into Holland & Knight), of Portland, paying $2 million to avoid trial. Full story By Doug Schafer here: http://doug4justice.org/LocalFraud.html
Lawyers can make staggering sums by keeping clients' dirty secrets. In the 1983 $200 million fraud case of O.P.M. Leasing Services (O.P.M. stands for Other People's Money), when the criminals' lawyers discovered that their largest client was forging and selling bogus mainframe computer system leases, the lawyers kept quiet while collecting their $700,000 bill, which the client paid by continuing the fraud for eight more months, bilking victims of $85 million more and even hiring an unsuspecting law firm after the first one quietly resigned! To learn about the O.P.M Leasing case, read the journal articles by New York University Law Professor Harry Subin and by the late former Oregon State Bar president Dick Nahstoll — click here for those articles.
Most nationally prominent legal ethics professors recognize that major frauds nearly always are actively furthered by, or enabled by the silent acquiescence of, the wrongdoers' lawyers. Boston University Law Professor Susan B. Koniak recently condemned lawyers who enable Enron and similar scandals in Forbes Magazine (Aug. 12, 2002, page 58, click here to see it), saying:
"The dirty secret of the mess is that without lawyers few scandals would exist, and fewer still would last long enough to cause any real harm. Lawyers need to be regulated. No other legal reform enacted will do any good as long as there are no consequences to lawyers who bless anything a manager wants to do. … Because lawyers are necessary to commit almost any fraud of more than a moment's duration, their firms' survival should be on the line. … The lawyer problem is systemic: no "few bad apples" here. … This is a disgrace."
Interesting how Holland & Knight recently announced they had formed a Madoff Advisory Group to help clients with strategies related to any losses resulting from involvement with entities controlled by Bernard Madoff. They fail to disclose a court-appointed receiver previously sued them for aiding and abetting the perpetration of a $500 million fraud by a Portland, Oregon, pension advisory firm, Capital Consultants LLC,.
Ex-Holland & Knight Partner Files Suit in Benefits Dispute
In 1 on January 12, 2009 at 1:28 amR. Thomas Farrar, who worked in Holland & Knight's Miami office, sued the firm after efforts to arbitrate a dispute over his 2002 termination broke down. He is now of counsel at Robert Allen Law in Miami.
Farrar was one of 60 attorneys and 170 other employees cut by the firm in April 2002 as it sought to improve its financial performance. Farrar, who had worked for the firm since 1981, sued in Miami-Dade Circuit Court on Dec. 23 after the arbitrator in the dispute withdrew from the case in 2007. Neither side could agree on a replacement. The firm suggested a substitute arbitrator that both sides agreed to, then reversed its decision, the complaint states.
He is seeking damages stemming from $95,920 in back retirement benefits beginning in June 2007 when he turned 63 years old, as well as interest and $5,048 per month in benefits for the rest of his life.
Farrar alleges in his complaint that the firm violated his partnership agreement by terminating him and wrongfully depriving him of his right to retirement benefits. He also alleges that the firm violated his separation agreement that specified the dispute would be resolved through arbitration. Because of that, Farrar alleges in the complaint that Holland & Knight has waived its right to arbitration.
Farrar did not return calls for comment by deadline. His attorney, Leon Patricios, a partner with Coral Gables-based Zumpano Patricios & Winker, declined to comment on the suit, but said he was unaware of similar complaints against the firm.
John Weir, a former Holland & Knight partner in the firm's New York office who was dismissed in November 2002, sued the firm in federal court years after his dismissal. He accused the firm of violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. The suit was dismissed in August 2007.
Karen McBride, a Holland & Knight spokeswoman, said in a prepared statement that the firm believes Farrar is not entitled to the benefits he seeks.
"This complaint relates to a dispute with a former partner who left the firm in 2002, which has been the subject of arbitration for the past six years," McBride said. "The underlying claim is for certain retirement benefits, to which the firm believes he has no entitlement."
Farrar's suit sheds some light on the circumstances that surround the 2002 mass dismissals. The complaint claims Holland & Knight had the right to terminate him with or without cause, but said the firm failed to follow termination procedures under the partnership agreement.
The complaint also alleges the firm's leaders acted in bad faith, because they failed to discuss the matter with him before giving him his pink slip. The firm leaders likely handled the terminations of the other lawyers in the 2002 round of cuts in a similar manner, the suit states.
Farrar's suit also says the firm made the decision to terminate him based on an erroneous belief that he was unprofitable. But he said the firm failed to consider the $3 million in net profit revenues he generated though a consulting subsidiary. He said that made him one of the firm's most profitable lawyers during the three years before his termination.
"Because H&K did not even discuss the matter with Farrar before he was terminated, he was deprived of the opportunity to correct that and other erroneous facts and information or to defend himself against termination on the basis of erroneous or incomplete information," the lawsuit states.
Alana Roberts Daily Business Review January 7, 2009 http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202427249339
Alembic has sued Holland & Knight for breach of contract, unjust enrichment, fraud and nine other counts.
In 1 on January 12, 2009 at 1:18 amMultinational law firm Holland & Knight LLP has become embroiled in a legal wrangle with a Montgomery County recruitment consultancy that helped it hire several of its senior attorneys.
At issue is who should be paid for recruiting Richard Jay Ferris Jr. and Hongjin Zhang, both experts on Chinese law who joined Holland & Knight in October 2004.
The law firm, founded in Tampa, Fla., employs more than 1,250 attorneys and is one of the top 15 largest law firms in the world, according to its Web site.
Alembic Consulting Inc., based in Rockville, claims it is owed a fee of $151,500 for the Ferris and Zhang hires. That is disputed by Nelson Korchak, a former member of the headhunting firm, who left to set up his own consultancy at around the time the two lawyers were hired.
Korchak says he set up the deal on his own and should be paid $145,000, with his former colleagues receiving nothing.
Holland & Knight, sent invoices by both parties, opted to pay neither, prompting a lawsuit from Korchak, filed last month in Montgomery County Circuit Court against both the firm and Alembic.
Alembic responded early this month by filing counter-claims against Korchak and a cross-claim against Holland & Knight.
We are caught in the middle of a divorce, said Philip T. Evans, a partner at Holland & Knight's Washington D.C. office. We hope they can get it resolved.
He is not so sanguine about some of the allegations in Alembic's cross-claim, in which the company alleges Holland & Knight owes it $225,000 for several other transactions not mentioned in Korchak's suit.
Alembic has sued Holland & Knight for breach of contract, unjust enrichment, fraud and nine other counts.
It is also claiming $100,000 in punitive damages.
We disagree with the allegations, Evans said. It's just a method of overaggressive lawyering Alembic has chosen to pursue.
Alembic's lawyer, Michael J. Trevelline, countered by alleging that Holland & Knight appears to favor Korchak.
I don't think it's overaggressive, he said of the cross-claim. They are stiffing my client and then claiming they are innocent.
Formed in 2003, Alembic consisted of Korchak, Ralph Kopp and Jason Mahaney, who had all previously worked at Fairfax, Va.-based S.R. Clarke Inc., another recruitment consultancy, according to both lawsuits.
Korchak left in August 2004, according to his suit, but he claims that the Zhang and Ferris deals were both completed after that date as a result of his work.
Alembic alleges in its suit that the company had an agreement with Holland & Knight dating from 2003, covering the Zhang and Ferris transactions.
Korchak reached a separate secret agreement with Holland & Knight in March 2004, Alembic alleges. It maintains that the later agreement did not supersede the law firm's deal with Alembic.
Alembic also alleges that Korchak left the company because he had incurred debts to his colleagues that he was unable to pay.
Korchak's attorneys could not be reached for comment yesterday.
Daily Record, The (Baltimore) by Lawrence Hurley
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4183/is_20050517/ai_n14614260
Nice Try Holland & Knight Partner!
In 1 on January 11, 2009 at 10:34 pmHere is another reason why you should keep a close watch on your (big) law firm's billing practices: lawyers cheat! If you don't believe me, check out this story:
Today's WSJ carries a story about bill padding at the Chicago office of law firm Holland & Knight. Apparently the junior partner in charge of a trial blew the whistle on the senior billing partner, who was inflating the bills.
Actually, if the client had followed my tips in this earlier post, I think he or she would have spotted the fraud without the junior partner's help.
Posted by Imke Ratschko
http://www.newyorksmallbusinesslaw.com/new_york_small_business_l/2006/08/nice_try_hollan.html
Holland & Knight – Rip-off Report – Client Billing Fraud
In 1 on January 10, 2009 at 2:07 pmManaging Partner Edward Ryan charged by ARDC for falsifying client billings. Matthew Farmer – Subordinate attorney reported findings to Ethics Partner – Colin Smith who warned Farmer 'Don't go there,'. Farmer blew whistle in a 7 page letter to Judge Janet Poston and Smith declines to comment.
More Money Problems for Holland and Knight
In 1 on January 7, 2009 at 2:00 pmMore Money Problems for Holland and Knight
First, a lawyer quit over allegations of billing fraud. Now the NY Law Journal reports on a missing five-million dollars. Show me the money.
http://federalism.typepad.com/crime_federalism/2006/09/more_money_prob.html
and finally…
Edward Francis Ryan, x Managing Partner of Holland & Knight responsible for overseeing the firms billings and collections was charged on November 14, 2008 by the ARDC in a 3 count complaint for falsifying client billings.
Download now or preview on posterous
IARDC 08CH113 11-14-2008 Edward Ryan – Holland and Knight.pdf (89 KB)
Holland & Knight and Enterprise Florida – Entagled Ethical Concerns.
In 1 on January 7, 2009 at 1:38 pmAgency and law firm entangled
The hiring of Enterprise Florida CEO Darrell Kelley by legal giant Holland & Knight is the latest in a list of close, lucrative connections.
By SYDNEY P. FREEDBERG and SCOTT BARANCIK
Published November 8, 2005
While Darrell Kelley was chief executive of Florida's top economic development agency, it paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal and consulting fees to the Holland & Knight law firm.
Now he's joining the giant law firm as a top executive.
Kelley, 63, starts his job as chief operating officer at Holland & Knight on Nov. 15. His appointment is the latest example of the close and lucrative ties between the law firm and Enterprise Florida, a tax-exempt, nonprofit arm of state government that received $16.7-million in taxpayer funds last year to lure high-wage jobs to Florida.
