1. Home
2. Daily News
3. Lawyer accused of helping client defraud…

Criminal Justice

Lawyer accused of helping client defraud creditors is acquitted a second time

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 19, 2025, 8:52 am CST

A former Freeborn & Peters lawyer in Illinois has been acquitted of wire fraud a second time in a case stemming from his representation of a neighbor, the owner of a Chicago business that eventually filed for bankruptcy.

Federal jurors acquitted lawyer Edward Lee Filer in a retrial after deliberating a little more than one hour, Law360 reports.

Filer’s lawyer, Ronald Safer, told Law360 that the verdict “is a hard-fought testament to the integrity of Mr. Filer, who was unjustly accused in a case that should never have been brought against him.”

Prosecutors had alleged that Filer schemed to defraud creditors of the business, the Barsanti Woodwork Corp., in two ways, according to an appellate ruling in the case and a Jan. 14 pretrial ruling by a federal judge overseeing the retrial.

First, Filer was accused of helping the Barsanti Woodwork Corp.’s owner obtain control of the company’s secured bank debt at a discount through a nominal purchaser. Second, Filer was accused of engaging in transactions that transferred the Barsanti Woodwork Corp.’s assets to a new company secretly controlled by the company’s owner. The Barsanti Woodwork Corp. then filed for bankruptcy.

In Filer’s first trial, jurors convicted Filer of wire fraud but now-deceased U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber of the Northern District of Illinois granted a judgment of acquittal or, in the alternative, a new trial.

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Chicago reversed that first acquittal in December 2022. The appeals court held that prosecutors had presented sufficient evidence to support a wire fraud conviction, even though Filer did not profit, and some of his actions were inconsistent with an intent to defraud.

The 7th Circuit said the case should be reassigned to a new judge on remand.

Before the retrial, U.S. District Judge Steven C. Seeger of the Northern District of Illinois found that the government violated Filer’s attorney-client privilege when it obtained information about Filer’s confidential communications with the former general counsel at Freeborn & Peters. The government obtained the information while prepping the former general counsel for testimony, according to a Jan. 31 docket entry.

As a sanction, Seeger barred the former general counsel from testifying and barred evidence about documents withheld from the bankruptcy trustee, according to a Feb. 7 docket entry.

Freeborn & Peters merged with Smith, Gambrell & Russell in 2023. The merged law firm kept the Smith Gambrell name.

Write a letter to the editor, share a story tip or update, or report an error.

In early 2015, Swapna Reddy volunteered for a week at the South Texas Family Residential Center, an immigration detention center near the U.S.-Mexico border that held thousands of asylum-seeking parents and their children.

That’s where Reddy met Suny Rodriguez Alvarado and her 7-year-old son, who had been at the center for four months after fleeing violence and persecution in Honduras. Reddy and three of her classmates—Conchita Cruz, Dorothy Tegeler and Liz Willis, who were members of Yale Law School’s Worker & Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic—later represented them in their immigration cases.

They not only helped Rodriguez and her son win her cases, but at her urging, they also founded the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project in May 2015 to assist other families facing wrongful detention and deportation.

“Regardless of how you feel about asylum-seekers, I think it’s hard to take issue with the idea that asylum-seekers deserve to know what the laws are and deserve to know how to follow them,” says Reddy, 38, whose parents emigrated from India and raised her and her brothers outside of Nashville, Tennessee.

In 2016, shortly before graduating from law school, Reddy and her co-founders took the project to the New York City-based Urban Justice Center. They employed what was then a unique model—rapid-response remote legal aid. They also built a private online community to connect asylum-seekers who would otherwise be geographically isolated.

“It’s hard to remember, but before the pandemic, the idea of remote work was pretty uncommon, and there was a lot of skepticism that it could be done effectively,” says Michael Wishnie, who co-directs Yale’s Worker & Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic and now serves on the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project’s board. “And yet they perceived that for new asylum-seekers who were settling in rural Georgia or Tennessee or Utah, there just wasn’t an option to provide on-the-ground legal services.”

The project provides its members—now more than 680,000 asylum-seekers from 175 countries—with access to a virtual legal help desk, news alerts and other critical resources as they navigate the immigration system. The Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project no longer offers direct representation; instead, it gives asylum-seekers the tools and know-how to take control of their own cases, says Reddy, who serves as the organization’s co-executive director alongside Cruz.

The Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, which has a remote team of more than 20 lawyers, technologists and other experts, also asks its members to help set its priorities and advocate to improve the immigration system. Reddy says a top concern for members now is lengthy delays for work permits and asylum interviews.

Among its collective wins, the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project and its members last year successfully advocated for new regulations that will allow immigrants facing delays in work permit renewals to get a year and a half of additional employment authorization.

