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Law Firms

McElroy Deutsch settles suit claiming over $3M embezzlement by former executives

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 15, 2025, 9:32 am CDT

McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter has reached a settlement in a lawsuit accusing its former chief financial officer and his wife of stealing more than $3 million from the law firm.

McElroy Deutsch notified the court in Union County, New Jersey, that the case had settled in an April 11 letter, Law360 reports. A stipulation of dismissal said the suit and all counterclaims would be dismissed.

The settlement follows former CFO John Dunlea’s May 2024 guilty plea to embezzling more than $1.5 million from the firm over a six-year period and to failing to pay $22,000 in state income taxes. Dunlea was sentenced to five years in prison in July 2024 and ordered to pay more than $1.5 million in restitution to McElroy Deutsch.

The firm’s suit had claimed that Dunlea paid himself unauthorized bonuses of at least $1.6 million, and that he and his wife, Nicole Alexander, treated themselves to lavish vacations in “business-card abuse” totaling more than $1.6 million.

Alexander was the firm’s former director of business and professional development. She had filed a countersuit alleging that McElroy Deutsch retaliated against her for her complaints about alleged legal violations and made unwarranted assumptions by wrongly accusing her of being aware of her husband’s alleged embezzlement.

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Technology

‘Robot lawyer’ website DoNotPay settles FTC claims it couldn’t deliver on promises

By Debra Cassens Weiss

September 30, 2024, 10:28 am CDT

A website that billed itself as the “world’s first robot lawyer” has agreed to pay $193,000 to settle Federal Trade Commission allegations that it did not live up to its claims.

The DoNotPay website agreed to settle the FTC allegations without admitting or denying them, according to a proposed consent order.

Besides paying $193,000, DoNotPay agreed to refrain from making claims about its ability to substitute for legal services without evidence to support them, the FTC said in a Sept. 25 press release. The company also agreed to provide a notice to consumers who subscribed to the service from 2021 to 2023 about the limitations of its law-related features.

The DoNotPay legal chatbot was founded in 2015 to help people fight traffic tickets, but it later expanded to help people with other legal matters. The company claimed that it could sue for assault without a lawyer, could “generate perfectly valid legal documents,” and could replace the legal industry with artificial intelligence, according to the FTC.

“DoNotPay, however, could not deliver on these promises,” the FTC said in its press release.

According to the FTC complaint, the company didn’t conduct testing to see whether its AI chatbot was producing content that equaled that of a human lawyer. Nor did the company hire or retain lawyers, the complaint said.

The FTC complaint included a quote on the DoNotPay website said to be from the Los Angeles Times: “What this robot lawyer can do is astonishingly similar—if not more—to what human lawyers do.”

The quote actually came from a high school student’s opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times’ High School Insider website, which was a user-generated content platform, according to the FTC.

DoNotPay technologies recognized statistical relationships between words, used chatbot software to converse with users, and used an interface to connect with ChatGPT, according to the FTC.

None of its technologies was trained on a comprehensive database of federal and state laws, regulations and judicial decisions, or on application of the information to fact patterns, the FTC said.

The cost of a consumer subscription varied, but it was $36 every two months at times relevant to the complaint. The company also offered a “Small Business Protection Plan” for $49.99 per month at times relevant to the complaint.

In a concurring Sept. 25 statement, Lina M. Khan, the FTC chair, and Melissa Holyoak, the FTC commissioner, said the settlement “does not suggest that consumers should use expensive professional services, or that companies should avoid offering innovative products that reduce the need for high-priced lawyers. The misdeeds of a few bad apples shouldn’t dampen pro-consumer innovation.”

DoNotPay’s founder, Joshua Browder, is a 2017 ABA Journal Legal Rebel.

Publications that covered the settlement include Above the Law, Law360 and Ars Technica.

A DoNotPay spokesperson told Ars Technica that the company “is pleased to have worked constructively with the FTC to settle this case and fully resolve these issues, without admitting liability.”

“The complaint relates to the usage of a few hundred customers some years ago (out of millions of people), with services that have long been discontinued,” the spokesperson said.

DoNotPay agreed in June to settle a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California claiming that the company “is not actually a robot, a lawyer, nor a law firm.” The plaintiff had said he used DoNotPay to write several legal documents, but he couldn’t use some of them because they were “poorly or inaccurately drafted.”

See also:

Inside the claims against DoNotPay’s Joshua Browder and the ‘World’s First Robot Lawyer’

Judge tosses UPL suit against ‘robot lawyer’ DoNotPay, saying law firm plaintiff was not harmed

A group of teenagers have settled a lawsuit with the mother of a popular YouTube star over allegations of sexual abuse and retaliation, according to an attorney representing them.

In January 2022, the teenagers sued Tiffany Smith, 41, the mother of online phenom Piper Rockelle, in a Los Angeles County court — alleging numerous counts of sexual battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and that she tried to destroy their YouTube careers after they stopped working with her daughter.

