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Judiciary

Former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice agrees to license suspension for alleged election-review misconduct

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 11, 2025, 11:00 am CDT

Former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael J. Gableman has agreed to the suspension of his law license to resolve an ethics complaint that stems from his investigation of the 2020 election for the Wisconsin State Assembly.

Gableman and the Wisconsin Office of Lawyer Regulation agreed a three-year suspension of Gableman’s law license is an appropriate sanction in a stipulation signed on April 7 and filed with the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The court must approve the suspension.

The stipulation acknowledges that Gableman can’t successfully defend against the misconduct allegations.

The Associated Press, Reuters and the Washington Post have coverage. Law Forward had filed a grievance against Gableman, according to a press release.

Gableman’s $2.3 million election review did not find significant fraud, according to past reporting by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The ethics complaint accused Gableman of failing to tell a legislative committee about cooperation by the cities of Madison and Green Bay in Wisconsin and falsely stating in court documents that the cities’ mayors had failed to appear for depositions without justification.

He was also accused of criticizing a judge instead of responding to questions during a court hearing on a group’s public-records request in Dane County, Wisconsin. He claimed that Judge Frank Remington “has abandoned his role as a neutral magistrate” and later said, “You want to put me in jail, Judge Remington? I’m not gonna be railroaded.”

“With this deal,” said Jeff Mandell, president and general counsel of Law Forward, “Gableman stipulates that he misled courts, lied in public meetings, and violated government transparency laws.”

Gableman served on the Wisconsin Supreme Court from 2008 to 2018. He filed the stipulation a week after a Democratic-backed candidate won election to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, giving the court a 4-3 liberal majority, the Washington Post points out.

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3. Former CFO at Tom Girardi’s law firm reaches…

Criminal Justice

Former CFO at Tom Girardi’s law firm reaches plea deal, agrees to $3.1M forfeiture

By Debra Cassens Weiss

October 10, 2024, 9:18 am CDT

The former chief financial officer at disbarred lawyer Tom Girardi’s law firm has reached a deal to plead guilty to two counts of wire fraud that caused losses of at least $3.5 million.

Former CFO Christopher K. Kamon agreed to plead guilty, to forfeit $3.1 million and to pay restitution, report Law360 and the Los Angeles Times.

The agreement was filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

The plea deal follows Girardi’s August conviction for stealing $15 million from four personal injury clients at his now-collapsed firm, Girardi Keese, over the course of a decade.

Girardi, 85, was famous for his legal team’s portrayal in the film Erin Brockovich and for his marriage to Erika Girardi, who has appeared on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills reality TV show. He is now living in an assisted living facility and has a dementia diagnosis. His lawyers are seeking to overturn the conviction for an alleged inability to understand trial proceedings, Law.com reports.

Kamon acknowledges that he worked with Girardi to defraud clients, and that he participated in a “side fraud” scheme involving fraudulent invoices.

A factual statement says Girardi typically called Kamon each morning and asked how much money was in the firm’s bank accounts, including its client trust accounts. When operating accounts were low, Girardi allegedly instructed Kamon to move money out of client trust accounts and label them as attorney fees, even when attorney fees had already been paid.

“This was a common practice at Girardi Keese of which other senior lawyers in the firm were aware,” the statement of facts said.

Sometimes settlement funds belonging to current clients in trust accounts were used to pay other clients whose settlement funds had been stolen, according to the statement of facts.

Kamon and federal prosecutors in Los Angeles disagreed on the amount of the loss. Kamon said the amount is at least $3.5 million and no more than $9.5 million. Prosecutors reserved the right to argue that the amount ranged from more than $9.5 million to less than $25 million.

Kamon did not agree to a particular prison sentence. Money collected from Kamon in the bankruptcy proceedings for Girardi Keese would be credited toward the forfeiture amount.

The potential maximum prison sentence is 40 years. The offenses also carry a potential fine equal to twice the gain or losses resulting from the offenses or the amount of $500,000, whichever is greater.

