- Lerach and Weiss Reflect
There has been a significant amount of buzz over the Bloomberg story by Carlyn Kolker about the ex-con lives of William Lerach and Mel Weiss, once the leaders of Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach, who were convicted of a kickback scheme that involved paying people to serve as plaintiffs in their shareholders suits. As the investigation was going on, Lerach split to form his own firm, which became Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins (and will be soon known as Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd). Weiss, who is 74 and was known as “pops” in prison, said he was enjoying freedom and playing a lot of golf. Lerach, 64, said he was thinking of teaching at a law school and working with a progressive think thank. Kolker reached him while he was in Colorado on a ski vacation. Most observers suspected that the $8 million Lerach paid to the government in addition to the two-year sentence wasn't going to hit him too hard in the pocket, given his astounding earnings when he practiced, much of them apparently resulting from illegal behavior.
The Milberg firm is still going strong, according to a partner there. The firm agreed to pay the government $75 million as part of the criminal case, and it's ahead of schedule in a five-year payment plan. "Over the past couple of years, while everybody has been laying off lawyers and cutting pay, we've been giving lawyers raises and extra bonuses," said partner Matthew Gluck.
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| 07:50 PM Mar 22, 2010 | Email the Daily Dragon | Email this Article | Post Comments |
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