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Fifteen years ago today, Bernie Madoff was arrested in what would become one of the largest Ponzi schemes ever uncovered. Madoff himself died two years ago, but the lawyers tasked with sorting out the $65 billion financial mess he left behind are still working, reports David Thomas.
More than $14.6 billion has been recovered for Madoff’s victims so far by Irving Picard, the court-appointed trustee overseeing the liquidation of Madoff’s firm, and his legal team. Picard has estimated that Madoff’s fraud cost his customers $17.5 billion.
The case has been a windfall for Picard, 82, and his law firm, 1,000-attorney Baker & Hostetler. Since Picard’s appointment the month of Madoff’s arrest, they have been awarded more than $1.5 billion in fees, court records show. As of November 2022, that represented about 17% of Baker & Hostetler’s revenues, according to a Reuters analysis of court records and law firm data from The American Lawyer — an unusually large proportion from one case for a firm its size.
Picard and Baker & Hostetler declined to comment.
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- Boies Schiller Flexner said that its partners elected Matthew Schwartz to succeed its prominent co-founder David Boies as chair of the firm in 2025. Schwartz, a former federal prosecutor whose practice includes internal investigations, white-collar defense and complex civil litigation, will lead the firm until 2028.
- The U.S. legal services sector added 3,300 jobs in November, nearing a record high set last year, according to Labor Department data. Legal sector jobs totaled 1,186,700 last month, with the majority being lawyers, according to preliminary seasonally adjusted data.
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That’s how much Stanford Law is putting into an unusual student loan alternative that sets repayment at 10% of graduates’ income, whether they work in private practice, public interest jobs or elsewhere. After an initial round funded by donations, the school has taken over funding for the Flywheel Fund for Career Choice—the first “income share agreement” program offered at a U.S. law school. That program debuted last year with 20 students receiving a maximum of $170,000 upfront to cover their law school tuition.
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The U.S. Chamber of Commerce – a stalwart foe of both mass arbitration and litigation finance – could not have dreamed up a more vivid illustration of the purported perils of both than a lawsuit by gaming company Valve. Alison Frankel details Valve’s accusations against the small plaintiffs firm that amassed a client list of 50,000 Valve customers and the hedge fund that backed the effort. You’re going to want to see the red-hot documents Valve is citing.
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“I am forever denied the chance to hold her or her future children in my arms.“
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—Steve St. Juliana, whose 14-year-old daughter, Hana, was killed when Ethan Crumbley opened fire at Oxford High School outside of Detroit in 2021. St. Juliana was one of the parents who spoke at Crumbley’s sentencing after he pleaded guilty to killing four of his classmates and wounding six more and a teacher. Crumbley was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
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- On Monday, a trial is set to begin in a lawsuit by a former federal public defender in North Carolina who alleges the the judiciary violated her constitutional rights by being deliberately indifferent to her complaints of sexual harassment. Caryn Strickland claims that she was sexually harassed by a superior and stonewalled in her efforts to have the judiciary address her complaint. She previously testified before Congress in favor of greater legal protections for the judiciary’s 30,000 employees, who unlike other workers are not protected against sexual harassment under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
- On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Stephen McGlynn in East St. Louis, Illinois, is holding a hearing on a motion for a preliminary injunction against Illinois’ requirement that owners of guns deemed assault weapons register their firearms by Jan. 1, 2024. A group called Federal Firearms Licensees of Illinois has challenged the law as unconstitutional, arguing in part that because there are criminal consequences associated with failing to register, the state does not properly notify people affected.
- On Wednesday, A closed-door mediation hearing for settlement talk is scheduled in a lawsuit by three female graduate students at Harvard University accusing the Ivy League school of ignoring for years the sexual harassment of students by a professor who they said threatened their academic careers if they reported him. The lawsuit claimed John Comaroff, an anthropology professor, for years kissed and groped students and threatened to sabotage students’ careers if they complained. Comaroff, who is not a defendant, has denied harassing any student, and his lawyers said a review by Harvard did not find him responsible for retaliating against the plaintiffs.
- On Thursday, Martin Shkreli will ask the 2nd Circuit to overturn a judge’s decision banning him from the pharmaceutical industry for life and requiring him to pay $64.6 million after raising the price of the anti-parasitic drug Daraprim and fighting to block generic competitors. U.S. District Judge Denise Cote in Manhattan imposed the ban in January 2022 after the FTC and seven states accused Shkreli, who founded Vyera Pharmaceuticals, of using illegal tactics to keep Daraprim rivals off the market.
- Also Thursday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler in San Francisco will hear arguments as the SEC seeks to force Elon Musk to testify in the regulator’s investigation into his $44 billion takeover of Twitter, now known as X. Musk has said the SEC’s subpoena exceeds the agency’s investigative authority, is overly burdensome and seeks “irrelevant evidence.” Several former SEC officials told Reuters the SEC is on solid ground and the law enforcing the requirements of investigative demands, or subpoenas, is clear cut.
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Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
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- The Texas Supreme Court temporarily blocked a pregnant woman from obtaining an emergency abortion, shortly after the state’s attorney general requested the block. Erin Cox had won a court order on Thursday for the abortion because her fetus was diagnosed with a deadly abnormality, arguing that forcing her to carry the pregnancy to term would rob her of her ability to have future children.
- Amazon.com asked a federal judge to dismiss a federal antitrust lawsuit that accuses the company of using illegal strategies to boost profits at its online retail empire. In its motion to dismiss, Amazon said the FTC, in a lawsuit filed in September, confused “common retail practices” with anticompetitive conduct and failed to identify harm to consumers.
- A 4th Circuit panel appeared unlikely to let South Carolina cut off Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood, which the organization and a patient argue would violate Medicaid patients’ right to choose their providers. Circuit Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson told John Bursch of the conservative legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, who was arguing for the state, that he did not understand why the state would “go to such lengths” to prevent the patient in the case from getting care from Planned Parenthood.
- The 2nd Circuit upheld much of a New York gun control law enacted after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year expanded gun rights but blocked the state from enforcing new restrictions against carrying firearms on private property open to the public. The three-judge panel also barred the Democratic-led state from enforcing a provision that required concealed carry permit applicants to disclose their social media accounts.
- Warner Music, Sony Music and several of their subsidiaries have sued internet service provider Altice in East Texas federal court, accusing it of enabling mass copyright infringement by turning a blind eye to subscribers’ music piracy. The lawsuit said that Altice USA, a unit of French telecom and cable group Altice Europe N.V., has “gone out of its way” to avoid taking action against repeat infringers in order to attract and keep subscribers.
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