Among the more conspicuous examples:
–Since 2001, Holland & Knight has held an open-ended, apparently no-bid contract to serve as general counsel to Enterprise Florida at rates as high as $425 an hour. Fees paid to date total $588,600, according to agency spokeswoman Erin Heston. Kelley joined Enterprise Florida in June 2002.
–In 2003, Holland & Knight won an additional $475,000 contract from Enterprise Florida to assess the state's vulnerability in the coming round of military base closures. Only one other company submitted a bid.
–This year, Holland & Knight began serving as Enterprise Florida's official representative in China. Though the law firm is providing its services largely for free, the role affords it entree to the world's fastest-growing economy as well as many potential clients.
The ties go both ways.
Howell Melton Jr., Holland & Knight's managing partner, sits on Enterprise Florida's board of directors, as did his predecessors at the 1,250-lawyer firm. Melton also is chairman of the three-person committee that sets salaries for agency executives like Kelley, who earned nearly $350,000 in total compensation during the 2004-05 fiscal year.
This won't be the first time Kelley has called Melton "boss." Melton served as chairman of the Orlando area's economic development commission several years ago when Kelley was the not-for-profit's president and chief executive officer.
On Monday, both men declined to be interviewed. But in a news release issued by Holland & Knight after inquiries from the St. Petersburg Times , each warmly praised the other.
Said Melton: "Darrell's exceptional reputation for client service, relationship building and commitment to high values make him a perfect fit for our firm. He brings with him significant expertise in business generation and client service, which will complement Holland & Knight's approach to the delivery of legal services."
Said Kelley: "Having worked with Howell Melton as a committee chair and member of the (Enterprise Florida board) and during his term as Chairman of the Metro Orlando EDC, I know him to be an exceptional leader with whom I share common values. I look forward to joining Howell at Holland & Knight, a firm whose national platform offers many great business opportunities."
Kelley's role at the law firm, one of the nation's largest, is not clear. Holland & Knight created the chief operating partner slot last year for Douglas A. Wright, a Tampa lawyer who quickly resigned after the Times reported he had been reprimanded for harassing young, female colleagues.
The position, which ranked third on the firm's corporate ladder and put Wright atop all business operations, including the firm's human resources department, has remained vacant.
Kelley, a longtime Sprint Corp. executive, is not a lawyer. But thanks to his three-year tenure at Enterprise Florida, whose board includes executives representing many of the state's top businesses, he has the potential to give an already powerful firm an extra edge in securing clients.
Under then-Gov. Lawton Chiles, the Legislature created Enterprise Florida in 1992 as a tax-exempt partnership between the public sector and private businesses. Today it gets 82 percent of its funding from taxpayers. Holland & Knight has contributed more than $200,000 since 2000, assuring the law firm a seat on Enterprise Florida's 63-member board of directors, which is chaired by Gov. Jeb Bush.
The board approved Holland & Knight as its general counsel at a November 2000 meeting. Other than former managing partner Bill McBride, who abstained, the vote was unanimous. The agency is permitted to award contracts to companies represented on its board so long as two-thirds of the board approves.
Since then, Orlando partner Jonathan Rich and others have provided Enterprise Florida with hundreds of hours of legal advice.
Among other things, they have advised the group on how to tailor its lobbying activities so as not to jeopardize its tax-exempt status. They have briefed board members on their financial disclosure requirements. They have researched the agency's legal obligations under Florida's Open Meetings Law. And they have drafted or reviewed numerous agency contracts.
Ben Wilcox, executive director of the public interest group Common Cause Florida, said Holland & Knight's close relationship with Enterprise Florida raises its own ethical concerns.
"The fact that (Kelley) is moving in and out of public service and taking a position with someone that (Enterprise Florida) had a contractual relationship with, and now stands to personally benefit from being employed by that law firm, is troubling," he said.
Last week Enterprise Florida said it was negotiating with John Adams Jr., a Laredo, Texas, economic development official, to replace Kelley.
–Times computer-assisted reporting specialist Connie Humburg and staff researcher Carolyn Edds contributed to this report.
HK – Sweep at top for Holland & Knight law firm
In 1 on January 7, 2009 at 1:25 pmClean sweep at top for Holland & Knight law firm
By Scott Barancik, Times Staff Writer
In print: Friday, March 21, 2008
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Martha Barnett, who was Holland & Knight's first female partner, lost her bid for re-election as board chair.
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It's out with the old, in with the new at Holland & Knight.
In a clean sweep that may reflect a desire for change among its ranks, three top leadership positions at Florida's second-largest law firm have turned over in the past week:
• Martha Barnett, a Tallahassee lobbyist and former American Bar Association president who was Holland & Knight's first female partner, lost her bid for re-election as board chair, a position she had held since 2003. A majority of the policymaking committee's 24 members selected Boston trial lawyer Ralph Lepore over Barnett.
• Darrell Kelley, who left his job as chief executive of Enterprise Florida, the state's economic-development agency, in 2005 to join Holland & Knight as chief operating officer, told the firm's staff this week that he was resigning, effective today. A successor has not been named.
• Howell Melton Jr., who was elected to a five-year term as managing partner in 2003, disclosed last month that he would not seek re-election. Last week, the 1,150-lawyer firm's equity partners chose to replace him with Miami attorney Steven Sonberg, who ran unopposed.
"I certainly was willing to serve again this year, if a majority of the people had wanted me to," Barnett, 60, said in an interview Thursday. "But we changed our managing partner this year, and I think there were people who felt it would be appropriate to have a change in who chaired the directors' committee as well."
In unseating Barnett, who will remain a rank-and-file board member through at least 2008, Holland & Knight's directors removed one of the firm's most visible and respected partners. Thursday night she was to serve as emcee of a 500-person fundraiser in Tallahassee featuring Supreme Court gadfly Jeffrey Toobin. Asked how her vision for the firm's future differs from successor Lepore's, Barnett said she was unaware of any significant disagreements.
Two years ago, Holland & Knight's leaders endured significant embarrassment over allegations that a Tampa partner accused of sexual harassment had been lightly reprimanded and then elevated, by Melton, to the position of chief operating officer. That promotion was rescinded a day after the St. Petersburg Times reported it. More recently, the firm addressed frustration over low per-partner profits by squeezing out dozens of underperforming shareholders and adopting new, tougher standards for promoting associate lawyers to partner status. The changes led to significant gains for the remaining shareholders.
Although chief operating officer Kelley was unavailable for comment Thursday, spokeswoman Karen McBride said he told her he was leaving because Melton, who recruited him, would no longer need him as a top aide. McBride said that Kelley indicated he was considering "many interesting (job) opportunities" outside the firm.
Scott Barancik can be reached at barancik@sptimes.com or
(727) 893-8751.
HK – Chicago partner of Holland & Knight urges Howell Melton to resign for the firm’s sake.
In 1 on January 7, 2009 at 1:12 pmLaw firm's leader gets challenge from afar
In a scathing memo, a Chicago partner of Holland & Knight urges Howell Melton to resign for the firm's sake.
By SCOTT BARANCIK and KRIS HUNDLEY
Published May 3, 2005
A sexual-harassment case that rocked the Tampa office of Holland & Knight when it was disclosed a month ago has caused tremors halfway across the United States – and an open call for its leader's resignation.
Chicago partner Charles D. Knight sent managing partner Howell Melton Jr. a scathing, seven-page e-mail three weeks ago accusing him of "horrible judgment, insensitivity, arrogance and incompetence."
In the confidential memo, obtained by the St. Petersburg Times, Knight urged Melton to resign for the sake of the 1,250-lawyer firm and its clients, or risk subjecting the firm to a divisive recall vote.
Another Chicago partner, Mark A. Stang, who two weeks ago apologized to the "brave women of our firm's Tampa office" and expressed "disgust" with their treatment in a letter to the Times , ended his five-year career at the law firm Friday. He started at another Chicago law firm Monday. Stang declined to comment on the reasons for his departure.
Chicago is the second-largest of Holland's 27 domestic offices after Washington, D.C. Created through two mergers, it has about 160 lawyers, or nearly 13 percent of the firm's total.
Knight's e-mail was a startling display of pique by a rank-and-file partner who acknowledged in his memo that the managing partner holds enormous influence over his professional well-being. It also hinted at a more broad-based dissatisfaction with Melton's leadership. "I am not alone among my partners in believing that your resignation now would be in the best interests of the firm," Knight said.
Melton, based in New York, declined to comment, but Martha Barnett, head of the firm's policy-making Directors' Committee, reiterated her support for him in an interview Monday.
"While I respect Chuck Knight's views, I don't support the conclusions he reaches," said Barnett, who is in Holland's Tallahassee office. "There has been a strong expression of support throughout the firm for the role Hal Melton plays. Some may disagree with how he handled this issue, but they look at his leadership over the last two years and continue to have confidence in him."
The challenge to Melton stems from his handling of the case of Tampa partner Douglas A. Wright. In March, Melton promoted Wright to be the firm's third-ranking partner just months after reprimanding him for violating the firm's sexual harassment policy. The investigation case file was leaked to newspapers and included documents showing that Melton had rejected the investigating committee's recommendations for a tougher punishment.
Female lawyers in the Tampa office complained that Wright asked women to "feel my pipes (bicep)" or his thigh, routinely questioned them about their personal and sexual lives, and threatened to have them fired. Wright said that his comments were not sexual in nature and that his remarks about firing associates were intended to be jokes.
While Barnett seemed to take Knight's criticism in stride, there were indications of behind-the-scenes efforts to minimize the impact of the Wright case on Melton's standing.
Last month, Melton flew to a number of Holland offices to mend fences with partners. In Chicago, a number of partners declined to meet with him. It is not known if Melton met with Knight then, though Barnett said the managing partner had "reached out" to his critic.
Holland's management also attempted to curtail dissemination of Knight's letter. Knight sent the original by e-mail to Melton and gave paper copies to his colleagues in Chicago. Firm managers promptly ordered lawyer Robert Schnitz to collect all copies; some lawyers refused to hand them over.
Barnett said she was told the copies were gathered in part to comply with Knight's desire that his criticism be contained within the Chicago office.
Knight did not return a call seeking comment Monday. An outside observer called Knight's e-mail a rarity.
"It's not at all common for a partner to call for the resignation of his managing partner in writing," said Peter Zeughauser, an independent law-firm consultant in Corona del Mar, Calif. "It is not done."
