Legal News

Lawyerless in Texas? The Latest Twist in the Allen Stanford Case

By Ashby Jones

Does R. Allen Stanford really not have a lawyer?

Reports seem to indicate that the founder and head of the Stanford Financial Group, accused of an $8 billion fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission nearly a month ago, has not hired counsel to handle the case. And neither has Stanford’s top lieutenant, James Davis. Click here for the story, from AmLaw Daily’s Zach Lowe.

Charles Meadows, a name partner at Meadows, Collier, Reed, Cousins & Blau who represented Stanford at a brief hearing last week, is no longer representing Stanford. And Paul Coggins of Fish & Richardson, who has been in talks to represent Davis, has not registered an appearance for Davis since then. We placed a called to Williams & Connolly’s Brendan Sullivan, whom we recently reported had been tapped by Stanford, but have yet to hear back.

So what’s the deal? A lawyer close to the situation says that Stanford is stuck. On the one hand, the Sixth Amendment right-to-counsel doesn’t kick in until someone is criminally indicted, which hasn’t yet happened to Stanford. (The only person who has been criminally charged in the Stanford situation is Laura Pendergest-Holt, who is using a team from the Salt Lake City-based firm Parsons Behle & Latimer in her civil dustup with the SEC and Houston-based attorney Dan Cogdell in her criminal case.) On the other hand, a court-appointed receiver, Houston lawyer Ralph Janvey, has frozen pretty much all of Stanford’s assets.

The lawyer we spoke to said while he’d “love to get involved,” the money simply isn’t there. “You’d need $3 or $4 million to really get this case off the ground in the way it needs to be handled. And it’s not there.”

The lawyer said he thought it was “totally unfair” for a judge to authorize the freezing of money without allowing Stanford access to money to pay a lawyer.

We placed a call to Ralph Janvey, the receiver, but have yet to hear back. We’ll let you know if we do.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on March 13, 2009 (boomark / email).