Legal News

A Baker Botts Mini-Mystery: Did the Firm Work for Allen Stanford?

By Ashby Jones

Baker Botts represented defendant R. Allen Stanford in the formation of defendant Stanford International Bank.

– Attorneys for Allen Stanford, in a filing made on Tuesday

We have no record of ever having represented Allen Stanford . . . or Stanford International Bank . . . We did not represent anyone in the formation of Stanford International Bank.

— Baker Botts spokesman Michael Cinelli to Bloomberg on Tuesday

Well, it looks like we’ve got a Texas-sized difference of opinion, doesn’t it?

This bizarre disagreement sprang up on Tuesday after lawyers for Stanford asked a federal judge in Texas to disqualify Baker Botts from representing Ralph Janvey, the receiver appointed to run the Stanford’s businesses. Click here for the Bloomberg story; here for the motion itself.

According to Bloomberg, Cinelli said Baker Botts represented a related party for several months in the mid-1980s regarding the subject of doing business in the Caribbean generally. "That work involved two meetings and a total of 5 1/2 hours of time" for which the firm billed $850, he said.

Both the associate and partner who did that work left the firm "many years ago," Cinelli said. The prior work bears no relationship to the work we are doing for the receiver," he said. "We do not have a conflict of interest."

Ruth Brewer Schuster, a Stanford lawyer, wrote in the filing that a former client has the right to seek disqualification of his former lawyers when they represent an adversary in a matter "substantially related" to the prior engagement. Janvey didn't respond to an e-mailed request for comment from Bloomberg.

Stanford has been accused by the SEC of running an $8 billion Ponzi scheme; Stanford has maintained his innocence.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on June 17, 2009 (boomark / email).