More than just a critique of the Wright case; Knight's memo was an indictment of Melton's leadership. In a tone both legalistic and venomous, Knight, a 52-year-old litigator wrote:
"The managing partner demonstrated an astonishing and unacceptable lack of judgment by promoting Wright to Chief Operating Partner." The decision showed "callous insensitivity to the women who had complained about Wright's behavior."
The firm's initial defense of Wright as "one of the firm's finest partners' while implying that those who complained about him were not true victims of sexual harassment … was an act of monumental stupidity."
"The morale of women, minorities, and, yes, white males at the firm has been shaken." Partners have spent "countless hours … attempting to reassure our attorneys and staff that the firm's commitment to a decent and diverse workplace is not simply a marketing gimmick." Similarly, "the firm's efforts to recruit women and minorities will almost certainly suffer."
"The damage that the Managing Partner has already done to the firm is enormous. His judgment has been so demonstrably poor that the firm cannot trust him either to repair the damage that he has already done or to lead this firm in the future. … How can we convince our clients that we can counsel them on delicate personnel matters when the Managing Partner has demonstrated such insensitivity in our own sensitive internal matters?"
Despite Wright's decision to step down as chief operating partner, and despite Melton's April 11 e-mail offering staff an "expression of regret," Melton's stubborn refusal to take responsibility for his mistakes suggests he is not fit to lead the firm.
Knight acknowledged that not everyone at the firm supports Melton's forced removal. But he said "no one seriously disagrees that a resignation would enable the firm to put this shameful episode behind us and more expeditiously mitigate the harm to the firm's reputation in the eyes of the public, our clients, and our employees."
Elected to a five-year term as managing partner in 2003, Melton quickly began making his mark. He promoted growth, boosted the firm's profits-per-partner ratio by squeezing out underperformers, and pushed partners to do more free legal work for the poor.
He also required every Holland attorney spend at least 2,500 hours per year – or 10 hours a day, assuming two weeks' vacation – on firm-related business, or face a pay cut. Partners and associates alike complain the requirement has crimped their personal lives and put Holland at a competitive disadvantage when it comes to recruiting.
Unlike Melton, a lifelong Holland lawyer, Chicago partners Knight and Stang are relative newcomers to the firm. In fact, Holland & Knight didn't have a Chicago office until 2000, when it acquired 40-lawyer Burke Weaver & Prell. Two years later, it made a second acquisition there.
In his e-mail to Melton, Knight, formerly with Burke Weaver, recalled the time in 1999 when then-Holland leader Bill McBride pitched the merger. McBride talked about how Holland had made it a priority to weed out selfish, arrogant and disrespectful attorneys. Knight said it was a welcome policy that "became widely known as the "no jerk rule."'
Knight called McBride's presentation extremely persuasive. But recent events caused him to decide McBride was wrong.
"McBride appears to have failed to weed out all of the jerks," Knight wrote to Melton. "Regrettably, it appears that some of them succeeded to the highest levels of the firm's management."
–Times staff writer Scott Barancik can be reached at barancik@sptimes.com or 727 893-8751.
HK – Holland & Knight Douglas Wright Sexual Harassment Embarrassment Holds Lessons
In 1 on January 7, 2009 at 1:09 pmHolland & Knight Embarrassment Holds Lessons
Nine female lawyers accuse Wright of sexual harassment
Dan Lynch
Daily Business Review
April 5, 2005
Holland & Knight's recent announcement that a partner accused by nine female lawyers of sexual harassment was stepping down from a top position to which he'd just been promoted holds lessons for other law firms, experts on workplace issues say.
In March, New York-based managing partner Howell Melton announced that Douglas A. Wright, 44, a tax lawyer, had been promoted to chief operating partner of the 1,250-lawyer Tampa, Fla.-based firm. The position included supervisory responsibility for the firm's business operations, including the human resources department.
But sources within the firm quickly leaked documents about a confidential internal investigation, which led to a series of articles in the St. Petersburg Times and other newspapers. The firm initially blasted the leak, saying it "recklessly and unfairly impugns the reputation of one of the firm's finest partners," but it announced shortly afterward that Wright had elected to return to his old job.
It turned out that nine female lawyers at Holland & Knight's Tampa office last year accused Wright, a former nose guard for the University of Florida football team, of sexually harassing them.
The complaints resulted in a confidential investigation by the law firm. Wright received a private reprimand last summer, including orders to stop asking women in the office to feel his "pipes," or biceps. He also was told to stop commenting on their clothes and sex lives and to forgo any retaliation against the women who'd complained.
In an internal memo, managing partner Melton described Wright's conduct as "inappropriate and unacceptable," the St. Petersburg Times reported.
Last week, following the announcement of Wright's promotion and reports of the sexual harassment probe, the Times published an editorial assailing Holland & Knight as "tone deaf" on gender issues. That was a stinging rebuke for a law firm that long has prided itself on its progressive approach to women, minorities and social issues.
Last week, after two days of critical news coverage, Melton announced that Wright was returning to his former role as a partner in the firm's business law department in Tampa. The decision was Wright's alone and completely voluntary, the firm said. Both Melton and Martha Barnett, chair of the firm's directors committee, acknowledged to the Times that news stories had played a role in the decision.
Outside observers were sharply critical of both Wright's conduct and of Holland's decision to promote an attorney to such a key position who'd recently been reprimanded for sexual harassment.
"Law firms have to be very sensitive," said Edward Poll, who operates the Venice, Calif.-based LawBiz Management Co., a law firm consulting firm. "This firm's behavior failed that test. A promotion only six months after an incident like this was a mistake."
"It would appear that maybe [Wright] had watched one episode too many of 'Ally McBeal,'" said John Beane of Staff Development Services, a Leland, N.C.-based firm that specializes in law firm human resource consulting. "In many cases, managers fail to see an incident like this as a big deal. When they decided to promote this guy, they were more or less endorsing what he'd done."
Holland leaders declined to comment for this article. A company spokeswoman refused to say how many of the initial complainants are still with the firm. In a written statement, Holland & Knight said it remains "committed to fostering a work environment in which all individuals are treated with dignity and respect."
Barnett, a former American Bar Association president, told the St. Petersburg Times that the news media coverage of her firm's handling of the case had caused embarrassment, "particularly for an institution that views diversity and equality as a core value of our firm."
Wright declined to comment.
During Holland's investigation of the women's complaints, according to the St. Petersburg Times, Wright said he "may have" made the comments attributed to him by the women" but "I do not recall" doing so. He has denied discussing sex with colleagues.
One of the lawyers, Elizabeth Fite, who left the firm five months ago, said in an interview that since the women had dealt with their complaints through internal Holland & Knight procedures rather than filing complaints with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, "there are certain confidentiality obligations imposed on us. I've been trying to comply with those obligations."
Still, some Holland partners reportedly defended Wright and circulated a petition on his behalf within the firm.
Holland & Knight, founded in Tampa in 1889, has 32 offices. It's the second-largest law firm in Florida and among the 15 largest firms in the country.
Wright, a tax attorney, also represents sports clients. The married father of three joined Holland & Knight in 1987 after graduating from the University of Florida law school. He has spent the last 13 years as a member of the firm's private wealth services group.
Holland & Knight has made special efforts to advance women in the firm and in general. Among the firm's initiatives are the Rising Star program, which singles out five female lawyers a year for specialized management and leadership training. Last year, 13 of the 24 associates the firm promoted to partner were women.
The firm also sponsors Women Executive Leadership, a nonprofit organization aimed at putting more women on corporate boards. At the Tampa office, where the complaints against Wright were lodged, there are 18 women among the office's 82 lawyers, and seven female partners out of a total of 54. Firmwide, five of the 24 partners who serve on Holland & Knight's board of directors are women.
Nonetheless, experts were critical of the firm's handling of this matter.
"The key is training and how policies are communicated," said William P. Anthony, a professor of management at Florida State University who studies and serves as an expert witness on workplace harassment, managing diversity and strategic human resource management. "I'm sure they have a good sexual harassment policy, but how was it promulgated? How were people trained?"
William R. Amlong, a partner at Amlong & Amlong of Fort Lauderdale whose firm has handled many workplace harassment cases, said for Holland to promote Wright after reprimanding him for sexual harassment "sends the wrong message, especially with complaints by nine women. That's not a sexual harassment complaint. That's a stampede."
The promotion fosters a perception that some Florida law firms are "just an amalgamation of frat boys," he said.
His wife and law partner, Karen Coolman Amlong, said Wright's promotion indicates an inherent problem with the Holland & Knight corporate culture. "There had to be fertile soil there," she said.
Poll suggested that workplace harassment problems like this will ease.
"If you look at law school classes, they're more than 50 percent women," Poll said. "When women who can act as women, rather than as clones of men, take power at law firms, the culture will change. It has to."
Holland & Knight – Widespread Billing Fraud
In 1 on January 4, 2009 at 11:09 pmWidespread Billing Fraud at the Nations Largest Firms! A Call To Action in a Crisis of Conscience
The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that a partner at one of the nations largest firms, Holland & Knight, blew the whistle on its firm for billing fraud that potentially resulted in $100,00 in bills for time that was never put in! This is the first time that a lawyer has had the courage to speak up about what has been described as the "perfect crime" in law firms that bill by the hour. What's worse, having interviewed hundreds of attorneys, partners and associates alike, from some of the largerst firms in this nation I can tell you that many of them have readily admitted that billing fraud, bill padding, and "creative" billing practies are a part of daily business at their firms. It begs the question: How can you ever trust your law firm that bills you by the hour when they make more money by billing you for time and the client has no real way to ensure that the time was put in? This is precisely why we started Exemplar Law Partners and have abandoned the billable hour in favor of a fixed-price model. No surprises, no hidden charges, no FRAUD!
It is time for a call to action for attorneys and clients alike. I always go back to Malcolm X's saying: "If you are not a part of the solution, then you are part of the problem." To deny that billing fraud is a widespread practice is to have your head in the sand. To admit it and not speak up and DEMAND investigation and an end to the practices that ruin an honorable profession is to be no better than the firms and attorneys who commited the fraud on the clients they claim to serve. Will the true leaders in this industry please STAND UP? I welcome the leaders and change agents in this industry to stand with me in making positive change in the legal profession. The fact is that "You've got to stand for something, or you'll fall for anything." At Exemplar Law Partners, we stand for making a difference in our profession. For those attorneys out there with the courage to be a part of the solution, I welcome you to email me about opportunities to join a revolution that promises to bring consumers of legal services the integrity and service they deserve out of their law firm!! No Hourly Bull!cmarston@exemplarlaw.com – I promise to repond.
