Legal News

When Lawyers Get in Hot Water, Should They Be Washed Away?

By Amir Efrati

When BigLaw lawyers are accused of crimes, should their firms presumed them innocent until proven guilty?

That’s the question being asked by the Chi-town Trib this morning after Mark McCombs, a municipal law partner at Greenberg Traurig, was terminated last week by the firm after being accused of stealing more than $1 million from a client.

The client and alleged victim is the village of Calumet Park, a suburb of Chicago where McCombs is from, and which named a street after him. Cook County authorities have alleged that McCombs billed the village for work he never performed.

McCombs did not pocket the money, state prosecutors said, but it enhanced his prestige, billable hours and opportunities for more pay at Greenberg, according to the Trib.

Michael Gillespie, McCombs’ attorney, told the Trib that Greenberg Traurig jumped to conclusions. “I wish it would have taken some time to let this thing develop a little bit before firing him,” Gillespie told the newspaper.

Michael Frisch, who teaches legal ethics at Georgetown University Law Center, told the Trib that Greenberg is acting responsibly to protect McCombs’ clients and the firm’s reputation.

Another Chicago-based firm, Mayer Brown, took a different tack recently when partner Joseph Collins was charged with aiding the fraud by commodities firm Refco, which was a client. The firm placed Collins on leave after he was indicted in 2007. Collins resigned in July of last year after he was convicted.

More recently, Ropes & Gray terminated an associate in New York who has been charged with participating in an insider-trading conspiracy but has pleaded not guilty. (A different former Ropes associate has pleaded guilty and is cooperating in the case.)

A Greenberg Traurig spokeswoman told the newspaper that the firm removed McCombs based on preliminary allegations filed by Cook County prosecutors as well as its own inquiry Friday afternoon.

“Separate from the charges, based on what we were able to learn quickly on Friday afternoon, in evaluating the situation, we determined that termination was the right course of action,” the spokeswoman said.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on March 09, 2010 (boomark / email).