Lawyer Pleas in Case Charging that He Bilked Firm and Clients
UPDATE: Latham & Watkins has confirmed that Samuel Fishman, who pleaded guilty today to bilking clients and his firm, worked at Latham. Here is the firm’s statement:
“As reflected in the statements from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, our firm discovered the issues relating to Mr. Fishman in 2005, immediately acted to protect our clients fully, and disclosed the matter to appropriate law enforcement authorities. Mr. Fishman resigned from the firm at the time the issues were discovered. Since that time, we have cooperated fully with the investigation,” said David Gordon, Latham & Watkins’ New York office managing partner.
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Here’s an update on our earlier post about Samuel A. Fishman, the lawyer who was at major firm and was alleged to have charged clients and the law firm hundreds of thousands of dollars for personal and non-existent business expenses. He has pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud and is slated to be sentenced in June. (Our thanks to Chad Bray of the Dow Jones Newswires, who is at the courthouse.)
Here is the criminal information.
The criminal information and papers from the U.S. attorney’s office say Fishman, 50 of New Jersey (age corrected from an earlier version), was a lawyer in the corporate department of a major U.S. law firm with offices in the U.S., Europe and Asia. SEC documents show a Samuel A. Fishman was a lawyer at Latham & Watkins. It was not confirmed whether they were the same person. The law firm did not return several calls and emails this afternoon seeking comment.
The criminal information says that, upon discovering the scheme, the law firm reimbursed its clients hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenses.
The information says Fishman was the billing partner for a number of the firm’s institutional clients, including clients in banking, utilities, telecommunications and entertainment. From 1993 through 2005, it says, Fishman mischaracterized on invoices certain expenses, such as non-reimbursable meals and parking fees, as reimbursable expenses, such as photocopying and express mail, amounting to more than $200,000 of mischaracterized expenses. He also sent client invoices that inflated actual costs to the firm, amounting to $100,000 of non-existent expenses, the information says. It says that he also falsely represented personal expenses, such as hotel bills, as reimbursable business expenses.
FIRST!!!!!
A law school professor has referred to large law firm billing as the “perfect crime”. Unfortunately for this fellow he acted alone and not within the internal system.
Mail fraud for using USPS to send inflated bills is just like how Tom Cruise took down “The Firm.”
I hear he works with Billy DiSalvatore now
The way the Information reads, it appears that most of the phony billing benefited the firm as a whole because clients were paying the inflated bills to the firm. Apparently Fishman also billed the firm for some personal expenses that he falsely claimed were for business, but those charges seem to be entirely separate from the phony bills to clients that he caused the firm to send out. What was his motive for falsely billing clients for expenses if those bills were paid to the firm? Yes, he’d presumably get an indirect benefit as a partner, but it would seem to be pretty diluted. I wonder what more there is to this.
The question is: Who ratted him out?
usually schemes like this are used to fund daily cash flow needs for pharmaceutical products or spitzer like female entertainment - bizarre because he was probably earning an average of $1mm a year or more over that period - seems like chicken feed - but an occasional $500-1,000 of reimbursed fictitious expenses (non reeipted meals, parking, etc) is not uncommon when funding these recreational habits. The number is probably far higher but the government / firm decided to stop digging when they had enough mud.
Not the first Latham partner to be caught in substantial expense billing crime, so they probably had audit procedures in place that eventually caught up with him. But could have been a clerk.
The important question isn’t “who ratted him out” but “how can i be more like him.” I guess he was “allegedly” able to get away with the overbilling for over 12 years at a major law firm. I wish I had that sort of charisma to get with that charade…not that i would partake but I’m sure more doors would be opened for me if i were. Damn those charismatic people and their likeability!!! They will fool us all.
nice job, Latham. Way to hire some quality attorneys.
Anyone interested in starting to post the names of the most egregious overbilling parters? Shall I start?
Somebody at Latham doing something criminal?
I always wondered how The Fish was able to take us out to Per Se with a flock from the Emperor’s Club. Now I understand why he offered to pay for everything, every time.
BTW, the “gaze out the window” comment rings so true. Third years at Latham bill 1000 hours annually doing tasks a paralegal should do in half the time for 10% of the cost.
My gosh, I vaguely remember Fishman as a fellow associate at another big firm (shall I name?) before he moved to Latham. How the mighty have fallen. I suspect even Fishman didn’t truly comprehend how out of hand he had gotten until he was caught(no excuse). Very sad.
Law firm over-billing (a) is,(be) has been , or (c) will always be (take yer pick!)a contentious issue. Now and then someone gets caught with his/her hand in the client’s cookie jar. Law firms sometimes aid and abet such practices. Our major clients typically inform us up front that all of out bills and invoives and subject to audits. It keep everyone ( or at leaat most of us) a bit more honest than we would rather become accustomed.
This is why we spare no expense to audit the living snot out of our counsel at random intervals. It is ALWAYS worth the time and money.
How about another l&w lawyer doing something unethical:
why is Paul Young still listed as “of counsel” on the Milberg Weiss website. Doesn’t Milberg Weiss know that El Mirage is tied to organized crime? See the new details at http://bitterqueen.typepad.com/history_of_gay_bars_in_ne/2007/12/current-gay-bar.html
Although I have no affiliation with Latham & Watkins, I have substantial knowledge of the case being discussed. Latham was a victim, not a cp-conspirator. Mr. Fishman bilked clients AND the firm out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, much of which ended up in Mr. Fishman’s pockets. Latham was further harmed in that it immediately conducted an extensive audit of all of Mr. Fishman’s billing acitivities (at considerable expense) and reimbursed clients hundreds of thousands of dollars, even though most of the money ended up in Mr. Fishman’s, not the firm’s, pockets. I know lawyers and law firms are easy targets for ridicule. But based on my knowledge, Latham acted admirably in response to Mr. Fishman’s fraud.
I don’t know if it I would go as far as to call the way Latham acted “admirable.” I would tone that down a notch. I would say that Latham acted adequately at best. Sure the paid back a chunk of money. But what was the alternative? Tell a bunch of institutional banking and energy clients that “one of our ex-partners stole your money.. but we aren’t paying you back. See you in court.” Acting admirably would have been another partner cathing this before it occured for 12 years.
This is hardly the last word on Latham. There’s a lot more to this story. See: www.ExposeCorruptCourts.blogspot.com
