Jackson Walker Attorney’s Dinner Revived Romance Ethics Crisis

Jackson Walker LLP litigation partner W. Ross Forbes was having dinner with a friend at Moxies restaurant in Dallas on Jan. 31, 2022, when he became the unsuspecting recipient of bombshell information—one of his colleagues was secretly living with a prominent judge.

The revelation came after Forbes asked the friend, also a client, if he liked the tickets to a Cowboys game that Forbes gave him that past Thanksgiving.

The friend, Gary George, said he did and noted that he took one of his own friends, Nick Simms, to the game. Then George mentioned that Simms’ ex-wife, Elizabeth Freeman, worked at Jackson Walker.

George then volunteered that he “thought it was odd” that Freeman, a bankruptcy partner, lived with Houston bankruptcy Judge David R. Jones, according to a transcript of testimony Forbes gave in August 2024 that was obtained by Bloomberg Law. Jackson Walker regularly represented clients before Jones at the time.

Forbes’ deposition, along with others, was taken as part of efforts by the Justice Department’s bankruptcy monitor, the US Trustee, to disgorge as much as $23 million in fees Jackson Walker collected in cases involving Jones while it employed Freeman. The government has called the failure to disclose the romance a clear ethical violation.

Forbes’ testimony detailing how the firm said it learned of the ongoing romance will likely become important during a trial set for April, which will determine whether fee awards to Jackson Walker should be vacated and whether the firm can be sanctioned.

Read More: Kirkland Partner Said Romance ‘Tarnishes’ Ex-Judge’s Cases

Resurrection

Forbes said he was defensive at first during dinner, insisting George’s claim wasn’t true. It had been nearly a year since Freeman first told Jackson Walker that her relationship with Jones was in the past and that the two didn’t share a home.

Yet George offered specific examples. One of Freeman’s kids disliked Jones after he called the police on a keg party one of them threw, and the kids spent more time with Simms because of Freeman’s relationship with Jones, according to Forbes’ testimony.

Finally, George texted Simms during the dinner and asked him if Freeman lived with Jones. Simms texted back “yes,” and George showed the text to Forbes. Forbes was “shocked,” according to the transcript.

“I abruptly left, I don’t know how soon after this was divulged to me, but my head was spinning,” said Forbes, who said he drove home and called the managing partner of Jackson Walker’s Houston office to relay what he was told.

That conversation resurrected an explosive problem that Jackson Walker thought it had resolved, and it restarted the firm’s inquiries to Freeman whether her past denials of an ongoing relationship with Jones were false.

Read More: Ex-Bankruptcy Judge Got Combative in Secret Romance Questioning

Confronted again, Freeman admitted that their relationship had resumed, Jackson Walker has said in court filings. By December 2022, Freeman would leave the firm to begin her own practice.

Jackson Walker continued representing clients before Jones and didn’t disclose the connection. But after the romance became public in October 2023, Jones announced his resignation from the bench.

Jackson Walker has said Freeman misled the firm’s management about the relationship and that it acted responsibly once it learned of the issue.

A firm spokesman and an attorney for Freeman didn’t respond to requests for comment. Simms and George didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

‘I Didn’t Ask Her’

Another deposition taken by the US Trustee that could be pertinent in the trial over the firm’s fees was that of Veronica Polnick, who was deposed on Oct. 3, 2024. Polnick, who left her clerkship with Jones in March 2019 to become an associate with Jackson Walker, became a partner at the firm in 2023.

The transcript of Polnick’s nearly nine-hour deposition includes her description of her bonds with Freeman and Jones, and a government attorney questioning her about texts from 2021 discussing the potential fallout of the undisclosed romance.

When asked when she first become aware that Freeman and Jones were living together, Polnick said she didn’t know. But later in her deposition, Polnick said while she was a briefing attorney for Jones in 2017 or 2018, she learned about his joint tenancy with Freeman when searching real estate records.

Polnick told government attorneys that she didn’t take any view on Jones’ and Freeman’s living arrangements following a March 2021 anonymous letter alleging the two were in a romantic relationship.

Pressed by a government attorney if she ever asked Freeman whether she was in a romantic relationship with Jones, Polnick said she didn’t.

When the government attorney noted that only a few weeks later in 2021 she was having a conversation with Freeman about her personal life, Polnick maintained she didn’t ask Freeman then either.

“I didn’t think her personal life was my business, so I didn’t ask her,” Polnick said.

Polnick also provided details about a conversation she had with Jones on March 10, 2021—the day of a key recusal hearing presided over by Jones’ fellow Houston judge and mentor, Marvin Isgur.

Isgur that day ruled that the anonymous letter provided by a shareholder of bankrupt McDermott International should remain sealed.

The letter alleged a secret romance between Jones and Freeman. The shareholder, Michael Van Deelen, was seeking to enter it into the record as evidence to have Jones recused from the McDermott case.

Isgur’s rejection kept the allegations out of the public eye until October 2023. Jackson Walker was local counsel for McDermott at the time, with Kirkland & Ellis LLP as the company’s main counsel. Freeman at the time worked at Jackson Walker.

Polnick told a government attorney last year that after that hearing Jones called her. Jones also told her he had called Kirkland restructuring partner Joshua Sussberg, Polnick said. Jones didn’t talk about the case itself, she said.

“That conversation was just him kind of apologizing that everyone had had to deal with this issue this week,” Polnick said.