Girardi Criminal Charges Also Impugn California Bar, Critics Say

The dual criminal indictments of disgraced attorney Thomas Girardi and Girardi Keese employees is the latest blast to the California State Bar’s yearslong failure to discipline the celebrated plaintiffs’ lawyers despite a slew of complaints, bar watchers said.

An indictment in Los Angeles federal court made public Wednesday alleges five counts of wire fraud, claiming that Girardi and former chief financial officer Christopher Kamon together defrauded clients out of more than $15 million over a decade. An indictment in federal court in Chicago alleges 12 criminal counts—eight wire fraud and four criminal contempt counts—against Girardi and former partner David Lira, who is Girardi’s son-in-law. Kamon also was named in the Chicago case.

Jay Edelson, who was local counsel for Girardi in Chicago litigation over the 2018 crash of a Boeing Co.-built Lion Air 737 Max and is suing Girardi Keese and principals for fraud and racketeering, said his firm had faith in federal prosecutors.

“This is certainly a bad day for plaintiff’s lawyers who are doing unethical things and a horrible day for the California Bar,” Edelson said in an email Wednesday. “One wonders how the Bar can have any credibility going forward in the face of their misconduct spanning decades and their failure to hold people accountable even now.”

The State Bar of California regulates more than 288,000 attorneys, including some 195,000 active lawyers, and makes disciplinary recommendations to the California Supreme Court, which has the ultimate authority to mete out punishment. The California Legislature has oversight for the bar and lawyers under the state Business & Professions Code.

The California Bar received 136 complaints about Girardi between Aug. 10, 1982, and Dec. 17, 2020, when the firm and the man were forced into bankruptcy. The bar since then received 69 complaints, nearly 60 of which alleged client trust account violations, documents the bar released after settling a Los Angeles Times lawsuit.

Need to Step Up

Ruben Duran, California Bar Board of Trustees chair, in a statement said the criminal charges “are further evidence of the seriousness of the abuse and malfeasance that ultimately led to Mr. Girardi’s disbarment.”

Lira’s profile page on the bar’s website now has a consumer alert about the criminal charges. A final conviction on the felony charges could result in his disbarment. “Furthermore, the State Bar of California has taken steps, and will take more in the future, to ensure that attorney misconduct of this magnitude never occurs again,” Duran said, adding that the bar “is committed to continued reform of our regulatory and disciplinary duties to address these serious issues.”

State Senate Judiciary Chairman Thomas Umberg (D) had a different message: “Once again this highlights the need for us to step up to protect those harmed by California lawyers.”

Umberg’s proposed legislation (SB 42) to require lawyers report to the bar another attorney for professional misconduct that raises a substantial question as to their honesty, trustworthiness, or fitness as an attorney.

Carol Langford, a University of San Francisco law adjunct professor specializing in ethics, in an email asked why prosecutors aren’t “going after Bar personnel who failed to supervise their employees and who had to have seen all the complaints (as they conduct audits every year)?”

Nothing in the criminal cases “restore confidence in the profession,” said Robert Hillman, a University of California Davis law professor and legal ethics authority. “To the contrary, this illustrates how bad things can get when there is a bad seed in the profession.”

The indictments reinforce “how the Bar was asleep at the switch. More than 200 complaints, and this still happened?”

The cases are United States v. Girardi, N.D. Ill., No. 23-cr-54, 2/1/23 and United States v. Girardi, C.D. Cal., No. 2:23-cr-00047, indictment 1/31/23.