Holland & Knight – Phantom Billings
In 1 on January 3, 2009 at 9:32 pmIn one instance, Mr. Farmer says, Mr. Ryan sent a bill to Pinnacle claiming that partner Scott Petersen had worked 89.8 hours over a 17-day period in March 2003. Mr. Farmer says internal firm records show the lawyer didn't work on the case at all during that time…
Holland & Knight – John K. Weir Termination
In 1 on January 3, 2009 at 9:30 pmEEOC arguing that (some) law partners are merely employees
In a discussion of [partner] John K. Weir's termination from Holland & Knight, Anthony Lin wrote the following text:
Negotiations over the terms of Weir's withdrawal continued for over a year, during which time he claims he objected that the "right-sizing program" seemed aimed at terminating "older non-management partners who were perceived to be unproductive financially, and that [Weir] was being included in the program because of his age (then 55), and because of his being disliked by certain members of management due to his refusal to allow the issue of the 'etherized' $5,000,000 premium to be swept under the rug."
The firm's board of directors voted to expel Weir at the beginning of November 2002 but offered to rescind the expulsion if he agreed to withdraw immediately. He refused by e-mail on Nov. 15 and got Cannon's memo the next day.
The firm does not deny that it has engaged in some "right-sizing" of its staff.
"Like all successful businesses, Holland & Knight must continually adapt and adjust to changes in the global economy and business environment," said Schoening. "In 2002, the firm took a variety of actions to achieve operating efficiencies and better position ourselves for strategic growth, including a modest reduction in the number of our lawyers and administrative staff."
Lin mentioned another case:
Such policies, official and unofficial, have become a major source of controversy across the profession. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is suing Chicago's Sidley Austin over its alleged demotion of around 30 partners on the basis of age. Though partners have traditionally been considered employers exempt from anti-discrimination laws, the EEOC is claiming Sidley's highly centralized management rendered partners employees.
Lin also disclosed the manner of Weir's departure:
The enclosed memo from firm General Counsel L. Kinder Cannon stated that Weir, a partner at Holland & Knight and its New York predecessor for over 20 years, was expelled from the firm retroactive to Nov. 4, 2002. He was instructed to never again return to the Manhattan office he had left the evening before at 6 p.m.
Weir says he left behind active client files as well as a desk, chairs and lamps given to him by his late mother. He says he later found out his office furniture was distributed among other lawyers at the firm.
Holland & Knight – Ultimate Client relationship Nightmare
In 1 on January 3, 2009 at 7:06 pmThe Ultimate Client Relationship Nightmare
On August 30, 2006, the Wall Street Journal reported (pg. B1) that Holland & Knight was involved in a billing dispute with a client. The article was reprinted in the September 4, 2006 issue of the Chicago Sun-Times: it is the firm's Chicago office that is embroiled in the dispute. The details of the dispute are not of great moment, and in the interest of full disclosure, two of my partners (former Holland & Knight partners) are quoted in the article. But while the details of this situation are not of moment, the article does beg the question of how a firm should handle a major billing issue with its client.
Let's assume one of the facts in the Holland & Knight story–a young partner claims that the billing partner, not involved in a piece of litigation–has dramatically overbilled the client for that matter. From that, let's go to a place the Holland & Knight story does not go–that the young partner is threatening to make his complaint known to the client. What should the firm do?
I have written previously about how to handle mistakes. But that post involved errors in judgment, while this example involves an allegation of fraud. Even if not true, the allegation itself can threaten the client relationship, with even the most loyal client wondering why the young partner made the allegations, and why. It seems to me that simply denying the allegation is an incomplete response, potentially fatally so since it does not address the underlying questions that most certainly exist.
At the same time, simply offering to make an adjustment to the bill almost seems to validate the charge by the young partner, so that approach is not the preferred one either. While potentially expensive, the response I propose is based on the notion that our integrity and credibility are traits that can never have an associated price tag. With that as the premise, someone from the firm must be in the client's office as swiftly as humanly possible. The issue must be identified candidly and the obvious distress to the firm and the client must be recognized. The client must be assured that its confidence in the law firm and its lawyers is the firm's paramount objective, and to that end, the firm is prepared to refund the entirety of the fee paid by the client if, after investigation, there is any doubt on either side about the integrity of the bills and the billing process. The firm should then volunteer to submit the entirety of its bill to examination by a neutral party agreeable to the client, with the firm to bear the entire expense.
There may perhaps be other ideas on how to retain the client's trust without putting the entirety of the fee at risk. Perhaps the client herself will be the source of ideas, and most certainly the query should be made.
There remains the obvious personnel issue. While retaining the whistleblower may be distasteful, terminating him sends a powerful and negative message. To the extent there is merit to the claimed breach of trust, the person responsible to the lapse may need to leave, but at a minimum cannot be left in a position where the firm's integrity can again be compromised.
To the extent the matter has become public, as in the Holland & Knight story, it seems to me that the matter must be addressed publicly and that the firm's clients need to be individually reassured that such behavior is an aberration and is not tolerated at the firm. Toward this end, actions will always speak louder than words.
Posted By Patrick J. Lamb on September 4, 2006 In Client Service , Leadership and Management
http://www.patrickjlamb.com/archives/cat-client-service.html
HK – seeks Elite Billing programmer experienced with conflicts
In 1 on January 3, 2009 at 6:54 pmHolland & Knight LLP is currently seeking a Senior Programmer Analyst, who will analyze and evaluate user requests and create efficient, accurate, timely solutions. Solid understanding of the Elite Billing / AP / GL modules and the underlying database table structure. Experience with conflicts, ARCS and trust modules preferred. Must be able to work independently with minimal oversight and be a solid team player with the other analysts. Ability to interface and communicate effectively with both technical and accounting/finance staff is required. Knowledge of reporting tools (such as Crystal Reports or Microsoft Reporting Services) and workflow solutions (such as MetaStorm, Adobe Workflow or Sharepoint) would be beneficial. 3+ years experience in law firm or professional services environment with a Bachelors degree required. Elite experience preferred. Interested candidates should submit a cover letter and resume. EOE M/F/D/V
Holland & Knight – Executive Partner Peter Pietro Prieto predicts law firms will have to devise more creative billing structures in the future.
In 1 on January 3, 2009 at 6:44 pmSPECIAL REPORT:
Attorney Compensation
Legal Superstars
by John Pacenti
Last spring, Broward Circuit Judge Leroy H. Moe looked to penalize Motorola for violating one of his orders and tainting a trial.
The plaintiff attorneys who spent millions on the case — and who were facing a do-over because of the electronics giant’s misdeeds — wanted compensation.
During a four-day hearing to consider attorney fees, a string of expert witnesses took the stand to give their input on what they thought Stuart attorney Willie Gary and his team should be paid.
A key witness, long-time litigator and former state Sen. Walter “Skip” Campbell, compared Gary to New York Yankees star third baseman Alex Rodriguez. He said Gary should get $3,750 an hour for taking on the complex litigation brought by now-defunct Fort Lauderdale-based SPS Technologies, an innovator of a global positioning device.
Campbell who was an expert witness for Gary, argued that amount should be tripled because of the complexity of the case and the damage done by Motorola’s attorneys, who violated Moe’s order and allowed their witnesses to read trial transcripts of testimony by the plaintiff’s experts before testifying for the defense.
Gary and his team from Gary Williams Parenti Finney Lewis McManus Watson & Sperando were looking for $93 million in attorney fees. That would boil down to more than $11,000 an hour for Gary.
Moe was angry that the defendant violated his witness sequestration order, but he wasn’t that mad.
The judge ordered $20 million in fees, or about $1,000 an hour for Gary — the top fee collected by a South Florida lawyer in the Daily Business Review’s second annual lawyer billing survey.
In 2006, Eugene E. Stearns of Stearns Weaver Miller Weissler Alhadeff & Sitterson was the top earner in the survey at $700 an hour for his firm’s work on a 15-year-old case against ExxonMobil on behalf of gas station owners. Stearns led his legal team to a $1.1 billion federal court judgment against ExxonMobil.
The Daily Business Review’s survey is not comprehensive. The hourly rates were taken from legal filings mostly from U.S. Bankruptcy Court — where they are required — and other civil and probate cases. Some firms, such as Greenberg Traurig, reported their hourly range in fee applications. Many of the filings were found in the federal court on-line computer system. The Daily Business Review examined nearly 300 lawyers’ filings from August 2006 to earlier this month.
Last year, the survey found, most lawyers’ rates fell between the $250 and $500 mark. This year the range remains relatively the same with just a hint of inflation.
The gold standard
How much lawyers should get paid is often the subject of debate, but seldom does a parade of top lawyers have to testify before a veteran judge to help determine the fee. Just as rare is the South Florida lawyer who gets $1,000 per hour — the new gold standard for lawyers, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The nation’s business newspaper of record reported in August that some firms in New York, Washington and Los Angeles had exceeded the $1,000 per hour rate but that other high-profile firms feared such a sum would frighten away clients. One firm called the $1,000 fee “the vomit point” for clients.
For high-profile plaintiff lawyer Gary, walking away with millions in fees is not uncommon. He is accustomed to high-stakes, contingency legal battles with corporate giants. Among other victories, Gary has won a $50 million verdict against Anheuser-Busch on behalf of the Roger Maris family in a distribution dispute. Gary secured a $240 million judgment against Walt Disney Co. for two businessmen claiming the entertainment giant stole their idea for a sports complex.
Most lawyers who usually bill by the hour get nowhere near a Gary payday.
But Greenberg Traurig said it bills up to $650 an hour for partners in South Florida — the highest in the Review survey for a corporate firm.
The highest paid individual Greenberg partner located in court filings was Brian Gart, an attorney who focuses on bankruptcy. He charges $550 per hour.
Partners in South Florida typically charged from $600 to $330 an hour. Associates’ hourly rates ranged from $145 to $450, according to the Review’s survey.
