Re: WHAT IS MoFO DOING WITH THE CASH?

>Vera Wallace (vera@earthlink.net) wrote:
# But, I am now very concerned about the ethics of a lawfirm just receiving # cash donations directly from individuals. How can anyone know how these # funds are being spent, if they are being spent for legitimate expenses or # if the monies are being siphoned off for other activities.

A donor have the right to ask for a detailed invoice of what was done with his/her donation. If somebody is not a donor, and he/she does not represent a donor, it is not his/her business.

#Not to knock # the profession, but attorneys have been known to pad their bills and # expenses in order to soak up money from a client.

This is illegal and a lawyer can lose his/her license for that. Double billing (billing two clients for the same time) is also illegal. If you have any proof for something like this then several California state agencies will be very interested.

#In this case, we have # a large firm representing Erlich for nothing, so anything could be # happening with these funds coming in to their account.

The amount of money is relatively small, and the risk is high. I don't think a large law firm will take such a risk.

In article <noodleD91sAt.CH3@netcom.com> noodle@netcom.com (Rick Sherwood) writes:

> Yes, this is getting serious. The California States attorney and the
> California Department of State should look into this whole thing.
If the state has a good reason to suspect that a fraud was committed then it can present the evidence to a court and ask to view the law firm's records. I don't think that you (or the state) has enough evidence to justify such an action.

> This is not a wild west show and the way that cash is shifting
>around, well, I think this indicates the possibility of other untoward
>activities.
A lawyer in California gets more than $100 per hour. The law firm gave this case a *good* work according to Erlich. Had the lawyers worked on other cases then they could probably bill the clients for an amount which is larger than what was collected in the fund. In other word, taking this case was not the best way to make money, legally or not.

Assuming that the law firm gave up big money by representing Erlich, and then stole relatively small amount of money just does not make any sense.

> Vera, push this. Woody
It's probably a dead end; why do you waste your efforts?

Hillel gazit@cs.duke.edu

"Love your enemies: they'll go crazy trying to figure out what you're up to."