Kamon, Girardi and a third lawyer are facing separate charges in Chicago for allegedly stealing settlement money from five relatives of victims killed in an October 2018 plane crash.

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3. Accused of ‘overly harsh’ management style,…

Judiciary

Accused of ‘overly harsh’ management style, federal judge agrees to counseling

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 28, 2024, 10:30 am CDT

A federal judge has acknowledged an “overly harsh” management style and agreed to take remedial training after a law clerk complained about abusive and harassing conduct, according to a Dec. 15 order released this week.

The judge’s name was not released in the Dec. 15 order by Chief Judge Debra Ann Livingston of the judicial council of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at New York. The order dismissed the clerk’s complaint because the judge agreed to take corrective action and because other actions by the judge did not amount to misconduct.

The judicial council of the 2nd Circuit denied the clerk’s petition for review in a March 25 order.

According to Reuters, the case is “a rare instance” of the federal judiciary publicly addressing misconduct claims under new polices adopted in 2019. Law360 also has coverage.

The law clerk at first sought assisted resolution under an employment dispute resolution plan. The clerk transferred to a different judge and then filed an October 2022 complaint about the first judge’s staff treatment and added additional allegations.

The investigation that followed revealed that other law clerks “agreed that the judge’s management style could be overly harsh,” although they said they learned a lot from the judge.

The order said the judge “shared on several occasions how deeply troubled and saddened the judge was at hearing the concerns expressed by the complainant and others and wanted it to be clear that the judge is committed to creating a better workplace environment for chambers staff.”

The order also noted that clerks’ experiences “have generally improved” since the complaints were brought to the judge’s attention.

The judge will participate in counseling about workplace conduct, watch workplace videos and webinars, and inform law clerks about complaint procedures. The judge has also agreed that the circuit director of workplace relations can check in with law clerks at about the midpoint of their terms through August 2025 or longer than that if additional concerns arise.

The complaining law clerk had also complained that the judge had:

  • Accepted gifts from staff members. One was a framed newspaper cutting from the 1970s featuring the judge’s favorite band, a gift from an outgoing law clerk. The other was a jar of grape jam from a staff member vacationing in New Hampshire. The “de minimis” gifts “fall well within” an exception to the ban on accepting gifts, the Dec. 15 order said.

  • Communicated by text with an attorney. The texts consisted of the attorney congratulating the judge on an accomplishment and “a perfunctory back-and-forth of a few exchanges related to that accomplishment.” The attorney had a pending criminal case, but it was not before the judge. The texts do not raise concerns about ex parte communications, the Dec. 15 order said. “Given many judges’ long practice histories within their districts and circuits, these types of relationships and communications about personal matters are not uncommon, and without more, do not give rise to any ethical concerns.”

  • Conducted research on the assets of a defendant who failed to appear for a status conference. The judge, in coordination with the court’s pretrial and probation department, looked at public property records to determine whether the defendant’s bail should be secured. The judge’s actions were not improper, according to the Dec. 15 order.

The unnamed judge is within the 2nd Circuit. The news follows an Original Jurisdiction post about complaints by clerks working for U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon of the Southern District of Florida, who is overseeing the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump. The Southern District of Florida is within the 11th Circuit at Atlanta.

Clerks working for Cannon reported positive experiences—until she was assigned the documents case in August 2022. The blog described 80-hour workweeks, exacerbated by a delay in a security clearance for one of the clerks; a style of micromanagement; a clerk who quit in October 2023 because she wanted to spend more time with her baby; and a second clerk who quit, apparently in December 2023.

Original Jurisdiction noted a law professor’s assessment of the situation—he said law clerks never quit. A current law clerk for a different judge told Original Jurisdiction that it is not true.

“Clerks do quit,” the anonymous clerk said. “I bet if you were to ask law professors what percentage of clerks quit a clerkship, they’d say less than 1%. I would put the actual number at 5% or more based on my peers, forums, word of mouth, etc.”