Legal playmakers
In an interview, Campbell said his analogy that the top-notch lawyers need to be treated in terms of salary akin to superstar athletes is not hyperbole.
“If you look at society, many of these same lawyers become CEOs of major corporations, and their compensation as CEOs is significant,” Campbell said. “And if you look at the major league athletes in baseball, basketball, football and try to figure out what they are earning, you would think someone who has professional credentials should be making similar amounts.”
Gary said no one takes into account the money that law firms lose, especially on contingency cases, which he says are the only way clients of lesser means can gain access to the courthouse.
“Most of the time, we lose money in this business,” Gary said. “You lose time, you lose money you never get back. You spend $200,000 preparing a case, and if you don’t win the case, you don’t get paid. You just lost that. It’s gone.”
He said the growing cost to get experts to testify is the main factor boosting his litigation expenses. But other law firm leaders cited different factors driving up their costs — and in turn the fees they charge clients.
At corporate law firms, escalating associate compensation is one factor.
The highest paid individual associate in the Review’s survey was Jean Laws-Scott at $450 an hour. She is an associate with Gary’s firm who worked on the Motorola case.
Two Berger Singerman attorneys tied as the top billing associates at corporate firms. Ilyse M. Homer in the firm’s Miami office and Paul Avron at the Boca Raton office bill $350, according to the survey.
But Greenberg Traurig reported it has at least one “top-end associate” in South Florida who gets $505 an hour. Matthew Gorson, president of the firm, declined to name the associate.
Most fees for associates located in court filings fell between the mid- and high $200s.
Campbell said associates can be the driving force behind a law firm’s financial success. “The thinking is that if you are to have a successful practice that bills hourly, then you need a young whippersnapper out of law school who wants to bill 2,000 hours a year.”
Gorson made no apologies for the six-figure starting salaries big firms pay associates. It’s necessary to pay well if you are going to compete to attract “the best and the brightest,” he said.
“We need to have the best associates, and we have to be competitive in the market place,” Gorson said.
Increased scrutiny
News reports about excessive attorney fees and a continuing political debate about purported frivolous and unneeded litigation, have caused increased scrutiny of legal bills from judges and clients.
“I think a lot of judges are just accepting it as a cost of doing business, but now and then you will see a judge get their back up,” said Barry Davidson, partner at Hunton & Williams in Miami.
Harley S. Tropin of Kozyak Tropin & Throckmorton in Coral Gables said, “I would say that judges, because lawyer fees are in the news more, scrutinize filings more — as they should.
Tropin was among the most expensive partners in South Florida, billing $600 an hour. B. Carey Tolley of Hunton & Williams in Miami also was among the priciest partners, increasing his hourly wage from $520 in 2005 to $545.
Most of the partners who fell right at the $500 per hour range in the Review’s survey were on Gary’s team in the Motorola case.
As rates continue to rise, clients are increasingly pushing back.
Law firm leaders said more clients, especially corporate, are shopping around and looking for discounts or alternative billing arrangements — afraid the billable hour is a never-ending sinkhole.
Law firm leaders said they are confronted with increased litigation costs, the need to hire top associates out of law school, higher malpractice insurance premiums, rising rent and assorted technology costs.
“It’s just not paying for the time for the attorney working on the case. You have to support the infrastructure,” Davidson said.
Still, South Florida firms have posted record revenue and profit. Despite the cooling economy, the biggest firms posted double-digit growth in revenues in 2006, according to the annual Review 15 survey.
Bilzin Sumberg Baena Price & Axelrod in Miami, for example, reported $66.1 million in gross revenue — a 23 percent increase over 2005. Greenberg Traurig climbed 13 percent to $199.6 million in 2006.
Brenda Pagliaro Emery, the general counsel for Tamarac-based City Furniture, said the company is very happy with its outside legal work but rising costs do concern her.
“Hourly rates continue to increase, which is a problem,” Emery said. “Litigation is already a drain on corporations across the board, and I’ve seen increases in probably the last 24 months for hourly rates.”
Emery has grown increasingly frustrated by what she sees on bills to her company from outside counsel. She cited one invoice in which a law firm billed City Furniture for 12 hours of research on a simple matter, for the cost of a research service, $1 for a fax and $1 for a phone call.
She declined to name the firm.
As a result, Emery is working on billing guidelines for outside law firms that will state emphatically what City Furniture will pay for and what it will not. It plans to impose a cap on hours for research, for example.
Emery said she has also cut costs by bringing more legal work in-house, taking on the company’s worker compensation cases in January 2005. She said the company hasn’t asked for a discount rate but is clearly thinking in that direction.
“Unfortunately, they don’t really have different hourly rates for local business versus national ones,” she said.
“I think we end up paying the national rate. I think it should be a little more competitive rate.”
But the big local firms insist they are still among the best deals in the country, particularly when compared to lawyers in top-tier markets such as Chicago and New York.
Greenberg Traurig’s Gorson said clients still know that reputation and quality count and are willing to pay for both if they get results.
“Liken it to the surgeon. If you need a surgeon, you are not going to worry that he costs $5,000 an hour for surgery, you want to have the best surgeon in the world,” Gorson said. “If you have a major transaction involving a lot of money, and there is little more room for costs, you might be looking for the best lawyer and best firm to handle your transaction.”
Gorson said attorney hours pretty much stay the same. The only way they can increase their income or cover costs is to raise their hourly rate.
Driving up costs
Some critics contend law firm hourly fees are unfairly high and that plaintiff attorneys bog down the court system with cases designed to generate fees, not outcomes. Campbell, a plaintiff attorney, believes, however, that obstructionist defense tactics are the main cause of rising litigation costs for companies.
“It’s called Nit-Pick and Delay — that famous law firm,” he quipped. “Judges have to have the desire to stop the obstructionism. Sometimes they take it for granted it’s going to happen.”
Campbell said when he complained recently in court about opposing counsel not turning over a document, a judge told him: “You know it’s going to happen, so why are you bitching about it?”
Discovery battles appear to be the driving force behind rising costs as corporate giants try to drain plaintiff resources by delaying the case as long as possible, he said. Bryan Quigley, the spokesman for the Institute for Legal Reform in Washington, says it’s quite the contrary: Large companies and corporations are often the victim of predatory legal practices by lawyers looking for deep pockets. He said the high cost of litigation forces companies to settle.
“The defendant might have a very strong and even overwhelming case, but the costs and risks can be so high, they are forced into settlement whether they like or not,” Quigley said. “We call that legal extortion.”
He said a lot of criticism recently has been directed toward class action cases. In these cases, members of the class end up receiving coupons for some menial service, but the lawyers reap millions of dollars in fees, Quigley said.
“They take their fees off the top. Lawyers are not going to take coupons,” Quigley said.
Creative billing
One thing both plaintiff and defense lawyers agree on is that litigation is expensive. And corporate clients are increasingly looking for ways to cut costs.
“Clients are looking for alternative billing procedures. It’s just something they want a lot of,” said Peter Prieto, executive partner of Holland & Knight’s office in Miami. “They feel lawyers billing by the hour is inefficient and a disincentive for lawyers to be efficient.”
Prieto predicts law firms will have to devise more creative billing structures in the future.
Clients are increasingly asking for fixed fees and risk-sharing arrangements.
Prieto said larger firms don’t like to fix their fees because usually it’s hard to predict how much work an engagement will require until it is under way. When it comes to litigation, it is next to impossible.
“You never know what the other side will do,” Prieto said.
Also, he said, for the most part large firms don’t get involved in cookie-cutter type cases in which a fee could be set for a particular service. Fixed fees “are very rare, especially in high-end litigation,” he said. Discounts are another story.
Prieto said clients who bring lots of work to a firm expect a cut rate. There is push-pull between clients and attorneys as they work to balance fees and expectations.
“We need to work with our clients,” he said.
Gorson of Greenberg Traurig said larger clients also ask for alternative billing arrangements when they have high volume.
”Alternative billing doesn’t accomplish a great reduction in price. It gives greater assurance to the client to what they can expect,” he said.
When it comes to flat fees, he said the work has to be quantitative and similar: 1,000 eviction proceedings or 500 foreclosures.
Harvey Gurland, the administrative partner with the Miami office of Philadelphia-based Duane Morris, said law firms need to be flexible with their billing.
“There are times we start with an hourly basis and then something changes in six months and clients might need to go on a blended-rate basis,” he said. “You need to work with clients to make the right fit.”
Prieto says clients are also asking for other intangibles these days, such as ethnically diverse legal teams.
“They do it for altruistic reasons, but they also do it because they believe in tried cases a lot of juries are diverse and they want their lawyers to be reflective of that,” he said.
Clients also demand that the firms they work with keep pace with technology. They want to know if they can interface with your computer and inspect documents. They want you to have best technology available for their case.
Savvier clients
Rates are usually set by partners and firm executives. Marketing departments at firms sometimes do focus group studies with clients without lawyers present to get feedback on fees, as well as other issues.
Michael Short, vice president of Hildebrandt International, a legal consulting firm based in New Jersey, said clients are becoming more sophisticated in evaluating who does their legal work. Short said from his Washington office that billable hours make general counsel and other in-house lawyers cringe. “It’s like a runaway train that’s not going anywhere,” Short said.
As a result, clients have become savvier as to who does their outside legal work and are paying increasingly more attention to controlling their legal costs. They are more sophisticated at looking at their portfolio of cases, Short said, and may go with several firms rather than just one. Still, Short said there appears to be a stalemate. While corporate clients rally around cost control, the legal world wonders where risk meets reward.
“You hear from general counsels: ‘We want more predictability. We want to know how it’s going to turn out.’ And the experienced litigator says, ‘How are we going to know how it is going to turn out? Is it going to be settlement or summary judgment? How can we encapsulate all the potential outcomes into some kind of win-win arrangement?”
HK – Patricia J. Dillman v. Holland & Knight
In 1 on January 3, 2009 at 6:40 pmWashington, D.C., Case Spotlights the Mobility of Nonlawyers at Law Firms
Claim of tortious interference arises following a potential conflict of interest.
By Ashley Johnson
Paralegals and nonlawyers are very much aware of conflicts of interest when changing jobs between law firms. But how much time must a paralegal spend on a case for there to be a conflict and what protective measures are in place to ensure client confidentiality when paralegals accept a new position at a different firm? These are questions being raised by a recent case, Patricia J. Dillman v. Holland & Knight, in Washington, D.C.
