Paralegals & Legal Secretaries

Paralegal Claims Attorney is 'Sexual Predator' Who Defrauded Clients

By ParalegalGateway.com

That's really the only possible reaction after reading paralegal Angela Robinson's complaint against Texas plaintiffs giant Richard Laminack, filed in trial court this month.

The lawsuit, which seeks $55,000 for wrongful termination and other causes, accuses Laminack of demanding sexual favors from male and female employees, encouraging Robinson to perform sex acts on a witness who was not "doing well" during a deposition, and hatching a scheme to defraud plaintiffs in Fen-Phen cases.

Laminack was not immediately available for comment, according to a secretary at his firm.

Robinson, who was fired in April, claims Laminack behaved this way during his days with partner John O'Quinn and after establishing his own firm of Laminack, Pirtle & Martines in 2002.

"Laminack's trysts are both a well-known and established part of the firm's 'lore,'" the complaint says.

Robinson, who claims she was fired after threatening to blow the whistle on her boss, says Laminack forced her to work overtime without pay in preparing for the Fen-Phen cases. Perhaps more damning, Robinson says Laminack ordered checks on non-existent medical records for Fen-Phen clients and then docked the cost of the records checks from the clients' settlement shares.

Laminack and O'Quinn, of course, are not strangers to controversy; a federal judge once accused the firm of faking diagnoses among possible plaintiffs who supposedly inhaled silica dust to build a class action case.

Robinson is represented by McKinney & Cooper.

Full post as published by ParalegalGateway Blawg on July 29, 2008 (boomark / email).