“An awesome thing about Swapna is she’s a Renaissance woman,” says Becca Heller, the co-founder of the International Refugee Assistance Project, who has known Reddy since law school. “She is a brilliant lawyer but also brilliant at technology. She’s been able to bring a lot of that to ASAP and think about how do tech and data and movement-building all intersect in this space, and how do you leverage that to something bigger?”

Legal Rebels Class of 2025

Rodrigo Camarena

Roy Ferguson

Joan Howarth and Deborah Jones Merritt

Oregon State Board of Bar Examiners

Swapna Reddy

Jacqueline Schafer

Noella Sudbury

In This Podcast:

Noella Sudbury knew she was onto something big when she helped organize Utah’s first free “Expungement Day” in 2018. The former public defender and Goldman Sachs compliance attorney had gone to work in 2016 for Ben McAdams, then-mayor of Salt Lake County. McAdams had introduced initiatives to address criminal justice reform, and Sudbury had become immersed in improving the expungement process.

One in three adult Americans has a criminal record, which she says can create significant barriers to housing, employment or even volunteering in their children’s classrooms.

Expungement was also expensive and complicated and, at that time, typically took about 18 months to complete, Sudbury says.

After hundreds of people came to the Expungement Day event, Sudbury knew she needed to do more.”It was the first time I think as a lawyer that I realized how big of a justice gap we had and how access to this simple legal proceeding could absolutely transform someone’s life,” says Sudbury, 39, who earned a bachelor’s degree in social justice from the University of Utah in 2006 and a JD from the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law in 2009.

Sudbury founded Clean Slate Utah, a nonprofit that raises awareness of automatic record clearance, in 2021. She also had begun working on clean slate laws in other states; there are now 12.

Sudbury started Rasa Legal in 2022 to make the process of clearing a criminal record simpler and more affordable. She researched how to use technology to assist with expungement and learned about Pennsylvania’s Clean Slate law. By the following year, she had helped introduce and pass a similar clean slate law in Utah. It requires the government to automatically clear certain misdemeanor records.

“Noella sees individuals as they are and not by their record,” says Destiny Garcia, the executive director of Clean Slate Utah, who worked with Sudbury to clear her own criminal record. “She will sit down with someone, and she will listen to their story. She will take the time to get to know them and understand how to help them.”

In the course of her work, Sudbury realized many people still needed help determining their eligibility for expungement and finding a lawyer to complete the process. That’s where Rasa comes in. Using its $15 eligibility screening tool, in less than three minutes, people can see what’s on their record and whether it can be cleared. If they have eligible cases, they can hire Rasa to clear those records using custom software that streamlines the process. While law firms can charge thousands of dollars for expungement, Rasa starts at $250 per case.

“What sets Noella apart is she’s out there changing the structural framework of the laws that then enable her to serve consumers in a way she thinks is necessary,” says Natalie Anne Knowlton, the founder of Access to Justice Ventures and a 2023 ABA Journal Legal Rebel.

According to Sudbury, Rasa, which has 16 employees and now offers its services in Utah and Arizona, has helped nearly 17,000 people and fully cleared more than 3,000 records. It is currently working to expand into other states and provide workforce development services to clients.

In her free time, Sudbury loves spending time with her two kids, traveling and being in nature.

Legal Rebels Class of 2025

Rodrigo Camarena

Roy Ferguson

Joan Howarth and Deborah Jones Merritt

Oregon State Board of Bar Examiners

Swapna Reddy

Jacqueline Schafer

Noella Sudbury

In This Podcast:

In early 2015, Swapna Reddy volunteered for a week at the South Texas Family Residential Center, an immigration detention center near the U.S.-Mexico border that held thousands of asylum-seeking parents and their children.

That’s where Reddy met Suny Rodriguez Alvarado and her 7-year-old son, who had been at the center for four months after fleeing violence and persecution in Honduras. Reddy and three of her classmates—Conchita Cruz, Dorothy Tegeler and Liz Willis, who were members of Yale Law School’s Worker & Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic—later represented them in their immigration cases.

They not only helped Rodriguez and her son win her cases, but at her urging, they also founded the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project in May 2015 to assist other families facing wrongful detention and deportation.

“Regardless of how you feel about asylum-seekers, I think it’s hard to take issue with the idea that asylum-seekers deserve to know what the laws are and deserve to know how to follow them,” says Reddy, 38, whose parents emigrated from India and raised her and her brothers outside of Nashville, Tennessee.

In 2016, shortly before graduating from law school, Reddy and her co-founders took the project to the New York City-based Urban Justice Center. They employed what was then a unique model—rapid-response remote legal aid. They also built a private online community to connect asylum-seekers who would otherwise be geographically isolated.

