Trial Lawyer Sleaze Claims More Victims
Aug 21st, 2008 | By Dan Pero | Category: Tort Reform, Trial Lawyers |
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A Virginia trial lawyer “pleaded guilty to embezzling millions of dollars from clients who had suffered serious injuries to fund a lavish lifestyle” that included a six-bedroom mansion in Virginia horse country and a mountain ski chalet, according to a story in today’s Washington Examiner.
It seems trial lawyer Stephen Conrad was filing personal injury claims, then settling the cases and keeping all the money without ever telling his clients. Conrad has admitted to forging signatures of at least 50 clients on settlement claims and pocketing at least $3.5 million. Investigators believe Conrad “left about 250 victims in his wake.”
Despite Conrad’s stolen millions, he still has an uphill battle to win induction to the Sleazy Trial Lawyer Hall of Fame. In fact, Conrad looks like a petty thief next to disgraced trial lawyer kingpins Bill Lerach, Melvyn Weiss and Dickie Scruggs – who scored hundreds of millions in legal fees but were all recently convicted of paying kickbacks to client front-men (Lerach and Weiss) or bribing judges (Scruggs).
If we are ever hope to really and truly clean up the legal profession and force some ethics and accountabiliy to the electorate into the this renegade profession there is one crucial and mandatory step we MUST take -, and take ASAP! That crucial and indispensable reform action is that the NON- lawyer electorate majority MUST seize “majority numbers” administrative and operational control
of all 50 state attorney discipline bureaucracies -, in all phases of the disciplinary process.,
That includes alerting and informing the public of the existence of the attorney discipline bureaucracy in each state, the contact information and the procedures for filing a complaint against an attorney or a judge. That non lawyer majority administration and control must also include accepting ,processing
and investigating formal complaints against attorneys and having majority authority in determinging the level of discipline to be imposed on an attorney or judge -, and formalizing and imposing that discipline. As long as we the majority electorate continue to tolerate the current “fox guarding the chicken house” attorney “discipline” bureaucracies -, we will be “jacking our jaw” and whining about crooked attorneys and judges till “Hell freezes over” -, becasue we will never clean up, reform and “disinfect the profession” -, nor the courts and the legislatures that shyster attorneys migrate to..
For starters I suggest that we start by joining HALT at http://www.halt.org which is the most respected and effective legal reform and educational organization in the country. When HALT’s web site comes up click on “Reform Projects”, then click on “Lawyer Accountability” and finally click on “2006 Lawyer Discipline Report Cards”. Last click on the map state by state to see the grades for each state attorney “discipline” bureaucracy. You are in for a very shocking and infuriating “education” but you will also learn how we can “turn the tables” and clean up the horrible mess that has come to define our “legal system”.
You will note that I have posted my name, city and state because it’s time for all of us to quit
“standing behind a safety net” and “taking potshots from a safe, anonymous and impotent distance”. Unless we have the “courage of our convictions” and are willing to “step up to the plate” we might as well keep our mouths shut –, and quit “whining and snivelling about the bullies who are beating America to death” -, legally, politically and financially..
Ivan L. Fail, Sparta, Missouri
(2 time veteran of bully boy, frivolous lawsuit shyster lawyers) -,one of them the lackey lawyer for mob enforcer, contract killer and loan shark Harold “Kayo” Konigsberg. And yes you can “google him up” and read about him. You can also read the book about him in “Blood Relation” by Eric Konigsberg or the story “The Gorilla Cowed His Keepers” in the June 25, 1971 issue of Life magazine.
May be a little insurance reform might help as well:
http://www.attorneybutler.net/2008/08/aig-denies-iraq.html