In August 2007, Dillman, who had been employed with Holland & Knight as the director of litigation support since December 2004, interviewed with law firm Hughes Hubbard & Reed in New York for a position as the director of litigation support. On Sept. 6, 2007, she received an offer for employment with Hughes Hubbard, and on the same day, she resigned from her position at Holland & Knight, planning to start at Hughes Hubbard on Oct. 8, 2007. However, before starting at Hughes Hubbard, Dillman’s offer was rescinded after Holland & Knight brought a conflict of interest to Hughes Hubbard’s attention, reserving the right to move to disqualify Hughes Hubbard from the case in conflict if Dillman was hired.
Dillman filed a complaint against Holland & Knight on Nov. 17, 2007, for tortious interference with a contract. A judge dismissed the case on Feb. 22, on the grounds that no official contract was in place between Dillman and Hughes Hubbard; rather, it was a prospective contract. The complaint was amended to say that Holland & Knight interfered with prospective business relations, which immediately was followed by a second motion to dismiss by Holland & Knight. On May 16, Judge Odessa F. Vincent took Holland & Knight’s motion to dismiss under advisement and set a schedule for the case to proceed to the discovery phase.
The conflict in question involved a case, Reino De Espana v. American Bureau of Shipping, in which Holland & Knight represented the plaintiff and Hughes Hubbard the defendant, and on which Dillman billed 13.6 hours. She argues that her work didn’t allow her to acquire client confidences. According to Lynne Bernabei, attorney for Dillman and a partner at Bernabei & Wachtel in Washington, D.C., the time Dillman spent on the case mainly was to locate a vendor in Europe to copy documents related to the case. However, according to Robert Trout, attorney for Holland & Knight, the amount of time Dillman spent on the case doesn’t matter. “Number one: It doesn’t matter whether she worked on it for 13 hours or 1,300 hours if she got confidential information,” he said. “And number two: The law presumes that she did receive confidential information because there is no way to really inquire whether certain information was confidential or other information was not confidential unless you reveal that information, which you can’t do.”
“There’s a lot of mobility in particular among support staff or people in [Dillman]’s position or paralegals between law firms,” Bernabei said. “And I think the bar association, in terms of the ethical rules binding paralegals and other support personnel, has always realized that they’re not in the same position as lawyers who are in charge of a case. They’ve always been pretty careful not to restrict mobility based on these ethical concerns.”
While Dillman tried to negotiate with Holland & Knight before proceeding with her case, she felt that the two months’ salary offered to her was not adequate because, at the time of negotiation, she had been unemployed for three months and because the opportunity at Hughes Hubbard, which took her nine months to find, was rare. Dillman, who has worked in the legal field for 25 years, has no qualms about her decision to go forward with the case. “I really have a lot of faith that this will work out one way or another,” she said. “I really won’t regret ever taking this step toward resolving it in this manner because I really think that it’s a statement for myself personally, but I [also] think generally for those of us who need to be able to step up and try to do something to resolve a conflict like this.”
http://www.legalassistanttoday.com/news/archive/news_ja08.htm
HK – Software Solutions to the Billable Hour
In 1 on January 3, 2009 at 6:34 pmSoftware Solutions to the Billable Hour
Almost everyone in the legal community seems to hate the billable hour. Associates grumble that it turns them into machines. Clients complain that it is used to pad bills. Legal ethicists claim that it encourages fraud. Alas, according to a recent article on law.com, it seems that complex, database-driven software may now provide a solution.
At heart of the new software are complex mathematical models that help firms forecast what it will cost to perform a certain project, and thereby determine if it makes sense to offer an alternative billing arrangement for that project such as a flat fee. Available software packages include Dashboard from Redwood Analytics, proCube Legal Ease from Satori Group, Elite from Thomson, and Expert from Aderant.
The benefit to clients from flat fee billing is not necessarily lower costs as one might think. Instead, what clients say they really like is the predictability. That is, with a fixed fee (with perhaps some adjustment as a matter proceeds), explains Robin H. Sangston, assistant general counsel of Cox Enterprises Inc., there's "the peace of mind of knowing there is a set amount of money you're going to be spending."
Two firms cited for innovation in the area of alternative billing arrangements are McGuireWoods (which uses Thomson's Elite for forecasting) and Kilpatrick Stockton (which uses Dashboard from Redwood Analytics). Indeed, McGuireWoods last year launched an advertising campaign to publicize its alternative billing arrangements (see archived posts from the JD Bliss blog here and here).
Placating clients seeking predictable legal budgets is not the only motivation for developing alternatives to the billable hour. There's also the bad PR from getting accused of overbilling, or worse, getting caught. As was recently reported (see earlier post here), Matthew Farmer, a former junior partner at the Chicago law offices of Holland & Knight, recently resigned from the firm amid accusations that the firm had inflated the number of hours he had worked in connection with a litigation matter. Holland & Knight denies the accusations but certainly cannot be happy about the flap getting into the press. The law.com article also cites the cases of William P. DiSalvatore who resigned as partner from Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr in New York after admitting to creating fictitious billing records, and Patrick Carmody, a former tax partner at Willkie Farr & Gallagher in New York, who resigned and was later suspended for one year by the New York State Bar Association after he was caught billing $30,000 in personal calls to clients.
HK – Law Firm Billing Fraud
In 1 on January 3, 2009 at 6:27 pmLaw Firm Billing Fraud
Do law firms actively pressure attorneys to pad their hours? Does pressure to meet billable-hour requirements give associates incentive to exaggerate time spent on projects? Or does bill padding persist simply because lawyers are penalized for reporting it? And what's the client's role in all of this? These and other provocative questions are raised by the story discussed over at the Wall Street Journal Law Blog in a post by Ashby Jones about a recent incident of alleged billing fraud involving Holland and Knight. From the post (which references a WSJ article by Nathan Koppel):
After Matthew Farmer, a 42-year old junior partner with the firm, suspected that his own hours on a trial for home builder Pinnacle Corp. had been inflated by the partner in charge of billing, 62-year-old Edward Ryan, he blew the whistle on the firm. The firm took no action and denies Mr. Ryan or the firm did anything wrong. “The amount billed by Holland & Knight in the litigation was reasonable and appropriate,” says L. Kinder Cannon III, the firm’s general counsel. Mr. Ryan declines to comment. Last October, Mr. Farmer took a 7% pay cut to join Cohn Baughman & Martin, a 12-lawyer firm. He says he left because he was upset that Holland & Knight wasn’t acting against Mr. Ryan.
The article quotes two experts who offered their explanations behind law firm bill padding: professor Stephen Gillers, who states that "there is a general consensus that billing fraud has increased" as law firms seek to increase profits and attract top lawyers," and professor William Ross, who opines:
Bill-padding is the perfect crime," adds William Ross, a professor at Samford University's Cumberland School of Law in Birmingham, Ala. It is seldom detected because it is almost impossible for clients to know whether "an attorney really spent three hours doing research instead of five hours," he says.
Others in the blogosphere suggest that the billable hour is to blame for unethical billing practices, because it encourages practices like "rounding up" and padding time. But though I'm no fan of the billable hour (because of its inefficiencies), I can't blame the billable hour for cheating clients; rather, it's the attorneys who abuse the practice who cause the harm. And these types of unscrupulous lawyers would cheat clients under any fee methodology.
In my view, there are two reasons that billing fraud is tolerated. First, attorneys have no incentive to report billing fraud. Matt Farmer got off easy when he criticized his firm for inflating hours — he apparently left the firm voluntarily (though he took a pay cut to do so). A former colleague of mine wasn't so lucky: In her landmark ethics case that originated over 15 years ago, my former colleague's partners voted her out of the partnership after she complained in good faith about what she perceived as overbilling. She filed a suit for wrongful termination of the partnership agreement and won at the trial level. But the Texas Supreme Court overturned the decision, refusing to create a public policy exception to the at-will nature of a partnership for carrying out one's ethical obligations to report unethical conduct (such as overbilling). The dissent disagreed, with a quote from Huck Finn:
What's the use you learning to do right when it's troublesome to do right and ain't no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same?
But the other issue with billing fraud is that in some instances, and for reasons unbeknownst to me, corporate clients don't seem to care about overcharges. In my colleague's case, the client testified that it believed that the fees charged by the firm were reasonable. And I assume that in the Holland & Knight case, the client had never taken issue with fees and the firm did not want to rock the boat by raising the matter voluntarily. In large bankruptcy cases, neither debtors nor creditors utter a peep about what appear to ordinary observers as exhorbitant legal fees.
Why aren't corporate clients more bothered by claims of bill padding (or are they?)? Are they so satisifed with their attorneys or so enamored of the big-firm brand that they are willing to pay fees that some lawyers have questioned as unreasonable? Is bill padding so prevalent across the board that clients simply can't tell when they've been overcharged?
I find these issues of ethics and billing simply don't always apply themselves to bright line tests. But what's the answer? Eliminate the billable hour? Offer more protection to conscientious lawyers who come forward to complain about padded bills? Moreover, even if we want to pay more attention to making sure practices are ethical, as Professor Bainbridge points out here, it's often difficult to distinguish the unethical from the unsavory. And before we can even address any of these questions, we need to examine the threshhold issue: Are billing practices ever unethical when sophisticated clients, who ought to know better, don't complain?
HK – Attorney Ted Long on Time Management Software
In 1 on January 3, 2009 at 6:23 pmTed Long, an attorney with Holland & Knight, said his firm has time management software but said it "seems more efficient for me to jot it down. " The biggest time issue for attorneys is losing time," Long said. "The biggest issue for clients is making sure that there isn't excessive billing going on."
Holland & Knight utilize Extensity for expense reporting
In 1 on January 3, 2009 at 6:19 pmBUZZWORD CORNER – ERM SOFTWARE
Yet another new type of software and and another new TLA (three letter acronym) to contend with. This time it is the ERM system which, according to software developer Extensity Inc (01932 268720 – the UK office is in Weybridge) is shorthand for "employee relationship management" software.
So what can ERM do? Extensity describe ERM as "a new class of software that reduces operational costs by bringing efficiencies to a company's most valuable asset and largest expense: its workforce". The Extensity suite of ERM applications automates travel planning, expense reporting, project time capture and procurement to help firms streamline employee-based activities.