“It’s hard to remember, but before the pandemic, the idea of remote work was pretty uncommon, and there was a lot of skepticism that it could be done effectively,” says Michael Wishnie, who co-directs Yale’s Worker & Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic and now serves on the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project’s board. “And yet they perceived that for new asylum-seekers who were settling in rural Georgia or Tennessee or Utah, there just wasn’t an option to provide on-the-ground legal services.”

The project provides its members—now more than 680,000 asylum-seekers from 175 countries—with access to a virtual legal help desk, news alerts and other critical resources as they navigate the immigration system. The Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project no longer offers direct representation; instead, it gives asylum-seekers the tools and know-how to take control of their own cases, says Reddy, who serves as the organization’s co-executive director alongside Cruz.

The Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, which has a remote team of more than 20 lawyers, technologists and other experts, also asks its members to help set its priorities and advocate to improve the immigration system. Reddy says a top concern for members now is lengthy delays for work permits and asylum interviews.

Among its collective wins, the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project and its members last year successfully advocated for new regulations that will allow immigrants facing delays in work permit renewals to get a year and a half of additional employment authorization.

“An awesome thing about Swapna is she’s a Renaissance woman,” says Becca Heller, the co-founder of the International Refugee Assistance Project, who has known Reddy since law school. “She is a brilliant lawyer but also brilliant at technology. She’s been able to bring a lot of that to ASAP and think about how do tech and data and movement-building all intersect in this space, and how do you leverage that to something bigger?”

Legal Rebels Class of 2025

Rodrigo Camarena

Roy Ferguson

Joan Howarth and Deborah Jones Merritt

Oregon State Board of Bar Examiners

Swapna Reddy

Jacqueline Schafer

Noella Sudbury

In This Podcast:

1. Home
2. Daily News
3. Paul Weiss partner, ‘a skilled handler of…

Careers

Paul Weiss partner, ‘a skilled handler of high-ego politicians,’ is helping Harris with debate prep

By Debra Cassens Weiss

September 10, 2024, 11:10 am CDT

A partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison helped Vice President Kamala Harris prepare for Tuesday’s presidential debate with former President Donald Trump, even as she prepared as lead attorney for Google in an antitrust trial based on alleged online advertising dominance.

Since 2008, partner Karen Dunn has helped prepare Democratic presidential and vice presidential candidates for debates, the New York Times reports. She helped Harris prepare for her 2020 debate with then-Vice President Mike Pence. And she also helped former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former President Barack Obama prepare for presidential debates.

Dunn “is described by candidates she has coached and other people who have worked with her as a skilled handler of high-ego politicians,” according to the New York Times. “By all accounts, she possesses the rare ability to tell them what they are doing wrong and how to fix it—and how to inject humor and humanity to sell themselves to voters watching the debate.”

Dunn, co-chair of the Paul Weiss litigation department, is one of the attorneys who obtained a verdict for injured plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the organizers of the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. A graduate of Yale Law School, she is a former clerk for now-U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland when he was a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and a former clerk for then-U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.

The New York Times credits Dunn for spurring Clinton during a 2016 debate to bring up a Trump comment disparaging a beauty pageant contestant’s weight. Here is a portion of the debate transcript published by the New York Times:

Clinton: “And one of the worst things he said was about a woman in a beauty contest. He loves beauty contests, supporting them and hanging around them. And he called this woman ‘Miss Piggy.’ Then he called her ‘Miss Housekeeping’ because she was Latina. Donald, she has a name.”

Trump: “Where did you find this? Where did you find this?”

Clinton: “Her name is Alicia Machado.”

Trump: “Where did you find this?”

Clinton: “And she has become a U.S. citizen, and you can bet … ”

Trump: “Oh, really?”

Clinton: “ … she’s going to vote this November.”

Trump: “OK, good. Let me just tell you … ”

(Applause)

In a 2019 interview with the New York Times, Dunn said debate contestants have to engage the other person in a way that challenges them if they want to win the debate.

“If somebody comes after you and you counterpunch effectively, you can win that moment,” Dunn said.

Dunn was in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, on Monday representing Google in a Department of Justice suit alleging that the online search company’s acquisition of DoubleClick, an advertising software company, gives it dominance in technology that auctions off online ads, allowing Google to crush the competition. Dunn countered that Google is “one big company among many others” that also sell advertising, the New York Times reports.

Critics have alleged that Dunn’s debate preparation creates a conflict of interest because helping Harris would make the presidential candidate reluctant to stand up to Big Tech, the New York Post reports.

But ethics experts who spoke with the New York Times and Law.com said there was no ethics problem.