Each of the 11 plaintiffs had previously been a member of the eponymous “Piper Squad,” a group dedicated to creating various short-form videos that appeared on Rockelle’s YouTube channel.

In a statement posted on X on Tuesday, plaintiffs attorney Matt Sarelson said the matter was settled and called it the “most complicated and high profile case of my career.”

A French teacher has settled with the Virginia school board that fired him for refusing to use a transgender boy’s pronouns.

Peter Vlaming will receive $575,000 in damages and attorneys’ fees, said his legal team at the Alliance Defending Freedom, a far-right advocacy organization known for filing lawsuits aimed at rolling back the rights of gay, lesbian, and transgender people.

“I was wrongfully fired from my teaching job because my religious beliefs put me on a collision course with school administrators who mandated that teachers ascribe to only one perspective on gender identity — their preferred view,” he said in a statement. “I loved teaching French and gracefully tried to accommodate every student in my class, but I couldn’t say something that directly violated my conscience. I’m very grateful for the work of my attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom to bring my case to victory, and hope it helps protect every other teacher and professor’s fundamental First Amendment rights.”

More Law&Crime coverage: Pair of Trump-appointed federal judges blocks Biden efforts to protect transgender students

West Point Public Schools Superintendent Larry Frazier told Newport News outlet The Daily Press that “we are pleased to be able to reach a resolution that will not have a negative impact on the students, staff or school community of West Point.”

The Virginia Supreme Court last December reinstated Vlaming’s lawsuit, which the Circuit Court of King William County had previously dismissed.

“[N]o government committed to these principles can lawfully coerce its citizens into pledging verbal allegiance to ideological views that violate their sincerely held religious beliefs,” the decision also said. The judges found that the lower court “erred dismissing this claim on demurrer on the ground that Vlaming’s factual allegations, even if assumed to be true, were insufficient as a matter of law to state a free-exercise claim” under Virginia law.

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3. Judge settles suit accusing lawyer of threatening…

Judiciary

Judge settles suit accusing lawyer of threatening to release her intimate photos in bid to scuttle deposition

By Debra Cassens Weiss

September 11, 2024, 10:46 am CDT

A Florida judge has settled her lawsuit against a lawyer she sued for allegedly trying to blackmail her with nude photos chronicling her pregnancy.

Lawyers for Judge Marni Bryson of the 15th Judicial Circuit in Florida settled her emotional-distress suit against lawyer William Scherer and his law firm, Conrad & Scherer, their lawyers told a judge during a Zoom hearing Monday. The settlement is confidential, Scherer told the ABA Journal in his only comment on the case.

Law360 covered the Sept. 9 hearing and published a story on the settlement resolving all claims, reached within weeks of the trial scheduled for Sept. 23.

Bryson had accused Scherer of sending another lawyer to her chambers to deliver the nude-photo threat during a post-divorce dispute between Bryson and her ex-husband. Scherer represented the ex-husband’s then-girlfriend, who was a “powerful lawyer/lobbyist,” according to a March 2021 story by the Florida Bulldog.

According to Bryson, she was told that her nude photos and other damaging information would be released if she insisted on taking a deposition of the then-girlfriend. She sought punitive damages against the defendants.

In an Aug. 13 motion for summary judgment, Scherer had alleged that Bryson presented no evidence of a threat, let alone any “outrageous” threat by an emissary, who was a lawyer who previously advised Bryson.

Scherer’s motion said he met with the lawyer and suggested that Bryson had to know the kind of information that would come out if the then-girlfriend was deposed, so that Bryson could decide whether to proceed. The lawyer then recounted his conversation with Scherer to Bryson, the motion says.

The alleged information possessed by the then-girlfriend included a nude photo of Bryson that the judge allegedly sent to the then-girlfriend’s ex-husband after they began a friendly relationship, the motion says. According to previous coverage by the Florida Bulldog, the nude photo allegedly showed Bryson’s pregnancy.

On Aug. 19, Bryson filed a motion in limine seeking to keep alleged “bad acts” out of evidence in the upcoming trial on the ground that they are “irrelevant and immaterial.” Scherer and his firm “have attempted to distract from the central issues in this case by making a number of irrelevant allegations to smear Judge Bryson,” the motion says.

The evidence that should be excluded includes “post-divorce bickering,” the people to whom Bryson sent photos, and “such irrelevant issues as who was sleeping with who,” the motion says.

In a footnote, the motion says one of the photos produced by the defendants “is an image of a vagina that is not Judge Bryson’s,” and “there is no conceivable basis for this image becoming part of the trial.”

Judge William L. Roby of the 19th Judicial Circuit in Florida denied the summary judgment motion Sept. 5 because it was filed too late. The Sept. 9 Zoom hearing was happening to consider Bryson’s motion to exclude evidence.