Extensity say a good example of ERM is its Expense Reports system which is currently being rolled out to 2000 users within the US law firm Holland & Knight. Using Extensity, Holland & Knight is moving from a manual paper-based expense reporting process to an automated one. The Holland & Knight deal was won by Elite which resells the Extensity products in the legal market. www.extensity.com
HK – Comments by Christopher Marston
In 1 on January 3, 2009 at 6:14 pmNo question. We are extremely passionate about the ethical issues we solve through transparency in pricing. You are probably aware of the Holland & Knight billing fraud scandal where a partner and whistleblower caught the firm billing for more than $100,000 in time that was never put it. What's worse, a Partner actually tried to justify the fraud, saying "that the amount of the bill was consistent with the value of time put in". . . . which is not only an admission of compelte fraud, but a statement of outrageous and out of control the system is. The problem: There is no federal body regulating this
perfect crime" and noone has an interest in speaking up. See my post on this case at: (Aug 31st Post) http://chrismarston.blogspot.com/2006_08_01_archive.html
perfect crime" and noone has an interest in speaking up. See my post on this case at: (Aug 31st Post) http://chrismarston.blogspot.com/2006_08_01_archive.html
Hopefully, we can inspire more professionals to be a part of the solution and examine the practices of our profession to create a better future.
Holland & Knight – Sergenti Tracker used for eBilling and Legal Matter Management.
In 1 on January 3, 2009 at 6:10 pmEdward Ryan, the H&K partner in charge of billing has been charged by the ARDC for falsifying client billings.
Holland & Knight is listed as working on Sergenti Tracker for Legal Matter Management.
Is this the tip of the iceberg? Should all Billing records of Sergenti be examined if their system allows for such manipulation?
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Check the lists below to see which of your large firms are already working on the system. To find out which of your smaller law firms and legal vendors are working on the system email us a complete list of your firms/vendors and we would be happy to check your complete list against those working on Serengeti. ■ 2008 AmLaw 200 List – 100% of which are working on Serengeti |
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Holland & Knight – Billable Hour Scandal?
In 1 on January 3, 2009 at 5:30 pmBillable Hour Scandal?
It's widely suspected that the relentless pressure to hit billable hour targets often pushes attorneys to inflate the time they spend on cases and transactions. William Ross, a professor at Samford University's Cumberland School of Law in Birmingham, Alabama, calls law firm bill padding the "perfect crime" – seldom detected since it is almost impossible for clients to know whether "an attorney really spent three hours doing research instead of five hours." Stephen Gillers, an ethics professor at New York University School of Law, adds "there is a general consensus that billing fraud has increased" as law firms seek to increase profits that will, in turn, help them pay top salaries to attract the best attorneys.
It is in this context that an article appeared on LawFuel (The Law News Network) today telling the story of Matthew Farmer, a former junior partner at the Chicago law offices of Holland & Knight, who had successfully represented a client of the firm in a copyright infringment litigation. Yet, only a few weeks after the victory, Farmer resigned from the firm amid accusations that the firm had inflated the number of hours he had worked on the case when billing the client. Farmer felt that state ethics rules required him to raise his concerns with the firm. Farmer is now working at Cohn Baughman & Martin, a 12-lawyer firm.
Holland & Knight denies any wrongdoing and recently settled an action with the client's insurer (who had paid the client's fees in the litigation).
See the full article on LawFuel here.
The story was also covered on the Wall Street Journal Law Blog here.
HK – Attorney Jerry Holisky examining Workers Comp issues for hired robots.
In 1 on January 3, 2009 at 5:23 pmJerry Holisky, OnDeckTechs attorney with Holland & Knight, said, were examining the issues surrounding workers compensation. Our initial concern is wage and hour law, and weve acted responsibly by ensuring she takes at least two 15 minute breaks each day, along with an hour for lunch. Whatever lunch may be."
Ralph Kastel, OnDeckTechs insurance agent, said, Robots can be covered. As long as theres an employee-employer relationship, so she may be included in payroll, we will have no trouble fulfilling health and dental benefits. As they may apply."
Holland & Knight One-Stop Law Firm Opens Door to Ethical Concerns
In 1 on January 3, 2009 at 2:09 pmCompetition Sprouts One-Stop Law Firms; Diversification Means Higher Profits But Opens Door to Ethical Concerns
By CRYSTAL NIX HINES
Need a private investigator? Try H & K Investigative Solutions. Want advice on how to win government subsidies for environmentally sound real estate projects? Turn to H & K Conservation Solutions. How about money management advice, a real estate feasibility study, evaluation of a merger or acquisition or documents translated into virtually any language in the world? H & K has business units to meet the need.
All of these enterprises, and several others, are not the work of some crazy-quilt conglomerate, but of a single law firm, Holland & Knight, based in Tampa, Fla.
''It was evident in the legal community four or five years ago that a multidisciplinary approach would be welcome by clients and was a cutting-edge issue,'' said Bill McBride, a managing partner at Holland & Knight. ''That's turned out to be correct.''
As competition among law firms has increased, associate salaries have skyrocketed and demand for ''one stop'' shopping has grown, a small but growing number of law firms are turning to nonlegal businesses as a way not only to serve their clients but also to lift the bottom line.
These businesses are the latest evolution in a legal market that has transformed law firms from small collections of general practitioners to highly specialized and global megafirms scrambling to generate more and more sources of wealth.
Firms engaged in such diversification have moved beyond the traditional fare of ''government relations,'' or lobbying, to a much broader array of businesses that were once entirely independent — everything from environmental consulting to human resources outsourcing, real estate title services to money management.
But some experts worry that the profession has not fully faced up to the potential consequences of this trend.
Advocates of this approach say that they can surmount any potential ethical concerns by ensuring that consultants and lawyers work on the same side of a transaction, and by carefully complying with rules that govern conflicts of interest and ethics.
Holland & Knight had been fired by HUD for conflicts of interest
In 1 on January 3, 2009 at 1:50 pmRichard Dunnells – A partner in the DC office of Holland & Knight (after the dissolution of Dunnells & Duvall in the early- to mid- 90s) specializing in HUD matters.� He represented Hamilton Securities in various HUD related matters while it served as Financial Advisor to HUD and also as counsel to HUD in connection with certain "portfolio reengineering" matters (after HUD agreed to waive any conflicts that might arise by reason of his representation of many clients before HUD), including the "place based trust" being structured when Hamilton's contract was cancelled.� In the Spring of 1997, an article appeared in the Wall Street Journal reporting that Holland & Knight had been fired by HUD for conflicts of interest relating to its portfolio reengineering representation of HUD.� Dunnells had been retained by Hamilton's first lien creditor, Franklin National Bank, to advise the bank regarding its lien on Hamilton's HUD receivables
HK – Kasim Reed Lawyer for the Rich and Racist
In 1 on January 3, 2009 at 1:18 pm
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Atlanta corporate attorney and Democratic Georgia state senator Kasim Reed was deeply distressed at our March 13 BC cover story "Blacks and Browns: The Need to Make Common Cause." We know because he told us so. BC spelled out the tale of Reed's shameful attempt to ape the demagogic meanness of Republicans on the immigration issue. In a bill that had no chance of passage, Reed proposed, among other things, to lock up anyone who applied for a job in Georgia with a fake ID for five years. With no detectable irony in his voice, Reed assured BC in a phone conversation that he was acting to "protect the jobs and living standards" of black families in Georgia. Let's be clear. Kasim Reed is no champion of working people in Georgia or anyplace else. Senator Reed is a corporate attorney, a partner in the transnational firm of Holland & Knight with offices in Palm Beach, Tel Aviv, metro DC, Atlanta, Beijing, and elsewhere. Holland & Knight is heavily involved in union busting, or as legal firms prefer to call it, "union avoidance" – advising employers how best to intimidate, coerce and selectively fire employees, how to bend, skirt and occasionally break the law to prevent formation of labor unions and break existing ones. The firm is a major anti-environmental player on the national stage, representing the chemical industry on Capitol Hill. It maintains deep connections with the Republican party, and its partners advise Republican state legislators on how best to disenfranchise black voters via the redistricting process in Georgia and other states.
We asked Reed about the incongruity between posing as an advocate of the rights of working families and the union busting practices of his law firm. Amazingly, the man told us that he couldn't be responsible for what all 13,000 lawyers at the firm actually did, and that he should be judged on his own record. Supposing for the moment that this is an acceptable answer, his bio page on the company web site tells us all we need to know about that record.
There it is. The black state senator who rails against brown immigrants for "taking black jobs" practices employment discrimination law – for employers – and civil rights law for the corporate violators of civil rights. With that bit of context firmly established, we here reprint Reed's email to us:
The only factual error in our BC cover story was that the Republican leader of the Georgia senate in 2002 wasn't a former Democrat. We never said Reed was a DLC member. We did call him a "DLC Democrat" because the DLC claimed him as "New Democrat of the Week" on their website. That's good enough. As for BC ignoring the damage Republicans do, we slammed Reed precisely for following the Republican lead on criminalizing immigration. And we didn't bore our readers with the employer sanctions aspect of Reed's bill because they are empty threats. Employer sanctions have been on the books since the 1980s. BC wasn't the only publication not to take Reed's bill any more seriously than he did. "…Reed had no hope of passing his bill," noted Atlanta's Creative Loafing newspaper. "… the plan was for it to be rejected by the GOP so Democrats wouldn't look soft on illegal immigration in the fall elections.''
In the real world, proposals to criminalize immigration or to lock up folks who apply for a job with a false ID are demagogic. Nobody is going to round up, imprison and deport millions of people back to their countries of origin. They may propose it to provoke divisions and get votes, but it's just not going to happen. The antics of senator Reed aside, immigration is an issue African Americans need to understand and to take seriously. The presence of millions of undocumented immigrants with no right to demand fair treatment gives the kind of greedy and/or racist employers whom Kasim Reed represents a choice. They can hire African Americans who are the most likely of all workers to join unions and stand up for themselves. Or they can hire the undocumented who dare not speak up for fear of jail or deportation. Needless to say, this is a bad bargain for immigrants and a worse one for African Americans. For black America, the immigration issue is all about labor market competition. So-called legal "guest worker" programs solve the labor market problem in favor of employers, by allowing an employer to directly "pull the trigger" and initiate deportation proceedings against immigrant workers who step out of line. Thus "guest worker" programs preserve the two-tier labor market that employers dearly love. Solving the labor market problem in favor of black America would require a level playing field where discrimination of all kinds is outlawed and everyone has the right to organize and join unions, to bargain collectively and to strike. Everybody.
