Fear of Girardi No Excuse in Lawyers’ Contempt Proceedings (1)

A federal judge in Chicago said he wouldn’t entertain arguments that Thomas Girardi was so powerful that his former colleagues feared taking action when they learned of his failure to immediately forward millions of dollars of client settlement funds.

“A coercion defense isn’t persuasive to me. I don’t care who Tom Girardi was,” Judge Thomas M. Durkin said, after one of two former Girardi Keese lawyers defending themselves in contempt proceedings testified that he remembers being “very scared” of Girardi.

Girardi was politically well connected and vindictive, Keith Griffin said. Both Griffin and David Lira had been practicing for at ...