Oliver M. Birman, a lawyer representing Bryson, chose not to comment to the Journal. Gail A. McQuilkin, a lawyer representing Scherer, did not immediately respond to the Journal’s emailed request for comment. Bryson did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment.

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3. White male law student settles suit against…

Law Students

White male law student settles suit against Chicago Bears over ‘legal diversity fellow’ position

By Debra Cassens Weiss

September 5, 2024, 10:36 am CDT

A student at the DePaul University College of Law has settled a lawsuit claiming that the Chicago Bears football team refused to consider him for a “legal diversity fellow” position because he is a white man.

Law student Jonathan Bresser Jr. had alleged race and sex discrimination in his March 11 suit, filed in federal court for the Northern District of Illinois.

A notice posted by the court clerk said the parties had reached a binding settlement agreement, Law360 reports.

The Chicago Bears posted the fellowship position in November 2023. The posting said the team was looking for a “person of color and/or female law student,” according to Bresser’s suit. Bresser said he met all other requirements when he applied for the job.

Bresser noted that he had more than two years of experience as a litigation paralegal at the Trent Law Firm, which represented him in the case.

Hat tip to Above the Law and TaxProf Blog, which noted the suit resolution.

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Law Professors

Law prof who wrote about ‘the law school scam’ settles discrimination suit for $160K

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 21, 2024, 8:19 am CST

A University of Colorado Law School professor who blogged at Inside the Law School Scam has settled his June 2023 lawsuit alleging pay discrimination and retaliation.

The law school will pay $160,000, with $60,000 going to law professor Paul Campos and $100,000 to his attorney, Law.com reports.

He will also report to a person other than Lolita Buckner Innis, the law school’s dean.

The Denver Post and Above the Law also have coverage.

Campos had alleged pay discrimination based on his Latino ethnicity and retaliation for raising concerns about pay and unfair treatment.

When he filed the suit, Campos told the ABA Journal that he has had “a bullseye” on his back for comments that he made criticizing the law school’s financing. He said the law school spends twice as much as it generates in revenue. Additionally, in 2014, the Atlantic published a feature that he wrote, “The Law School Scam,” which focused on for-profit schools.

The university said in a statement it had been in negotiations with Campos to resolve the dispute since before the suit was filed. Campos dismissed claims against Innis and Philip DiStefano, the university’s chancellor, the university told publications covering the settlement.

“We do not typically speak to personnel matters, but given that the university denies any wrongdoing, we will not have a change in leadership,” university spokesperson Nicole Mueksch told the Denver Post.

Campos had alleged violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1966.

Campos blogged about the settlement in three posts at the Lawyers, Guns & Money blog here, here and here.

“Too often, the details of this kind of story are never told because of a nondisclosure agreement, which is something I wasn’t willing to consider,” he wrote.

Campos said Innis had refused to review the recommendation of a peer review committee that gave him a bad annual review, “even though I had had an excellent year in terms of all conventional metrics of evaluation.” He alleges that the faculty peer review committee used “an arbitrary and standardless process” to evaluate faculty members.

The dean then engaged in “a series of egregious retaliatory acts after my lawyer sent the university a letter putting it on notice that we were considering filing a lawsuit,” he alleges.

Campos said he was kicked off an important committee and removed from teaching a class.

Campos told the Denver Post that he was “extremely happy” with the settlement.

“I got substantial compensation, and more important than that, I had [Innis] removed as my supervisor permanently,” he said.

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3. Proskauer settles with ex-COO accused of…

Law Firms

Proskauer settles with ex-COO accused of stealing sensitive information before new job

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 5, 2024, 11:47 am CST

Proskauer Rose has reached a confidential settlement with a former chief operating officer accused of downloading sensitive information before a planned move to a competitor law firm.

U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres of the Southern District of New York dismissed Proskauer’s lawsuit against former COO Jonathan O’Brien on Friday after the parties reached an agreement in principle. On the same day, Torres issued a permanent injunction to bar O’Brien from keeping or using Proskauer’s “proprietary, confidential and/or trade secret information.”

Law360 reported on the dismissal order and injunction. Reuters, Bloomberg Law and Law.com also have coverage of the settlement, made public in a legal filing on Thursday.

Proskauer had accused O’Brien in January 2023 of acting in a “brazen and malicious” manner by downloading 34 gigabytes of data.

He was also accused of printing a “black book binder” showing partner compensation and performance, as well as allocation of the firm’s profits. He had claimed that he took the information with him, so that he could work while on a vacation in Africa.

The firm also alleged in a revised May 2023 suit that O’Brien withheld raises and promotions for key Proskauer employees to spur resentment and make them amenable to joining his would-be new firm, Paul Hastings. Proskauer also alleged that O’Brien defrauded the firm through “pervasive and protracted” expense abuses and reimbursement fraud.

Paul Hastings withdrew the job offer when Proskauer’s suit became public.