Back in BC’s August 22, 2002, issue we printed a passage from black South Carolina Representative Jim Clyburn in which he told how, back in the early 1970s, as an aide to his state's governor, he ran across an economic development memo that was certainly not meant for his eyes:
We do too. Studies indicate that African American women are the most likely to organize and join unions, followed by African American men. Next most likely are Latino women, followed by Latino men, and finally white women followed by the least likely "joiners" of all – white men. Kasim Reed and his clients know this very well. One of the chief objectives of America's political class then, is to sow every possible obstacle in the path of these groups of likely joiners, blacks and browns, working together. For corporate America, nobody could make a better spearchucker against the "brown menace" than a black politician. Kasim Reed is just doing his job for his clients. Finally, in his letter, Reed claims that he took up the immigration issue because the federal government "failed to act." Leaving aside the principle that he failed to learn at Howard University Law School – that a state can no more have its own immigration policy than print its own currency or float its own navy – there are lots of other issues the federal government has failed to act on where states could conceivably take the progressive lead.
BC asked a local pastor, Rev. Timothy McDonald of Atlanta's First Iconium Baptist Church, what issues he would suggest Reed tackle, if it was about acting where the federal government failed:
We are afraid that if the thin-skinned senator and corporate attorney from Atlanta found BC's first mention of him displeasing, he won't like this issue any better. BC is not Black Enterprise, or Ebony magazine, or BET's "How I'm Livin'." Unlike these kinds of "black oriented media" the purpose of real journalism is not to market lifestyles and products. It's not to showcase the homes, careers and possessions of African Americans who have "made it." The press is the only profession with its own constitutional amendment so that it can fearlessly speak truth to power. The next time Kasim Reed wants some favorable press he should call up BET. Maybe they'll feature his place on the next "How I'm Livin'." BC Editor Bruce Dixon can be reached at bruce.dixon@blackcommentator.com. |
HK – Jonathan Brackett Crocker Sanctioned
In 1 on January 3, 2009 at 1:01 pmSanctions in Positive Technologies v. LG Display, et al.
A reader brought the sanctions ruling in the "Positive Technologies, Inc. v. LG Display Co., Ltd., and Toshiba America Consumer Products, L.L.C." (Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division, U.S. District Court, Civil No. 2:07 CV 67) case to my attention today.
Judge Ward writes:
On October 9, 2008, the court held a show cause hearing for why Jonathan Brackett Crocker (“Crocker”) should not be sanctioned for violating the standards of practice to be observed by attorneys practicing in this district.
Prior to the hearing, Crocker negotiated with the defendants to withdraw their Motion for Sanctions in return for an extension of time for discovery.
On August 27, 2008, James Brogan, representing the plaintiff, and Jennifer Ainsworth, representing the defendant, signed an “Agreement Re Withdrawal of Positive’s Motions for Sanctions and for Limited Extension of Discovery.”
The following day, August 28, 2008, the plaintiff withdrew its Motion for Sanctions. Having secured the agreement to withdraw the Motion for Sanctions, on August 29, 2008–one day later–Cocker wrote a letter to plaintiff’s counsel refusing to comply with the agreement.
The court has found that Crocker impeded justice by participating in discovery misconduct in this case. Crocker persuaded opposing counsel to withdraw a Motion for Sanctions the court was primed to hear. To secure that withdrawal, Crocker negotiated an agreement whereby the defendant would pay for depositions during an extended discovery time. As soon as he secured that withdrawal, Crocker notified opposing counsel he and his client would not be fully complying with that agreement.
Having found that Crocker violated the rules cited above, the court imposes the following sanctions:
1) Jonathan Brackett Crocker is formally sanctioned for professional misconduct on the record. If ever Crocker files any application for admission to any bar, when asked the question whether he has been sanctioned or disciplined for professional misconduct, the truthful answer to that question will be “yes.”
2) Should Crocker at any time desire to be admitted to this bar, he is directed that such application shall be directed to the undersigned Judge rather than through the normal administrative process.
3) By April 9, 2009, Crocker is to take seventeen hours of continuing legal education in area of professionalism and ethics…
4) The court finds that the Crocker’s biography on the Holland and Knight website is misleading. Crocker claims to be admitted to practice in this court without limitation. By October 19, 2008, Crocker is to have the website changed to reflect he is admitted only pro hac vice, for limited purposes only in this matter.
Holland & Knight Sanctioned for Discovery Abuse.
In 1 on January 3, 2009 at 12:56 pm
On November 30, 1993, the district court entered an order imposing sanctions for discovery abuse under Rule 37(b)(2) against both Holland & Knight…
Holland & Knight LLC / LLP / Involuntarily Dissolved by State of Illinois
In 1 on January 2, 2009 at 9:24 pmHolland & Knight LLC / LLP / Dissolved LLP
Attached are various contradicting filings of Holland & Knight indicating they operate as an LLC / LLP..
Interesting to see Edward Ryan, who has been charged by the ARDC, as the agent for Holland & Knight LLC.
State of Illinois indicates Holland & Knight LLP was been involuntarily dissolved in 2004, 2005.
Silva now a Holland & Knight Contract Attorney
In 1 on January 2, 2009 at 8:57 pm|
Author: scorpios
Subject: yeah, big law partner Time: February 9, 2008 – 11:59 am Cocaine addiction, forgery, false notarizations, and lying to a client and a fellow partner. The alleged ethical violations by former Holland & Knight partner Theodore Silva Jr. are piling up. Silva already is suspended from practicing law in Virginia for failing to pay dues and complete continuing education requirements. On Jan. 31, the Virginia State Bar Disciplinary Board added a public reprimand with conditions after he failed to report his guilty plea to a felony cocaine possession charge in 2002. The D.C. Bar Counsel is now seeking Silva’s disbarment in the District over his admitted misconduct while representing a client at Holland & Knight in a complex real-estate deal, which led to his firing in 2006 after 12 years with the firm. In 2005, Silva failed to complete an easement relocation agreement for a commercial real-estate deal at 15th and L Streets in Northwest Washington and then lied to the client and another partner about the status of the agreement, according to a D.C. Bar Counsel report last month. Silva “then forged the signatures of the other parties to the agreement, which he also falsely notarized, and presented the agreement with the forged signatures and notarizations to his client and the client’s trustee for their signatures,” the report stated. Silva's misconduct was revealed four months later when an attorney for an adjoining-property owner told Silva’s client and the other parties that the easement agreement had never been finalized. Holland & Knight then fired Silva and reported his actions to the D.C. Bar Counsel. Silva has admitted that he violated four D.C. Bar rules but is challenging four other alleged violations. Timothy Battle, a solo practitioner in Alexandria, Va., who is representing Silva, has argued for a suspension of six months or less for “this single example of stupid conduct in an otherwise impressive and productive 18-year career,” according to his response brief. Silva may have sunk the ship with his own testimony before a hearing committee last December where he said he didn’t consider himself to be honest and trustworthy. “I think that I can get over on everybody and that I can manipulate people, and that is what led me to this, is that I can pull this out of the hat and I did it a thousand times,” he testified. The Bar Counsel is awaiting the hearing committee's recommendations on discipline before proceeding to the D.C. Board on Professional Responsibility. Silva has argued for lighter discipline because his misconduct was caused by alcohol and cocaine addictions, depression, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The Bar Counsel rejected those arguments, stating that Silva didn't provide sufficient proof that he suffered from depression or ADHD. The Bar Counsel also found cocaine addiction isn’t a valid defense because it is an illegal drug, and Silva's alcohol addiction didn’t cause him to engage in the misconduct. Holland & Knight lost a big chunk of change because of Silva, according to the Bar Counsel report. Another partner had to complete the easement agreement for free, which required 50 hours of work at $400 per hour. The firm also paid about $10,000 to the client for construction delays and $105,000 to reimburse the other parties for their attorney fees. Holland & Knight partner Stephen Bogorad declined to comment yesterday on Silva's disciplinary case. Silva, who has no prior record of discipline since joining the D.C. Bar in 1988, has been working as a contract attorney and is not representing clients. As part of his disciplinary proceedings, he is prohibited from using any recreational drugs and must file random drug test results every quarter. His guilty plea for cocaine possession was vacated in 2005, and the felony charge was dismissed after he completed probation. Silva entered an in-patient drug treatment program last December and may stay for up to six months, Battle says. “I hope he does well," says Battle. "This is a step up and hopefully a step toward a major and permanent improvement." |
| Author: scorpios Subject: K atty Time: February 9, 2008 – 12:04 pm Silva, who has no prior record of discipline since joining the D.C. Bar in 1988, has been working as a contract attorney and is not representing clients. One word…..DAMN……. |
Greenpeace Investigations – Holland & Knight Lobby report
In 1 on January 2, 2009 at 8:51 pmHolland & Knight 2007 Lobby Report.
HK – Partner David Kahn orders each attorney to bill at least 175 hours per month.
In 1 on January 2, 2009 at 8:50 pm—-Original Message—–
From: xxxxxx@hklaw.com [mailto:xxxxx@hklaw.com]
Sent: Wednesday, May 05, 2004 12:57 PM
To: MAR-RealEstateSection-Associate@hklaw.com
Cc: xxxxx@hklaw.com
Subject: Billable Hours
Average billable hours for DC real estate associates in the first 4 months of 2004 are disappointing. Most of you are averaging less than 150 hours/month. THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE. If we didn’t have the work in the door, that would be one thing. However, we have lots of work, much of which is being exported to other offices because many of you have indicated that you’re not available to help out when asked.
I don’t mean to be an ogre, but I need you to pick up the slack. Each of you must try your best to bill AT LEAST 175 hours per month. I want to see people in their offices at night and on weekends. If you are light, call me immediately and I will find you work. If you turn down work, be prepared to explain to me why you did so if your monthly numbers for that month show that you billed less than 200 hours.
I try to treat all of you like adults. However, this is a business, and I need you to help us make money. If you do not wish to perform at the production level we require, please let me know and you can shift over to part-time work. Please call me if you have any questions.
David S. Kahn
Holland & Knight LLP
2099 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Suite 100
Washington, DC 20036
(202) XXX-XXXX