“Of course, Ms. Dunn cannot reveal confidential client information concerning Google to anyone. But she is not precluded from giving Ms. Harris advice about how to conduct herself in the debate,” said Leslie Levin, a professor at the University of Connecticut School of Law, in an interview with Law.com.

“Lawyers in private practice volunteer on political campaigns all the time,” said Steven Lubet, a professor emeritus at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, in an interview with the New York Times. “There’s no conflict between coaching debate prep and representing a client in a case opposed to the government.”

A man has pleaded guilty to helping kidnapping and murder an Arkansas resident who was accused of raping a young girl.

According to court documents filed on Friday, Reginald Larue Baker, 43, was sentenced to 60 years in prison for a count each of accomplice to murder in the first degree, accomplice to kidnapping, and accomplice to aggravated residential burglary. He received 861 days time served.

Authorities have said that he and co-defendant Daniel Paul Blanks, 45, were at a birthday party with Richard Phillips, 39, as well as a teenage girl on Oct. 27, 2021. The girl told Baker and Blanks that Phillips raped her when she was 6 years old, according to investigators.

1. Home
2. Daily News
3. Lawyer who wrote on ethics issues is suspended…

Ethics

Lawyer who wrote on ethics issues is suspended after he is accused of helping client hide assets

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 7, 2024, 12:49 pm CST

An Iowa lawyer has received a two-year suspension for helping a client hide money from creditors and for “furtively” inserting a provision into a custody agreement.

The Iowa Supreme Court suspended 68-year-old lawyer David L. Leitner of Iowa in a Dec. 8 opinion, according to a March 4 story by the Iowa Capital Dispatch.

Leitner had argued that his ethics articles had contributed to the profession and should be taken into account by ethics regulators. The Iowa Supreme Court’s Attorney Disciplinary Board had responded that the assertion is “particularly eyebrow-raising when his misconduct involves financial fraud,” according to the Iowa Capital Dispatch.

The disciplinary board allegations against Leitner were deemed to be admitted because he did not respond to the initial complaint.

The hidden money case involved Leitner’s representation of an Iowa seed dealer who was convicted of bankruptcy fraud in 2007 for hiding assets. Leitner allegedly created a company for the seed dealer in 2013. Leitner made himself the managing member of the company, allowing the seed dealer to send part of his income to the company while hiding it from the government, which was owed about $71,000.

Although Leitner made himself the contact for the seed dealer’s corporation, neither he nor his client converted funds from anyone, the state supreme court acknowledged.

“Moreover, the record does not show that the federal government or any other creditor was actually trying to collect [the seed dealer’s] receivables,” the state supreme court said. “And so the record does not show that the federal government or any other creditor was actually deceived or otherwise hampered in its efforts to collect. At most, the record shows that [the client] and Leitner hoped to deceive any creditors who might
try to collect.”

Leitner was also accused in a second disciplinary count of “furtively” adding a stipulation to a custody agreement. An opposing lawyer had crafted a PDF of the agreement based on terms adopted in a mediation and had sent it to Leitner. Unbeknownst to the opposing lawyer, Leitner added a provision giving his client a “first right of refusal” to care for his minor child whenever his ex-wife couldn’t do so, according to the allegations.

Leitner’s client signed the modified agreement, and it was returned to the opposing counsel. The modified agreement was then filed with the district court.

Other counts in the disciplinary complaint alleged that Leitner violated rules regarding conflicts of interest, contact with represented parties and client trust accounts.

The Iowa Supreme Court cited two aggravating factors. Although Leitner acknowledged trust account issues, he had not taken responsibility “for his worst behavior,” the state supreme court said. He had also made misleading statements about reaching an agreement on a suspension.

In mitigation, Leitner had no disciplinary history. Leitner had also provided pro bono and reduced-fee representation and had accepted appointments for indigent criminal defendants.

A lawyer for Leitner, David L. Brown, did not immediately respond to an ABA Journal email requesting comment. The phone number for Leitner’s law office was not taking messages.

Paul Ferguson, 21, testified against his mother, Shanda Margaret Vander Ark, 44, about her “sadistic” murder of his brother, Timothy Ferguson, 15, but that cooperation did not carry enough weight with a Michigan judge on Monday to save him from a lengthy prison sentence.

As referenced in court, Ferguson served as the “enforcer” while the three lived at the same home.

“I think you’re just as bad, if not worse,” Judge Matthew Kacel told him, sentencing the young man to 30 to 100 years in prison with 592 days credit for time served. Ferguson had pleaded guilty to child abuse for his role in Timothy’s death, but the judge had the option to go above or below guidelines in sentencing.

Vander Ark is set to serve the rest of her days behind bars for starving and torturing Timothy to death, having been sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.